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Chapter

Thirty-Three

BONES

R eznik broke. They all did, eventually.

We told ourselves we wouldn’t—that we were built differently.

Trained in every technique imaginable to endure torture, to think clearly through the agony, to plan escape and evasion no matter the cost. And if all else failed, we were prepared to goad our captors into killing us before they could break us.

Reznik tried everything. Desperate to flip the script, to get under our skin so we’d end it for him. He taunted Alphabet. Took low blows at the rest of us. Then he went after Grace. That alone nearly earned him the quiet, swift death he craved.

But we’d trained for that too. And Grace?

Grace didn’t flinch.

She met his venom with that same calm, unshakable presence. Eyes like frozen fire, so wide, sharp, and impossibly blue. She stood there, silent witness as we dismantled Reznik piece by piece. No pity. No triumph.

And when he finally cracked? She gave the faintest nod. No celebration. No gloating. Just cold acceptance.

Fierce. Unbreakable. Stronger than I ever could have imagined.

Pride burned in me—hot, steady. For her.

For my boys. For this damn team that somehow held the line when everything else fell apart.

I gave them the night to rest while I pored over the mess we’d just crawled out of.

Though, judging by the sounds drifting down the hall, rest wasn’t exactly the priority.

When Voodoo walked in and started brewing coffee before even sitting, I almost laughed.

He just shook his head with that half-exasperated, half-amused look he wore so well.

“I’m going to kidnap her at some point,” he said. “Sharing’s fine, as long as some of you remember how to share.”

I didn’t smile. Just gave him a long, pointed stare.

“I’ll bring her back,” he added, then smirked. “And yeah, I’ll make sure you know exactly where I take her.”

That was enough.

I nodded.

It took most of the night to sift through Reznik’s confession—cross-checking, parsing, verifying every sick little detail. Around four a.m., Alphabet wandered in, yawning like a damn lion, shirtless, covered in hickeys and fresh scratch marks he clearly wasn’t trying to hide.

One look at us, one grunt, and he disappeared with Goblin to give the dog a walk. No questions, no commentary.

When he came back, he fired up his laptop and dropped into the grind without a word.

Then Lunchbox strolled in, smug as sin, wearing the self-satisfied look of a man who'd just eaten well and slept better. No shame. No rush. Just sauntered in like he owned the place.

I didn’t even hesitate—dumped the grunt work straight in his lap. Felt zero guilt.

Hell, I almost enjoyed it.

Grace came down nearly an hour later, moving slow and deliberate—like every step was a silent negotiation with sore muscles. I paused mid-scroll, watching her carefully measured movements. She didn’t limp, but damn if it wasn’t close.

Lunchbox was on his feet before she hit the bottom step, launching like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Off to make food—his version of penance—but not before handing her a mug of coffee and dropping a soft kiss to her lips.

She murmured something low and grateful, then made her rounds.

At Alphabet’s chair, she pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

He grinned like a kid at Christmas, leaning into it while she crouched beside him to greet Goblin.

It wasn’t the motion that gave her away—it was the care.

The way her body moved like it remembered everything from the night before. She was sore, and not from combat.

Voodoo didn’t even speak, just tilted his head back as she passed. She met him with an easy kiss, then stepped on.

When her eyes landed on me, I didn’t move—just raised a brow.

She lifted her coffee in a lazy salute, smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“You get nothing until I can walk straight again,” she said, voice like smoke and steel.

I didn’t miss a beat. “Then maybe you should stop trying to outpace four men like you’re bulletproof.”

She took a sip of coffee, slow and smug. “Where’s the fun in that?”

I snorted, returning my focus to the screen. “Y’all are degenerates,” I muttered. Then, louder, “Next time, give her a break before she starts limping like she took shrapnel.”

Grace eased down into the chair opposite me and winked. “That’s not limp—that’s swagger.”

Amused, despite myself, I waited for the plates to hit the table—eggs, toast, thick-cut ham, and hash browns. Lunchbox was burning through the last of our supplies like a man on death row.

“Eat and listen,” I said as soon as he sat down. No preamble. No warm-up. “The plan’s layered. It’ll take coordination, patience, and most importantly—time.” I aimed that last word straight at Grace.

She met my gaze, steady and sharp. “I get it. I’m listening.”

Good girl.

“We’ve got names. Locations. Schedules. The gods of timing are finally on our side. We could hit multiple targets at once with one well-placed detonation. But that would throw every red flag up the chain. They’d lock things down tight. No—we go surgical. Clean. One by one.”

I laid it out—how we’d move, who we’d hit, what methods gave us the best odds. The map lit up in my mind: multiple countries, multiple hits. Reznik was done, but O’Rourke was still breathing. And no illusion—we wouldn’t catch them all.

Some would slip through.

We were ready for that.

“Alphabet, you, Grace, and Goblin head back to base.”

Grace froze mid-bite, ham still speared on her fork. She looked at me, eyes sharp with protest, lips pressed in a hard line.

I didn’t blink. Didn’t soften. “You’ll get to Paris. From there, separate planes, separate paths. We’ll split up to reach our target zones.”

Her brow tightened into a stormcloud frown. She shoved the ham in her mouth and chewed slow—too slow. Deliberate. She was holding her tongue.

For now.

Fair enough.

“This is personal now. We divide the targets for three reasons. One—we’re easier to track in a group. Two—we’re all trained for solo infil, exfil, and wet work. And three—Alphabet needs time to keep breaking down Reznik’s files. There are more names. More missing people.”

What I didn’t say: Grace had enough blood on her. More than most. She didn’t need to carry more.

Alphabet didn’t miss a beat. “If you send Grace to base with me, she’ll make sure we eat. And sleep.” He said it dry, like it was a complaint. It wasn’t.

It was a cover—an assist. A way to make it look like logistics, not protection.

Sharp play.

I caught Grace’s glance toward him. She’d understood. Of course she had.

“Will you wait for us to reach base before you strike?” she asked, voice calm, but eyes digging into mine like she already knew the answer.

Smart girl.

Good girl.

“No.”

The next part would hit harder. I braced for it.

“Keeping our heads down—moving target to target with zero trace—means you don’t call us. We’ll call you.”

Her jaw tightened. “I hate that.” She didn’t flinch from saying it aloud, and that honesty—raw, unguarded—almost cracked my resolve.

Almost.

“We don’t get the luxury of comfort,” I said, voice low. “You’ll survive.”

“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin, that familiar, firebrand spark flaring in her eyes. “If for no other reason than someone needs to be around to yell at you.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

She snorted, the smile that followed short but real.

Still has her bite and still in the fight.

Satisfied, I moved on. “Next…”

LUNCHBOX

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Surveillance locked me in place for over half a day. Guard rotations, security sweeps, household staff—I tracked them all. Tagged, timed, cataloged. When the target finally arrived, his security did a full sweep, then got the hell out. He dismissed them like hired help overstaying their welcome.

He didn’t like company. Valued his privacy.

Considering what he kept in the basement, that didn’t surprise me.

Stupid move. But I love when their stupid worked for me.

I checked my watch. Thirty more minutes to sit and wait.

Albrecht Weiss. Biotech mogul. Private collector of the grotesque.

Publicly, he was married with four children.

Privately, he and his wife had a transactional arrangement—she showed up for events, played the doting spouse, and raised the kids.

He bankrolled the whole facade while he fed his appetites elsewhere.

This house? It wasn’t for family. It was for inventory.

At 1:40 a.m., I dropped a single word into a saved draft on the burner account we all monitored. Bones and Voodoo would know: I was in motion. The next draft they’d see would mean it was done.

Among the intel we’d pulled from Reznik’s files were override codes for Weiss’s security system. Gift-wrapped.

Lesson one: never make deals with devils.

They always come back to collect.

It might be a bit dramatic, but I’d planted explosives on the glass of most of the upstairs rooms including the very lovely solarium on the second floor.

I hadn’t missed the stains on the floor below.

The sound of glass shattering room by room was almost symphonic—sharp, deliberate, controlled chaos. Inside, I followed the screaming like a bloodhound straight to the ground floor.

Weiss’ office.

He was slamming his phone against the desk in a panic, shards glinting in his hair, scattered across the floor and furniture like ice. The lights were out. He was cursing in German, frantic and blind.

When he spun, gun in hand, I was already moving.

I kicked the weapon clean from his grip, then drove a fist straight into his chest. The impact lifted him off his feet—he hit the desk hard, glass biting into his skin. Blood bloomed in angry little flowers.

The second hit shut him down.

I slung him over my shoulder, deadweight and bleeding, and carried him down into the basement—to the secure room he thought made him untouchable. It required a fingerprint and a code.

He wouldn’t be needing either again.