Page 5 of Martyr (Sterling Falls Rogues #3)

I step into Kora Sinclair’s house. We’ve kind of taken the place over in the past few weeks, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. Every time I enter, I feel like a trespasser.

Daniel Kline sits at the kitchen table with two laptops in front of him. He’s a friend of Artemis and Apollo—and the rest of their group, I assume—but he left Sterling Falls after the last gang war. He was able to get back in after we got Artemis out.

He’s been diligently working on tracking Ouranos and the sheriff. Honestly, though, my eyes glaze over when he talks about the technical aspect of it.

Hacking .

He’s in Bow & Arrow’s security system, which has cameras pointed at the exits and throughout the building. He’s managed to get into the sheriff’s cell phone as well as some other businesses’ security feeds.

Ouranos, however, has proven to be harder to pin down.

Vittoria, Antonio’s wife, is in the kitchen. My mouth waters at the smell of whatever she’s cooking—something with garlic, I’d guess.

I drop my hat on the table and peel off my jacket, and Daniel pauses his frantic typing to meet my inquisitive gaze.

“Anything interesting to report?” I ask.

He smirks. “How was the meeting with Kade?”

“Uneventful.” I narrow my eyes. “Was it helpful?”

I can’t really put into words exactly how it felt to sit across from him. He’s working with Ouranos… he wants to take over Sterling Falls. It’s only a miracle they haven’t broken into Bow & Arrow and delved into Terror.

“Let me see it.” He grabs my jacket and paws at the pockets. He pulls out the phone he had given me earlier and plugs it into a cord protruding from one of the computers. “Looks like it was a successful connection. Congratulations, Reese, you now have a clone of Kade’s phone.”

One step closer to Ouranos.

“What did he want anyway?”

I just shake my head and drag out a chair. I can’t very well say he wanted to check up on me . That sounds lame, even in my head.

Kade called Artemis’ phone, which was forwarded to a new burner of mine. She couldn’t take it to Isle of Paradise, so Daniel set it up to help keep our locations a secret. At the same time, we didn’t want her brother or his friends to call and not be able to reach anyone.

So I answered his call, and it was only arguments from Daniel and Antonio that this would help us that convinced me to go.

Kade let me name the place and time, and I showed up an hour early to scope out the empty boardwalk in North Falls. Then made him wait an extra twenty minutes before I left my hiding place and joined him on the bench.

Vittoria glances over at us, a small frown on her lips. I meet her gaze and shrug. I don’t have answers. Just theories that I’m not ready to share.

“I’ve got a boat,” Daniel suddenly announces.

I freeze. “What?”

“Well.” He clears his throat. “ We ’ve got a boat. Coming here.”

“Here, like…”

“It’s not really ideal,” he admits. “But there’s a ladder that they can get close to and get up the cliff.”

“Who?”

He frowns, like I should already know who he’s talking about. “Jace, Wolfe, and Apollo, obviously. And Kora, I suspect.”

I wonder if they mind that we’ve moved into their house.

“When?” Vittoria asks.

“Within the hour.” Daniel glances at me. “And if someone wanted to go visit Artemis on Isle of Paradise… We now have a way of getting there.”

My gut churns, and I nod once. My throat closes, rendering me effectively mute.

Vittoria smiles. Just a little hint of one. “It’ll be nice to have them back. Antonio is upstairs—Reese, could you tell him?”

I nod and point to the clone of Kade’s phone. “Let me know if he uses it.”

With Daniel’s confirmation, I leave them and head upstairs.

We left the primary bedroom alone—it would’ve been really fucking weird for one of us to take their extra-wide bed—but there were a few guest rooms. Three, to be exact.

Plus an office downstairs that can hold an air mattress, which wouldn’t be off-putting since Daniel seems more inclined to do his work at the kitchen table instead of at the desk in the office.

I knock on Antonio’s door and relay the message through it, then continue to mine.

I close myself in and lean my forehead against the wall. The blinds are still shut, the curtains drawn, and the room is dark. I blow out a long, slow breath.

If they’re coming here… Perhaps I should borrow that boat and go visit Artemis. See how Saint is doing with the memory thing.

Make sure they haven’t killed each other.

But how will Apollo, Jace, and Wolfe receive me?

Guilt swamps me. It’s my fault that they left Sterling Falls. My favor that sent them to Emerald Cove, a timely mistake that could set them against me.

My favor—the person I asked them to free.

I haven’t been entirely truthful with, uh, anyone. I knew, almost two and a half years ago at this point, that Kade was keeping tabs on me. I was living a relatively normal existence, working a security job I hated, trying to grapple with what I saw overseas and my teen years.

And one day, it just occurred to me that I could fucking leave.

So I went to Emerald Cove, and I got looped in with the Cyclopes.

I met Ouranos.

Didn’t tell Kade that , did you?

I met Ouranos, and I didn’t buy the hype. In a way, he reminded me of my father. The type of guy who thinks the world owes him something. He spoke in fantastical ways, built an empire on selling dreams to his followers.

It seemed overreaching. Impossible—but not in a good way.

I was there when he found out his brother had been killed. I wasn’t supposed to be—I was passing his office. But I heard him on the phone, promising to bring Sterling Falls to its knees for what that city did to his brother.

Still, I wasn’t going to do anything. What did I care about that wretched place? It held Terror. It curated to the dark and depraved. Sterling Falls could rot.

But then I went on a job. One last job with the Cyclopes, and I met a girl.

A literal child.

She was more stuck than I was at her age—and that’s fucking saying something. I tried to get her out, and it blew up in my face, and that’s why I left Emerald Cove in a hurry.

Did they get her out?

Could they succeed where I couldn’t?

I close my eyes and stay where I am until Daniel shouts about their arrival.