Novels by Chel Sceptre

The air in Vulture’s war room was heavy. No one spoke. Blood had dried on Bain’s bandaged hand, seeping through the gauze as he sat at the table, jaw clenched, fury burning cold and bright in his eyes. The op had failed. Cassie had been moved. And the Jackal had escaped again—barely—just like the venomous coward he was.But someone had known.And someone had told.Vulture came in last, his long coat billowing like a storm cloud, eyes scanning every man in the room with venom. He didn’t need to raise his voice—his silence was enough to terrify even the most hardened of killers. His baby godson was nestled against his chest, swaddled and asleep, blissfully unaware of the hell burning beneath his godfather's skin.Then, Vulture turned to his men and growled, “Which one of you shit-stained bastards fed her information?”No one spoke.“I will find out,” he hissed. “And when I do, there won’t be enough left of you to feed to the crows.”It didn’t take long. One of the techs—a younger man na

SPIDERThe sewer tunnel stank of rot and betrayal.She moved in silence, black suit soaked through, a compact rifle slung over her shoulder. The digital blueprint Viktor had provided lit up her lens in soft green pulses. The compound’s underbelly was tight, built for secrets. Not survival.She counted three laser traps. Two pressure plates. Four heat sensors.She bypassed them all.Because Cassie Delacroix was at the heart of it.Her boots met concrete in the eastern sub-chamber—the hallway that led to solitary. A live feed flickered in her ear: Viktor’s tech had hacked into the cell surveillance again. Cassie was awake. Sitting upright. Wrists bruised, lip split, but eyes sharp.Still fighting.Spider’s jaw tensed.She reached a vent above Cassie’s cell. Pulled out a fiber-optic camera and threaded it through.Inside, Cassie stirred. Looked up.Noticed the camera.She didn’t scream. She smiled. A faint, painful smile of recognition. Of hope.And then—Valeria stormed in.Spider froze

VALERIAShe stared into the mirror, eyes hollow, pupils dilated from too little sleep and too many pills. Her knuckles were red from the last time she hit Cassie. That girl had smiled—smiled—through the blood. Like she knew something Valeria didn’t. Like she wasn’t afraid.Valeria slammed the pill bottle down, sending a ripple of pills scattering across the marble counter.Her hands shook.“Why are they so quiet?” she growled to the Jackal, who stood in the corner like a statue.“They’re pretending,” he said. “Strategizing. But it means nothing. We still have the girl.”“I’ve had her for weeks, and nothing!” Valeria hissed. She turned sharply. “No retaliation. No threats. Not even Bain. Why isn’t he coming for her?”The Jackal said nothing.Valeria stormed out, down the hallway of the Alexandria compound, past guards who wouldn’t meet her eyes. She used to command fear. Now she was unraveling. Everyone could feel it.She shoved open the surveillance room.Cassie was asleep, head slump

The world outside Vulture’s domain was moving.And Valeria was moving too — but she made one mistake.She thought no one was watching.Victor had been running discreet surveillance loops through Bain’s old network in New York. It was mostly routine — watching for moves, shifts, suspicious activity tied to Valeria’s surviving assets.Then she appeared.Cloaked, disguised, but unmistakably her.Victor didn’t waste a second. He transmitted the footage straight to Vulture’s encrypted server.Within minutes, Bain, Vulture, Luca, and Ryder were huddled in the war room, the baby resting in a sling across Vulture’s front, as always.The footage played on the projector — grainy, black-and-white, but sharp enough.There she was.Valeria slipping through an underground dock in New York. Meeting shadowy men. Exchanging briefcases.“Oil bunkering,” Vulture muttered, frowning deeply.“Black market fuel deals. That’s big.”But it didn’t stop there.As Victor continued uploading more footage — days’

The Spider moved like a shadow along the rooftop, eyes locked on the street below where the Jackal’s black SUV idled.Beside her in the darkness, the Widowmaker adjusted her sniper scope, her breath even, calm.“Target moving,” Widowmaker whispered through their comms.Below them, Valeria, the Jackal, and a handful of men exited a seedy club that Spider had tracked them to three nights ago.So far, it had been one dead lead after another.False safehouses. Dummy networks. Every thread they followed either led to empty buildings… or traps.“They’re too careful,” Spider murmured.“Or too cocky,” Widowmaker replied.They needed more. They needed something real.Something that would lead to Cassie before time ran out.The two assassins melted into the night after them, invisible watchers.But hours later, after another fruitless chase ending in another dead end warehouse, Spider found something odd tucked into her gear — a small, hand-written note.No one had gotten close to her. No one.

The war room was dim, lit only by the cold glow of multiple screens.Bain sat at the head of the long table, Vulture pacing nearby with the baby sleeping against his chest. Luca and Ryder hovered close, silent, tense.The encrypted video feed flickered once before stabilizing.On the first screen, Petrov appeared — grim, sharp-eyed, the scars on his knuckles visible even from here.Beside him, Sokolov, ice-cold and composed, like a man already counting bodies.And on another window, Viktor leaned forward, his expression as serious as Bain had ever seen it.The room was dead silent until Petrov spoke.“It’s worse than we thought,” Petrov said in his heavy accent.“Valeria’s network is not just drugs. It’s not just oil. It’s not just guns. It’s not just children. Teenage girls, pregnancies forced in captivity, babies sold to black markets. Slave trades. Sexual abuses across continents.”No one breathed.Vulture’s hands tightened around the baby unconsciously, his jaw flexing with pure,