Page 75 of The Collector

The Collector hurled his phone into the passenger seat and stormed back down to the basement—so fast he nearly lost his footing, almost snapped his neck on the stairs. The sample was waiting, just outside the cell. The prisoner had rolled over, already asleep.

Good. He didn’t need conversation. He needed silence. Speed.

He grabbed the vials, climbed back up, secured the door, and shoved the sample into the freezer at breakneck speed.

He slammed the door to the cabin behind him.

This shit was getting old. He was ready to burn it all down and walk the fuck away.

He picked up his phone he had one more call to make. Thomas.

Chapter 21

Raven

The elevator skidded to a halt, shuddering slightly as it arrived at the basement. With a swift tug, Raven loosened his tie and tossed it aside. The sub-basement wasn't a place for ceremony, and what was about to unfold here was pure, unadulterated vengeance—no formality would be required.

As the doors parted slowly, a concrete corridor stretched into silence ahead of him. Two of his underbosses stood guard at the end of it. The air in the hall was thick with anticipation, as if it was seeded and heavy with the scent of violence that waited to bloom behind its closed doors. The damp, musty air that surrounded Raven hinted at mildew and memories.

The scent pulled Raven back to the first time he walked halls like these, to the moment his father stood behind him and helped him take a life. That day marked the end of softness.

His first home had always been the cradle of violence his father built around him. Silk sheets and lullabies belonged to another world, one his mother tried to preserve. But Raven no longer needed comfort. He needed control.

He moved forward, steady and sharp, shaped by blood and silence. The past didn't guide him—it reminded him. And with every step, he felt himself becoming more like the man who taught him how to survive.

It was that half of him crafted by his father, the monster, that ebbed and flowed inside of him now, chomping at the bit to take charge. Try as he might, he would never fully escape that darkness within him. After all, he was the Capo, his father tempered in fire—beat into shape. Every scar on his knuckles and every command he delivered with ice in his throat was part of that legacy now, the only part of his father that now remained.

His father's voice lived inside him now—not guiding but echoing. A reminder. A warning. Raven couldn't shake the thought: how much more like him would he become, facing moments like this?

His phone rang. Shelby.

If it had been anyone else, he would've let it go.

He answered.

"Raven—what just happened? Tell me the chatter isn't true. Is your father really dead?"

"It's true," Raven said, voice low. "I don't know how it happened. But I'm about to find out."

"Was Raul responsible for this?"

"It's hard to say," Raven said. "At first, I thought it was a heart attack. But the way his face discolored—the coughing—it looked more like poison."

He paced, jaw clenched. "I sent him to Dr. Emily for tests. She'll confirm it soon enough."

Raven turned his attention back toward the door ahead of him, eyes cold. "Until then, I'll take what I need from their flesh. Someone knows something. And I'm not waiting for the trail to go cold before I get answers."

Shelby's voice trembled when she responded. "Be careful, Raven. If this isn't what it looks like, and you go in swinging, you might drag us into a war we can't win with the Stallions."

"I know what's at stake. I know what war costs. That's why I'm going to end this before it starts." Raven hung up the phone. His father was dead, and someone needed to pay

He stepped forward, each footfall drummed like a toll bell—warning of his arrival to all who might hear.

Until now, his grief had been simmering within him, locked behind a wall of discipline and restraint. But as he neared the doorway, it was fury that erupted within him, consuming the part of him that might have let the men inside escape with their lives. It was in that moment that he knew that one of them or all of them would pay for his father's death.

He reached for something inside himself, anything that would help him control that fury. The ghost of Mynx's hazel eyes fluttered before him in his mind— the soft wings of her lashes trying to beat against his hardened shell. But even the vision of her—his Butterfly—couldn't stall the blade of vengeance he would wield tonight. Even she couldn't postpone his judgment on the men tucked neatly inside. They would find no absolution tonight.

Raul's blood would be his first offering to Death as Capo of the Kings. And he wouldn't just break him; he'd unravel the man's soul, stitch by stitch, until he resembled nothing but a monument to the pain Raven inflicted on him.