Page 58

The estate is locked down tighter than a goddamn military base, but something about the stillness tonight makes my skin crawl.

It’s too quiet. And quiet is never safe.

I sit in the surveillance control room, which, let’s be honest, I basically converted into my personal panic station three weeks ago, and watch a grid of camera feeds flicker across twelve screens.

Every hallway, every gate, every private access tunnel.

The estate’s perimeter sensors pulse in rhythmic lines of green.

Textbook secure. Which means it’s exactly when shit goes sideways.

I lean back, rubbing a hand over my jaw and scanning the feeds again.

Nothing’s out of place. But there’s a twitch, a subtle movement in one of the west wing cameras.

Just for a breath. A glitch? A signal hiccup?

Yeah, right. There’s no such thing as coincidence in a place built on control.

I narrow my eyes, isolating the feed and looping it back frame-by-frame.

The camera jumps, freezes for half a second, and resumes like nothing happened.

But I saw it. A shadow. A movement that didn’t belong. My gut knots.

The estate is supposed to be empty except for my crew and the one person I let stay, Santiago, the chef.

Most of the staff were dismissed weeks ago.

Hell, convincing them to leave wasn’t easy.

Too many of them are loyal to Evander’s money, too many are terrified of pissing off the wrong name.

I flash back to the conversation with the chef, Santiago, the night we shut the place down.

“Mr. Creed,” Santiago said with his arms crossed as he stood stubbornly in the main kitchen. The man’s in his sixties, his face weathered, but his posture still sharp like a soldier.

“Santiago,” I replied calmly. “It’s not safe to stay.”

“I’ve been cooking for that girl since she was in diapers. You think I’m leaving now?”

I respected the hell out of him for it. But I wasn’t thrilled. “You understand who we’re dealing with, right?” I warned.

“I do.” He smiled faintly. “Which is why she needs at least one person who remembers what this place was like before the blood started pooling under the marble."

Lyra vouched for him, and that was enough for me, so he stayed. But the rest were made to leave, which made tonight’s glitch even worse.

I sit up and lean forward, my muscles coiled, my senses on full tilt.

Something’s wrong. Very wrong. The unease in my gut sharpens as I run diagnostics on the system.

Everything reads normal, but I’ve seen enough to know when the tech is being fed a lie.

This wasn’t some power surge or lazy system error.

Someone was testing the perimeter and poking for weaknesses.

Evander doesn’t send warnings. He sends problems. And recently, he's been getting… unpredictable. Dangerous even—the kind of dangerous that makes you look over your shoulder even when you’re the one holding the gun.

I know him well enough to recognize his brand of subtle aggression.

This is the warm-up before the kill shot.

I glance over every feed again, searching for the anomaly, the entry point, the pattern.

There’s nothing on the exterior cameras, but that movement keeps playing in my head like a broken film reel.

The west wing. The one sector we reworked two weeks ago, right after Lyra’s press drop lit the world on fire.

It was a small maintenance blind spot we hadn’t patched fully because we thought no one would be stupid enough to come this far.

Apparently, we were wrong.

And then, like the estate itself breathes in with me, the emergency perimeter alarm trips. The sound slices through the control room like a blade, sharp and alarming, but it isn’t coming from the outside.

It’s coming from the inside.

The signal flashes red across my monitors: East Wing Corridor. The blind spot.

I don’t even blink. My hand moves to my sidearm before the alert finishes chiming. “Fuck.”

The second the alarm trips, I’m already moving, my instincts sharp and vicious. My gun’s in my hand before the system even finishes screaming. The silencer is locked, my phone tight against my ear as I issue orders like a surgeon slicing through flesh.

“Noah, full override. Reroute all cameras. Lock every goddamn door except mine.”

“On it,” Noah replies, his voice flat but tense. “They’re in. More than one.”

Of course it’s more than one. Evander doesn’t deal in subtle warnings. He sends fucking storms.

I storm through the estate’s marble corridors, my every step silent but loaded. The place smells sterile and aloof, like old money and quiet executions. The tightness in my gut coils tighter as I approach Lyra’s room. The door’s already ajar. My pulse spikes.

The room is dark, too dark. Her phone’s on the floor, the screen cracked and buzzing faintly like some abandoned distress signal. The sheets are cold and empty. She’s gone.

My jaw locks, and rage cuts through me like a blade. My breathing slows, not from fear but from calculation. I catch the faintest metallic clang echoing down the hall—steel hitting marble. A careless footstep or a premeditated taunt. I don’t give a shit. Either way, it’s their mistake.

I stalk toward the sound like a predator. My boots make no sound. Every inch of this estate belongs to me right now, and every corner will be painted in their blood.

There’s movement ahead, two shadows slipping across the guest wing.

They have tactical gear, night vision, and suppressed weapons—military precision.

They’re professionals. Evander’s mercenaries.

The kind of men who don’t take prisoners unless ordered to.

They are the kind of men who only exist to erase problems.

The first one doesn’t even register my presence before I strike. My blade slices through his neck in one clean, brutal motion. I feel the warm spray hit my face as his body spasms, gurgles, and crumples to the floor in a pool of spreading red. His lifeless eyes stare at nothing.

The second one reacts fast, but he’s too late. He grabs Lyra, dragging her backward as her head lolls unnaturally. She’s drugged and barely conscious, her limbs limp as he hauls her toward the service stairwell.

The rage inside me is absolute. Who the fuck do they think they are, touching my girl like that?

I move. My silencer hisses twice, the suppressed rounds slicing through the air. The first shot misses by inches, and the second grazes his shoulder, spinning him slightly but not dropping him. He tightens his grip on her, using her body like a shield and dragging her down the stairs.

“Drop her,” I growl under my breath, but he doesn’t listen.

I fly down after him, my pulse pounding like a war drum. He makes it to the third landing before I catch him. I launch forward, shoulder-checking him with brutal force that sends both of us crashing into the wall.

Lyra’s head slams into the marble. A sickening crack echoes, and blood streaks across the floor. The sight of it detonates something savage inside me. I’m going to kill these motherfuckers and paint the walls red with their blood.

The mercenary swings at me wildly, but I’m already on him, my knife flashing under the dim emergency lights. I drive the blade into his ribs and twist until I hear the wet pop of a punctured lung. He gurgles, spitting blood, but keeps fighting.

He claws for his sidearm. I slam his wrist into the wall until bones snap, then ram my forearm into his throat, pinning him. His eyes bulge as he chokes, and my free hand jerks the blade across his throat, opening him wide. Blood sprays out in a violent gush, hot and thick, covering both of us.

His body convulses, twitches, then falls limp beneath me.

The only sound left is my own ragged breathing.

I don’t hesitate. I scoop Lyra up from the blood-slick floor. Her breathing’s shallow, her pulse fluttering erratically under my fingers. Her skin is freezing and damp, her pupils blown from whatever chemical cocktail they pumped into her. She mumbles something unintelligible, barely aware.

“I’ve got you, baby,” I whisper through clenched teeth. “You’re safe now.”

She’s light in my arms.

I carry her to the panic room entrance in the basement, my own blood mixing with hers. My hand slams against the biometric scanner, and the steel door hisses open. The second it seals behind us, I lower her gently onto the padded bench, my chest still heaving with barely contained fury.

She doesn’t even know she almost died. But I do. And I’ll never fucking forget it.

I look at her one last time, fragile and unconscious, and then I turn and step back out.

I rip the bodycam off the dead mercenary’s helmet, its blinking light mocking me. It’s still transmitting. Still streaming.

“Noah,” I bark into my earpiece. “Hack the stream. Get me the full feed.”

“Already patching in,” Noah’s voice crackles back. “You’re not gonna like this.”

Data floods the panic room’s monitor. I scroll through, my rage boiling higher with every frame. The feed replays their mission briefing. Audio and video, clear as day.

“Secure asset with minimal damage. Evacuate to Blackridge.”

The designation flashes across the HUD. Asset: Lyra Vane. Ordered by: E.V.

Evander. That sick bastard.

He doesn’t want her dead. He wants her hidden, voiceless, owned.

What kind of a father treats his own daughter like that? Right, the kind who killed his own wife.

The panic room is filled with mechanical beeps as I watch the order play again. My hands tremble with the urge to destroy something.

Lyra stirs beside me, groaning softly as she fights through the drug’s haze. Her eyelids flutter, struggling to focus. She looks so small and vulnerable, but even half-conscious, she’s stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.

“Was it him?” she whispers, her voice hoarse and barely audible.