Page 168 of Crave

The way blood hit the wall—sprayed across it like someone had painted with him.

The way one of our men dropped without a sound, just a sudden thud and nothing else, like someone pulled his plug.

I remembered the way Angelica had screamed—not out loud, but with her eyes. Like she knew this wasn’t chaos. Like she recognized it.

That was what stuck with me most.

Not the bullets. Not the fire.

Her expression.

That flicker of realization just before the floor split open beneath us.

Too fast.

Too damn clean.

I’d seen war.

I’d led hits.

I knew what real violence looked like—and this wasn’t it. This was a fucking illusion. A show.

A performance designed to drown out the truth.

And I’d fallen for it like a fucking amateur.

I clenched my jaw, my mind moving faster than my body could keep up.

The cartel had come in like a storm—but they hadn’t stayed, had they?

They took Penn, then hit us hard and vanished. No demand. No message. Just noise.

A fucking distraction. Calculated from the very beginning.

The thought sank its teeth in deep.

We weren’t the targets. Not tonight.

I turned slowly, pain flaring in my ribs as I scanned the bodies littering the concrete. Most of them weren’t ours. A few were. But there were no reinforcements coming. No second wave. Just corpses and smoke.

We’d won.

Bodies littered the ground like discarded warnings. Smoke still hung in the air, sharp and bitter.

And yet?—

So why the hell did it feel like we’d lost?

I shifted my weight, pain burning along my ribs as blood soaked back through my shirt. The world around me had gone quiet, but not in the right way. Not in the relieved way.

In the way that comes before another hit.

Theo stalked past me, barking orders into his comms, jaw tight, gun still drawn like he didn’t believe it was over.

Jude was further back, speaking with what remained of our crew, coordinating cleanup—but his eyes kept flicking to me. Like he was waiting for something I hadn’t said yet.

Gabe had taken Angelica. Marco was driving.