Page 3 of My End

“Understood,” I said as my eyes scanned every door and every camera dome hidden in the corners.

We moved past a library with built-in shelves that stretched floor to ceiling. There was a formal dining room that could seat twenty, and a sunroom with high glass windows that looked out over a yard so big it had to be five acres minimum.

“Don’t ever go into the east wing alone.”

I stopped walking. “Say again?”

Jim turned, his face unreadable. “East wing. Double doors. Past the arch on the right.” He pointed back behind us. “That’s off-limits unless Boone or Gibbs are physically with you. Not just a pass. Not a radio call. With you.”

I didn’t nod. Just met his eyes. “Got it.”

“They keep their private files, business records, and... other materials in there.”

“Copy that.”

He kept walking like that hadn’t just been a red flag flapping in the wind.

We passed a hallway of framed photographs. Boone shaking hands with politicians. It was staged legacy. The kind of crap that was meant to say,I’m a respectable man.

Bullshit.

“You’ll be on the lower level,” Jim said and paused at a thick oak door beside the door to the garage. “We call it the staff level, but don’t let that get to your head. You’re still private security.”

He opened the door and started down a narrow staircase. The air cooled as we descended, and there was no marble here. Just sealed concrete floors, exposed beams, and low lighting.

Three doors lined the hallway at the bottom. Jim stopped at the far one and pushed it open.

“Here’s yours.”

I stepped inside.

The room was bigger than I expected, with a queen bed, a desk, a mounted TV, and a closet. No windows. The walls were painted gray, and there was a single industrial-looking light fixture overhead. Clean. Sparse. Efficient.

There was also a small keypad panel on the inside of the door.

Security ran both ways here.

Jim leaned in the doorway. “Dinner’s at six. Kitchen’s upstairs. Boone and Gibbs want to meet you when they get in town.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

He looked at me one more time. “You made it in. That’s not easy. Just keep your head down, follow orders, and you’ll do fine.”

“I’m not here to cause trouble.”

He grunted like he didn’t believe me. “See you at six.”

The door closed behind him.

I was alone.

I sank onto the edge of the bed and scrubbed my hands over my face. The concrete chill of the floor seeped up into the room, and the silence was heavy.

I’d made it inside.

Every instinct screamed that I was in deep. Maybe deeper than I was ready for.

Boone and Gibbs didn’t just play dirty. They built empires on blood and smoke. Hid behind politics and boardrooms while smiling in suits as they buried people like me in unmarked graves.