Page 7

7

Raven

I’ve never been good at waiting around.

You spend years in the military learning patience—you learn control, precision, and how to act fast when instincts scream louder than orders. I was never good at the patience part.

And right now, my instincts were losing their damn minds.

Beatrice was hiding something. I didn’t need her to say it—hell, I respected her for keeping it together. But that symbol on the woman’s hand? That was no accident. Someone had set that fire, locked the doors, and left a message.

The question was for whom? Who were they leaving the message for? Was someone after Beatrice?

* * *

I started with the easy stuff.

While River and Gage were tied up prepping for the team’s next mission, I drove down to the warehouse site. Officially, it was still ruled an accident, but the perimeter was taped off, and the fire marshal posted an arson report on the board.

That wasn’t the interesting part.

The interesting part was the guy leaning against a white work truck across the street—watching the place like he expected it to explode again.

He wasn’t fire department. No badge. No camera. Not media.

His boots were military-issue. His posture? Private security. Maybe ex-mercenary. Definitely not just “a guy waiting on a tow.”

I crossed the street slow, casual.

“Long day to be loitering.”

He looked up from his phone. “Just waiting for a friend.”

“You look more like you’re casing the joint.”

A pause. Then a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You military?”

“Something like that.”

He gave me a once-over, and I saw it—recognition. He knew I wasn’t just some beach-town local.

“You have a name?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said easily. “Connor. Connor Slate.”

Slate.

That was a name I’d heard before.

Gideon once mentioned it during a debrief in Prague—a mercenary who ran logistics for covert operation teams that didn’t officially exist. Slate worked for whoever paid the most—cartels, smugglers, and occasionally governments looking to keep their hands clean.

The fact that he was here, watching a building tied to Beatrice’s call, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“You got a card?” I asked.

“Nope.”

I nodded, then turned and walked away.

But I wasn’t done.

* * *

The moment I arrived back at my place, I fired up the secure laptop.

Sean had upgraded our team server with a facial recognition tool tied to global databases—not exactly legal, but then again, neither were half the people we tracked.

I uploaded a snap of Slate’s face from the street cam and waited.

A few seconds later, the result flashed across my screen:

Conner Slate. Known aliases: Slate, Sawyer King

Affiliated groups: Wolfthorn Syndicate, Vanguard Global (defunct), Mercury Assets

Last seen: Paraguay, Ukraine, Libya

Status: Wanted for questioning—Interpol

The image pulled up beside another.

A compound in Guatemala.

Burned down.

Bodies unrecovered.

But right there, in the corner of the image—barely visible—was the symbol.

A jagged triangle with a slash.

I wondered if that was the same as what Beatrice saw.

So this is bigger than a fire.

This was a warning.

A hunter letting his prey know: I found you. Who was his prey? It had to be Beatrice.

* * *

I closed the laptop and stood, rage twisting in my chest.

Whoever was coming for Beatrice… had already arrived.

And now they were on my beach.

I stepped out onto the deck and whistled once.

Mandy came running.

“Come on, girl,” I muttered, locking up behind us.

It was time to have a very different kind of conversation with Beatrice Jones.

And this time, I wasn’t letting her walk away until I knew everything.