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Gideon’s smile transformed from amused to predatory in an instant, teeth flashing white in the darkness.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he purred, “it never is.”

Then he exploded into motion.

Even knowing it was coming, Gideon’s speed was breathtaking. I’d sparred with him hundreds of times, but this wasn’t a friendly training session—these were skilled operatives who’d successfully taken down Council members before.

Gideon came in hard and fast. Duke barely managed to block the strike aimed at his throat, the impact forcing him back a step.

He recovered quickly, and instead of lunging at Gideon, he feinted left, then pivoted right, catching Gideon’s defensive block and driving his shoulder into the enforcer’s ribs. Gideon grunted, stumbling back a step.

“Hmm, that was enthusiastic,” Gideon wheezed, recovering his balance.

Annabella was already moving, flowing around Duke’s assault to attack from Gideon’s blind spot. Her kick connected with his thigh—not where she’d aimed, but solid enough to make him shift his weight.

Gideon might be performing, but Annabella’s strike was genuine, and the pain in his expression wasn’t entirely theatrical.

“Not bad,” he muttered, a note of actual strain in his voice. “Not bad at all.”

He pivoted to face Annabella, which left him temporarily open to Duke’s follow-up strike.

Duke’s fist clipped Gideon’s shoulder, the impact spinning him nearly halfway around before he managed to regain his footing.

For all Gideon’s skill, the team was making him work for every inch—a fact that filled me with conflicting pride and concern.

Zeke approached from Gideon’s left flank, his movement more deliberate than the others. The spelled bracelet on his wrist began to pulse with soft blue light as he reached for Gideon’s arm. The enforcer caught his wrist in mid-air, but that was exactly what Zeke wanted—direct skin contact.

“Now!” Zeke called out, his fingers curling around Gideon’s forearm.

From her position in the shadows, Lydia’s voice rose in eerie harmony with Zeke’s whispered incantation.

The sound seemed to vibrate in my bones rather than my ears, raising the hair on my arms as power gathered in the air between them.

Silver threads of magic erupted simultaneously from both their positions, weaving together in complex patterns that hurt my eyes to track.

The combined spell coalesced into something resembling luminous rope, wrapping around Gideon, binding his arms tightly to his sides.

For a heart-stopping moment, I thought they actually had him. The magical restraints held firm, glowing brighter as Gideon’s initial struggles seemed only to tighten the bonds.

But then he went completely limp, dropping his full weight suddenly toward the ground.

We’d been trained to do this; it worked for some spells.

This one relied on the target struggling.

When you relaxed into it, the binding loosened up.

Gideon twisted hard to the right as he dropped, the silver bonds stretching and then snapping with a sound like breaking glass.

Zeke stumbled backward as the magical backlash hit him, his bracelet flickering and going dark.

That’s when Mira made her move.

She came in low, the combat boots she’d switched for her usual platforms connecting solidly with Gideon’s knee. The joint buckled with an audible pop that made my own leg twinge in sympathy.

But Gideon hadn’t survived this long as a Council enforcer by being predictable.

As he descended, he transformed the fall into a controlled roll, emerging in a fluid crouch with a curved tactical blade materializing in his hand.

The knife arced toward Mira in a calculated trajectory—not aiming for vitals but creating the chaotic distraction he needed for escape.

“Mira, drop!” Annabella shouted.

The girl was too focused to hear the warning.

Annabella was already moving, her body slamming into Mira and knocking her sideways as Gideon’s knife whistled through the air. I watched the blade slice across Annabella’s back, saw her face contort with pain as blood began to seep through her shirt.

Something ancient and primal erupted in my chest—a white-hot rage that bypassed rational thought entirely. Protective rage, territorial fury, the absolute need to destroy anything that dared hurt her.

I knew it was theater. Knew Gideon had calculated that cut to the millimeter. But seeing Annabella’s blood, smelling her pain—logic evaporated.

I crossed the distance in a blur, animal instinct overriding operational thinking. My body collided with Gideon from behind, momentum carrying us both into the rusted side of a dumpster with a thunderous metallic boom that reverberated through the narrow alley.

Gideon twisted in my grip, his movements controlled despite the apparent struggle. His knife came up in a theatrical slash that looked deadly to observers but missed me by inches. I grabbed his wrist and slammed it against the dumpster wall, sending the blade clattering across the asphalt.

As we grappled, his free hand found mine in the flurry of limbs and momentum. Something small and hard pressed into my palm—a data drive, no larger than my thumbnail. The exchange took less than a quarter-second, invisible to even the keenest observer.

I drove my shoulder into his chest, slamming him back against the alley wall. For an instant, our faces were inches apart, his eyes locking with mine. The urgency I saw there sent ice through my veins—none of this was theatrical. Whatever was on that drive wasn’t routine intelligence.

Then he was pulling something from his pocket with his free hand as Annabella and Duke raced toward us.

“It’s been delightful, but I gotta bounce!” he called out with maddening cheerfulness.

The flash bomb hit the pavement between us.

The world exploded into searing white brilliance, the light intensified a hundredfold by enhanced werewolf vision.

Pain lanced through my skull as my retinas burned, the sensory overload triggering an involuntary howl that died in my throat.

Even with my arm thrown across my face, the assault continued—afterimages pulsing and throbbing behind my eyelids, my other senses temporarily short-circuiting.

By the time the world resolved itself from abstract white agony back into discernible shapes and shadows, Gideon was gone.