Page 114 of Silent Schemes

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.”