Page 44 of Daggermouth

The sound echoed through the silent bar like a gunshot.

“You should’ve never given her this contract,” he shouted, his voice ricocheting off the walls. The words tore from his throat, exposing nerves he usually kept buried. “Youknewhow personal it was for her. Youknewit would throw her off her game instead of taking the easy, calculated kill.”

Jaeger’s eyes darkened, the only indication he gave that Jameson had crossed a line. No one spoke to the Wolf this way, not in his own territory, not surrounded byhiskillers. The coin that had reappeared in his hand went still, caught between two fingers like a promise of violence.

“Mind yourself, Jay,” Jaeger said quietly, the sound more dangerous than a raised voice. “Remember where you are.”

Jameson leaned closer, past caring about the consequences. “Where I am, is in a room full of people who sent her to die because none of you understood what killing Greyson Serel actually meant to her.”

Around them, the Daggermouths moved in unity. The woman with the scarred face slid from her stool, a gun materializing in her hand as if conjured from air. The two men by the window turned fully toward the confrontation, shoulders squared and hands hovering over holstered weapons. Behind the bar, the bartender reached beneath the counter, pulling out a shotgun, and slowly rested it over his shoulder.

“She was never just taking out another Heart elite,” Jameson continued, ignoring the tension as his voice dropped without losing an ounce of intensity. “Greyson representseverythingshe lost. The man executes rebels in the same plaza where her parents were murdered by his father. You made it personal the moment you gave her that contract.”

A muscle in Jaeger’s jaw twitched. “She’s a professional, she knew the risks.”

“She’s a woman with a fucking vendetta,” Jameson countered. “One you encouraged and exploited. You may not have wanted to see it because sheisyour best, but knew she’d get sloppy with him. You knew she’d want to see his face, to make him understand why she was killing him. That’s why she got caught, the only way she would’ve ever been caught—because she made itpersonal.”

A man stepped forward, one hand twisting a silencer into his gun.

“That’s enough,” he growled.

“Stand down, Reeve,” Jaeger ordered without looking away from Jameson.

Jameson didn’t wait for Jaeger to respond to him. The dam had broken, and words poured out of him like blood from a severed artery.

“You know what she told me that night? She said she was doing this for her. Not because he was another name on a contract, not because you asked her to, but forher. That’s not a professional speaking—that’s someone blinded by emotion.”

Jameson’s hands splayed on the table, fingers pressing into the wood hard enough to leave marks. “And you let her go like that. Knowing. Fucking.Better.”

Jaeger’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of what might have been remorse. Or guilt. It vanished as quickly as it appeared.

“You love her," Jaeger said, the words landing and cutting into Jameson.

“Don’t try to make this about me,” Jameson snarled. “This is aboutyourfailure to protect one of your own. This is about you sitting here, plotting how to use her capture to spark your rebellion, while she’s being tortured in Haven Tower.”

An mercenary near the bar—a woman with tattoos mapping half her bady—spoke up, her voice carrying in the tense silence. “Since when does a smuggler tell the Daggermouths how to handle their business? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Several others murmured agreement, hands tightening on weapons. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as killsights aligned on Jameson from multiple angles.

“He’s the Ghost Shade’s been fucking,” someone else said from the shadows. “Thinking with your cock clouds judgment a bit.”

A low ripple of laughter spread through the room, dark and mocking. Jameson’s shoulders tensed, but he kept his eyes locked on Jaeger.

“Iknowher,” he said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “I know how she thinks, how she plans, what drives her. I know she sleeps with a knife under her pillow and wakes up screaming five nights out of seven because she still sees her parents being executed. I know she drinks to numb the pain but never enough to dull her reflexes. I know she carries the names of every person she’s ever killed tattooed on her body so she never forgets the weight of what she does.”

The mockery in the room faded as he spoke, replaced by a different kind of tension—the recognition of loss, of the pain this city caused.

“And I know,” Jameson continued, “that she would tear this city apart brick by brick to save any one of you if you were in her position. So tell me,Jaeger, what the fuck are you doing to save her?”

Jaeger’s face remained impassive, but the coin began to move between his fingers again, dancing from knuckle to knuckle in hypnotic patterns. When he finally spoke, his voice was measured.

“Like I said, Kael is trained for this situation. She’s strong, smart, and she knows how to handle herself even in the Heart’s interrogation rooms. I trust her to make the right calls until we can extract her safely.”

“And if those ‘right calls’ include giving you up to save herself?” Jameson challenged. “If Maximus offers her freedom in exchange for the location of you, for the names of your guild, your operational tactics?”

“She would die first,” Jaeger stated with absolute certainty.

“That’s what I'm afraid of,” Jameson replied, his voice finally cracking. “That’sexactlywhat I’m afraid of.”