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Bentley gives him a filthy look. “Sure, that’s what I’m doing,” he mutters. “Next, I can stop a volcano from erupting—or track down a crop of silphium. Simple!”

“Don’t laugh about Heather’s hate. She earned it,” Dom tells Alastair quietly. His eyes are as cold as I feel. “You killed Thomas... and he was my friend, too.”

Alastair’s amusement dies hard.

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” is all he says.

His words linger on a white puff of air in the night, chilling in the cold.

A sound escapes Dom, like he’s been hit, though his face doesn’t change. Silently, I shift closer to him, and this time, he leans into me .

The anger in me flares hotter, burning away at my numbness.

These men have cost my brutes, too.

“Heather isn’t wrong for her hate,” Alastair murmurs, and his eyes glitter like blood diamonds. “But they were stupid to attack us that night.”

Moonlight shifts over Alastair as he strolls past, and his boots rustle through the leaves. He steps on a purple flower, and its scent bursts, wasted under his heel.

“I need another way to eliminate the men like Bane—a way that won’t have the rest of them turning on me while I sleep.

I need to eliminate those men before the captives can be freed, or else they’ll hunt them down.

.. and myself and Mateo shortly after. The captives are protected for now, but they won’t truly be safe until Bane and all the Sinners like him are dead,” Alastair explains, brusque and unapologetic.

“You want to use us,” I breathe, filling in the blanks. “You’ve already been using us.”

The woods are musty with old secrets, and they hang thick and heavy in the air, whispering at me to understand.

And, finally, I do.

Alastair needs a war .

Dom’s brows come down. The darkness gathers in his hair, deepening the slow-growing strands into inky midnight.

He’s still watching Alastair with careful suspicion when I turn to him.

“In a battle, where would you send men if you wanted them to die?” I ask, and he tilts his head, listening even if he doesn’t take his eyes off the threat.

I still see Thomas’s death playing out behind them.

“To the front,” Dom says slowly. “In a forward charge like that, to the front.” But he shakes his head once. “Alastair didn’t order the Sinners to break cover. He ordered them to stay in the trees.”

Alastair inclines his head, and his next look at Dom is more assessing.

“Many of Sam’s men—men of Bane’s persuasion—they don’t take well to my orders, and so they disobeyed a command that would have kept them safe. A pity.” He smiles slightly, and it reminds me of a viper strike. “But not my fault. I did warn them.”

Alastair’s using their own stupidity against them to sidestep the blame. He disposes of a problem and walks away clean.

“You need us to be your villain,” I finish.

Alastair needs us to kill Bane’s men for him, so that he can escape the blame there too. Bane’s men would love a war. We don’t have enough to interest them here, not anymore, but the Reapers...

The promise of owning that rich land is more than enough.

The promise of blood would seal it.

Watching my face, Alastair nods. “The Reapers are cowards. They won’t fight back if they’re unsupported.

The Sinners could run them through in a day—and they would do it with pleasure.

Bane is not too happy that his Reaper friends were trying to get out of their deal.

But if you were there running their defense, orchestrating it with me.

..” His shoulders lift fatalistically. “Well. I think there would be a lot of casualties in this war.”

“We could make them take each other out,” I murmur.

It’s so, so cold.

Finally, after a long, searching minute, Dom holsters his pistol.

“How would it work?”

“I tell you where and when Bane’s men will attack. You ensure they die there.” Alastair’s brow slides up, the one notched by a deep, old scar. “They will need to win on occasion, or else they’ll balk. Secure food. Eliminate some Reapers.”

“I’ll give you a list of names, Ranger.” Mateo’s brown, beautiful eyes are fathomless—too dark for the moonlight to touch. His lip curls in disdain. “Some of the captives had a lot to say about their time in the farmlands.”

Bentley is stone and steel beside him, offering no objection.

The vicious satisfaction in his expression reminds me of a barbarian king planning a raid.

Under the moonlight, discussing murder and mayhem, I see it all. The Reapers’ farmlands will become a theater of war—and we’re the directors. It’s an orchestra we conduct, a puppet show where we pull the strings.

Alastair just needs to kill enough of Bane’s men off to overpower them.

“When it’s all over, the captives decide what happens to the Reapers,” I quietly demand. “They choose their payment and their justice. It’s the least they’re owed.”

“Agreed.” Alastair, finally, seems pleased. “I’ll delight in carrying it out for them. We both know what they’ll choose.”

The hot, deathly rage inside me is too tired to enjoy the thought. The men deserve to die, and I would poison them myself for what they did, but... it doesn’t change any of it. It doesn’t change the betrayal. It doesn’t change the women’s fear or how they were hurt.

It won’t stop their nightmares.

And it won’t change all the ways Jennifer’s last trust in the world is going to shatter when I tell her the truth.

I’m going to protect my friends, in all the ways they trusted me to. The civilians can decide for themselves if they want to be part of this fight. They can choose if they can bear to live alongside the Reapers long enough to bring this war to fruition.

Dom’s hand touches my waist lightly, in silent support. Neither of us need to lean on each other for this.

We stand side-by-side, instead.

Ready.

Glancing up at the sky, I see we still have a few hours until our dawn meeting begins. We have some time to discuss logistics.

“So how do we start this war?” I ask.

Alastair unslings his bag from his shoulder and empties it onto the grass at our feet.

A bulletproof vest, a satellite phone, and a man’s large jacket spill out in soft, neat thuds.

Alastair smiles.

“With a bang.”

Why is there so much blood ? There wasn’t supposed to be blood. Alastair shot him in the chest, we planned for that, but why did he shoot him again ?

And why is there blood ?

“Beau? Why is he bleeding?” I shout, my voice breaking. “Beau, he’s hurt! Is he okay? Beau, answer me! Alastair wasn’t supposed to?—”

“Get her out. Beau! You, too. Out,” Deanna barks, moving around the bed, and I back away to give her space, my heart in my throat.

She just had Sawyer and another Reaper carry an unconscious Cole out of the med bay so that they could free up a bed for Dom. It took everything in me not to stab them with a scalpel.

I hope Cole dies out there.

“No!” Beau roars at Deanna, and his face is dead white as he settles Dom into the bed. “Scissors. Clare! Get me scissors!”

Clare immediately places a pair of scissors in his outstretched hand, and he begins cutting away at Dom’s jacket, Deanna doing the same on Dom’s other side, fast and efficient.

Beau’s breathing is jerky, but his hands are careful. Smooth. He’s working but, oh God, he’s panicking. I can see his panic. I told him that this was part of the plan, shouted it at him, but I don’t think he heard me—and I don’t even know if it’s true, because Dom was never supposed to bleed .

I can’t help my sob, and I back up more, until I hit the wall and can’t escape.

Did I choose wrong again?

Did I just kill Dom?

The jacket falls away, and there’s a deep gunshot wound right through Dom’s upper arm on his left side. The rent flesh is gaping, ugly and pouring blood, and Beau curses, taking gauze from Clare quickly to sop up the blood.

I stare at Dom’s face. His stubble, the blood on it, the stillness of it, and tears coat my cheeks.

“Did it hit a nerve?” Deanna murmurs, looking up at Beau. “It’s not in proximity to an artery.”

Beau shakes his head as he works, but there’s the beginnings of a confused frown starting on his forehead.

Under his breath, he replies, “No, it’s ugly, but it’s . . . I don’t . . .”

I freeze.

Did Dom’s eyelashes just twitch? Is he awake?

Beau’s face sets in hard lines, and he grabs the scissors, cutting right through Dom’s shirt in a long, swift swipe.

And the dark, thick bulletproof vest comes into view, a single bullet wedged over Dom’s left pec.

“Oh, holy fucking Jesus!” Beau shouts, and he steps back from the bed, lifting his arms.

His expression breaks, and tears start slipping down his face as he looks at Dom.

Relief? My eyes dart between him and Dom. He’s relieved, right?

“Clare, help!” Deanna snaps.

Deanna takes over, moving around the table so she can put pressure on Dom’s wound, and Clare begins unsnapping the vest, until it falls away from his heavy chest.

Dom sucks in a hard, groaning breath, and this time his lids do fly open, his face a rictus of agony.

An awful, viciously swollen bruise mars his chest, right under where the bullet hit, and it spreads out from there.

Dom grunts, groaning again and Deanna pushes him firmly down against the bed.

“Painkillers, Clare,” she instructs, and Clare nods, her stern face relieved as she pours some pills out of a mostly empty bottle.

She presses them between Dom’s lips in the next second, then tilts a cup of water to them, kindly murmuring at him to swallow.

Deanna pushes Beau out of her way so she can wheel around the tray ofneedles and bottles, and God, too many things that I just need her to be able to use now .

Beau staggers back against the opposite wall to me, squeezing a hand over his swollen, red-rimmed eyes as he shakes helplessly.

“Oh my God. Dom,” he chokes out, raw and relieved.

“Fuck,” Dom groans, low and pained, pushing away the water.

“Dom!” I sob, and my relief is enough to make me sick.