Page 25 of Silent Schemes (Broken Blood)

I stare at the ceiling, counting each heartbeat, each breath. Every second is one closer to the next phase.

I’m not dead yet.

I stay alive.

I win.

Sienna’s back first.

Alone, but I hear the hush in the guards’ voices when she passes.

They’re waiting for the show.

So am I.

She walks to the gurney, knife still blood-wet from the last round.

She moves slow, controlled, and even though the adrenaline is fizzing my blood to static, I clock the way her hands tremble at the fingertips.

Only a little.

She stands over me. “Father wants proof,” she says, loud and clear for the phone camera. “He wants to see what you really are.”

I say nothing.

She drags the blade down my ribs, splitting the skin in parallel lines.

This time she doesn’t pause.

She works up the courage and rakes the knife right over my heart, deep enough that I feel the muscle spasm underneath.

She makes a show of peeling back the edge of my shirt, exposing the tattoo beneath.

The king piece, black, crowned and broken—my favorite.

She presses the blade under the ink and with three quick jerks, slices the skin off in a bloody square, the size of a coin.

She holds it up, lets it drip red onto the gurney.

The guard filming it says, “Jesus Christ,” and even the other Cross men take a step back.

I grit my teeth.

The pain is a white-hot buzz, but it’s not the pain that gets me.

It’s the look in Sienna’s eyes—flat, empty, as if she can’t risk giving anything away.

Not even to me.

She leans in, quiet as a breath, “You’re going to lose a lot of blood. Don’t fight. I’ll patch you up after.”

Theodore walks in like a hangman returning to the gallows.

There’s no hurry in his stride.

No fear, no joy.

Just inevitability, heavy as the gun at his side.

Blood pools at my feet, a thin layer, stinking of copper and old panic.

The chains digging into my wrists have already bruised the bone.

Will’s a mess next to me.

One eye swollen shut, lips split.

He’s never looked more alive.

He winks the good eye at me, blood threading down his chin. “Told you they’d come for us,” he mumbles, teeth red.

There are three guards behind him, all ex-military, none of them bright.

They have that mercenary look, like they’re only here for the money, not the blood.

One is already sweating through his shirt.

The other two, twins by the look, have matching scars on their jaws.

They stand at the corners of the warehouse, guns out but loose.

Theodore drags a folding chair across the concrete and sits directly in front of me.

Close enough I could spit in his eye if I had the saliva.

He folds his hands, looks me over, slow and savoring. “You know, Varrick, I never understood your father’s obsession with you.” His accent is pure East Coast, old money that thinks it can buy time itself. “You’re just a child playing at war. No real stomach for it.”

I let my voice drop, low and final. “Takes a coward to say that with a dozen guns on me.”

He smiles. “Oh, I’m no coward. Just efficient.” He nods to Will. “You’re going to watch him die. Then you’re going to beg.”

Will laughs, coughs blood onto his shirt. “Only thing I beg for is a better class of opponent.”

Theodore grins at Sienna. “This one’s funny, isn’t he?”

Sienna blinks once.

Nothing else.

Her fingers flex at her side.

I watch the movement, catalog the tempo.

Every muscle in my body tenses.

Even chained, I’m ready.

Theodore stands, chair legs scraping the floor. “Make it slow,” he says to the nearest guard. “Kill them both. I’ll be back for cleanup.”

He turns to Sienna, dropping his voice. “Come with me.”

He glances at me as if I’m a rotting fruit, not worth a second look.

Sienna stands there a moment, then shakes her head. “I’ll watch. Make sure it’s finished.”

He considers arguing, then shrugs, walks to the back office, slamming the door.

That’s the cue.

Sienna doesn’t hesitate.

In the second Theodore’s footsteps fade, she's in motion.

She glides to the sweating guard and he never sees it coming.

She grabs his head, twists, a wet snap.

He drops, gun skittering across the concrete.

The twins move, but not fast enough.

Sienna’s already rolling, knife flicked from her boot, edge silver and mean.

She slashes one across the groin, then up, spilling him open.

His scream is drowned by the thunder of gunfire.

The last twin gets his rifle up, but she’s already inside his reach.

The knife drives through his trachea and he gags, blood fountaining over her hand.

I can’t do anything but watch, every sense sharpened by adrenaline and rage.

She keys through my chains with the dead man’s hand, wrist limp, but her eyes never leave the office door.

A shout from the back.

The door explodes open, Theodore’s voice high and brittle.

He’s got a gun in one hand, Maya in the other.

He holds the barrel to her head.

“Stop!” he roars.

Sienna doesn’t move.

I step in front of her, shielding by reflex.

Will tries to stand but collapses, leg a mess of broken tissue.

I see the blood leaking from his thigh—arterial, pulsing.

He has maybe minutes if we don’t stop it.

Theodore drags Maya forward.

She’s barely conscious, cheeks bruised, a line of blood from the corner of her mouth.

She tries to focus, but her eyes slip out of sync.

“Drop it, Sienna!” he shrieks.

She holds up her empty hands.

Her knife is gone, lost in the last man’s neck.

Theodore licks his lips, eyes darting. “You think you’re so clever. You think you can take what’s mine?”

He cocks the gun. “Kneel.”

Sienna kneels.

I kneel with her, slow, deliberate, staring death in the eye and smiling.

“Good,” Theodore says. “Now beg.”

Sienna says, “No.”

His finger tightens on the trigger.

That’s when the warehouse explodes.

It’s not subtle, it’s Korrin’s work—C4 on the supporting beams, blast radius designed to shatter everything but the center floor.

The world turns white, then black, then red.

I feel the heat before I hear the sound.

The shockwave lifts me, slams me down hard enough to crack teeth.

Theodore vanishes in a cloud of dust and shrapnel.

Maya falls limp, crumpled at his feet.

Will is screaming, but the sound is thin, muted by the ringing in my skull.

Sienna’s already moving.

She sprints to Maya, pulls her behind an overturned table, shields her with her own body.

Then the real invasion begins.

Korrin comes in through the collapsing wall, shotgun in each hand, face streaked with soot and blood.

Cyrus is behind him, tactical, methodical, pistol popping off precision shots that drop the scattered guards Cross left behind as reinforcements.

My men pour in after, ghosts in body armor, picking off survivors with brutality.

The air is thick with smoke, bullets, and the smell of cooking flesh.

I stagger to my feet, adrenaline numbing every wound.

The chains are gone.

I pick up a pistol from the dead, rack the slide, and wade into the chaos.

Korrin’s a beast, insane as he levels a shotgun at a knot of Cross soldiers, the spray hitting three of them, then moves on without pausing to reload.

He takes a round in the shoulder, grins, and shoves the attacker’s face into a pile of broken glass. “You fucks want to die, keep coming!” he hollers with a laugh.

Cyrus drops men one by one.

He moves to Will, pulls him into cover, and starts triage with one hand while firing with the other. “Hold still, Will. You’ll live if you don’t bleed out.”

Will grits his teeth, lets Cyrus wrap the wound with a tourniquet torn from his own sleeve.

Sienna has Maya behind a barricade, hands pressed to the girl’s shoulder to slow the bleeding. “Stay with me, Maya. Just like the hunger games, okay? Don’t let go.” Her voice is ice, but her hands are gentle.

I scan for Theodore.

He’s not among the bodies.

I shoulder past the debris, climb over a heap of dead muscle, and spot him crawling toward the back exit, dragging Maya’s little pink bag behind him.

His leg is a mangled mess, foot barely attached.

He sees me coming and tries to raise his gun, but his hand is shaking too hard to aim.

“King!” he spits. “You can’t win. You’ll never?—”

I don’t listen. I kick the gun aside, grab him by the collar, and haul him upright.

He’s lighter than I expected. Hollow.

“Please,” he says. “We can make a deal.”

I drag him back to the center of the floor, where Sienna is tending Maya.

Blood covers her arms up to the elbow.

Theodore’s voice goes ragged. “She’s mine. You can’t take her from me. You can’t.”

Sienna looks up, hair wild, face splattered with gore. “You already lost,” she says. “Finish it.”

I nod.

“You can’t. You’re not a killer, Bane. You’re nothing. You’re?—”

I grab him by the throat, squeezing until his words die.

“I want you to know exactly why,” I rasp. “For every kid you threatened. For every time you made her bleed.” I jerk my chin at Sienna.

She watches, stone-faced.

I squeeze harder. “And for thinking you could take from me and live.”

Theodore’s eyes bulge.

He tries to claw at my hand, but there’s no strength left.

I could shoot him, but this is better.

I hold his gaze until the light goes out. Only then do I let him drop.

The silence after is the worst part. No one speaks. There’s nothing left to say.

Korrin limps over, shotgun resting on his shoulder. “You good?” he asks.

I don’t know how to answer, so I say nothing at all.

Will barely survives.

Cyrus makes the call, brings in the cleanup crew.

They sweep the floor, torch the bodies, erase every trace of what happened.

Korrin watches them work, cracking jokes about the smell.

Maya sleeps, bandaged and dreaming, head in Sienna’s lap.

Sienna stares into space, fingers stroking Maya’s hair.

I sit next to her, not touching.

She finally says, “I have to go.”

I nod. “I know.”

“Will you come with me?”

I think of my brothers, my city, the war we just won.

“I can’t,” I say. “But I’ll keep you safe. Always.”

She closes her eyes. A single tear carves a line through the blood on her cheek.

“I wanted to hate you,” she whispers.

I watch the crew burn Theodore’s body, the flames licking at the empty sky.

I say, “You should have.”

She laughs, broken and beautiful.

We sit there, surrounded by death, and hold on to what’s left.

For now, that’s enough.

Kneeling down so I’m eye to eye with Maya, I try to find the words I want to say.

“Maya,” I say, voice gentle.

She flinches and opens her eyes slowly.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re safe. No one will ever hurt you again.”

Maya starts to cry.

Sienna pulls her close, shielding her with her arms, her body, her everything.

I look up at Sienna.

There’s nothing left between us now. No lies, no debts, not even the love-hate that kept us alive this long.

“Take her,” I say. “Run. Don’t stop running.”

She shakes her head. “They’ll find us.”

“No,” I say, and I mean it. “They won’t.”

She believes me. Because she has to.

There’s still one thing left.

“If you ever come back,” I say, slow, lacing each word with the hate I don’t feel for her. “If you ever call, or write, or even breathe in this city again, I’ll kill you both.”

Her face doesn’t change, but her eyes are red and raw.

“And for the love of God,” I say, “get our child out of this fucked up mess.”

She nods and doesn’t say a word.

I watch them go, through the broken doorway, into the smoke and the sunrise. Sienna doesn’t look back.