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Chapter 1
Data de publicação:
2026-09-01 14:36:14THE ASHES OF BRYRON BAY
Kirrily Rindy Cross pov
I never liked the ocean.
Other people came to Byron Bay to enjoy the sound of the waves crashing against the dark rocks. To me, it sounded like a warning. Every wave reminded me that life could change in just a few seconds.Four years ago,mine had.
It happened during heavy rain and bad weather in Sydney. I still remembered the black car parked across the street. I remembered the strange sound that followed. Most of all, I remembered holding my sister Evie’s hand and feeling it slowly cold.
She was gone.And whoever killed her had never been caught.
I pushed those memories away and looked through the window of my small cottage.
Outside, my four-year-old son, Toby, was playing with his old rubber ball. His blonde curls bounced as he ran across the grass. Watching him made me smile, even though a part of me was always afraid.
He was the reason I had disappeared.
He was the reason I had stayed hidden for four years.Toby knew nothing about Evie. He knew nothing about the people I had been running from. He knew nothing about the secrets I had buried.
“Mummy!” he shouted. “LookA blue skink”
I looked outside and smiled.
“I see it, sweetheart. Stay on the grass, okay?”
“Okay!”
I watched him for another moment before turning away from the window.
My study was small and quiet. Old books and papers covered one side of the room. Brushes, glue, and other restoration tools were arranged neatly on my desk.
That was the life people knew.
To them, I was just Kirrily, a quiet young mother who repaired old books and historical documents.
They didn't know the truth.
Behind my desk was a hidden computer system. I had built it myself after leaving Sydney. I used it to make enough money to take care of Toby without putting my real identity and couldn't trust banks.
I couldn't trust people.
When you are hiding from dangerous men, you learn quickly that every little mistake can lead them straight to you.
I sat in my chair and checked the screens.
Everything looked normal.Then I saw something that made my heart stop.
One of the numbers on the screen suddenly turned red.stared at it.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
I quickly started checking the system.
Someone had found my connection.
My hands began to shake.
“No,” I whispered. “No, no”
I tried to shut everything down, but the computer wouldn't respond.Then a message appeared on the screen.
“OVER RIDE THE IRON SKULL’S CENTRAL CONTROL”.
I suddenly felt scared,shocked and worried.
Iron Skull.
I hadn't heard that name in years.
I reached for the power cables, ready to destroy everything before anyone could find me.
Then the speakers came alive,unwanted noise filled the room.My breath slowed down.
A man's voice came through the speakers.
Deep,cold and dangerously calm.
“You've been hiding behind those numbers for three years, little ghost.”
I froze.
He knew.Someone had finally found me.I looked toward the window.
Toby was still outside, completely unaware of what was happening.
I became scared and my heart started beating very fast.If they had found me, they could find him too.
“Who are you?” I said in a low voice, for a moment,everywhere became calm.Then i heard a quiet laugh
“Pack your son's things, Kirrily.”I felt a sudden wave of fear.The voice continued.
“The men who killed your sister have crossed into Victoria.”I couldn’t bring myself to move.
Then he said the words that turned my entire world upside down.”I’m already standing at your front gate.”At that exact moment,I heard someone walking outside,and their footsteps made a crunching sound against the gravel.I slowly turned toward the window.Someone was here.And this time, there was nowhere left for me to run.
Último capítulo
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 85
THE ARCHITECT’S CODE Kirrily”Rindy” CrossThe water was black, freezing, and rising with the terrifying speed of a nightmare.It was already at my waist, soaking through my heavy tactical pants, the chill sinking straight into my marrow. I pressed my hands against the massive steel blast door that had slammed down in front of us, my wet gloves slipping uselessly against the smooth, unforgiving metal."Kaelen!" I gasped, the air in the sealed chamber growing thin and metallic.He didn't answer. He was entirely submerged, fighting blindly in the dark water beneath me, trying to find the manual override or a gap in the seal. The heavy rushing sound of the intake pipes drowned out the gunfire from the surface. Down here, the war didn't matter. Down here, we were just two bodies waiting for the tide to finish us.The water hit my chest. The cold squeezed my lungs so tight I let out a pathetic, ragged wheeze. Panic, pure and animalistic, tore through my mind. I was going to die in the
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 84
THE PHANTOM OF PIER 4Jaxson"If you starve them, they'll eventually bite the master who feeds them."Elias’s words hung in the suffocating, ash-choked air, heavier than the smoke rolling off the burning shipping crates. I stared at the man standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Callan Vance. Elias. The man who had dragged my bleeding body out of a cartel kill-house in Bogota. The man who knew every password, every safehouse, every single weakness the Iron Skulls possessed.My brother.A cold, absolute silence settled over my mind. The shock didn't paralyze me; it crystallized. In this violent, ugly world I had built, betrayal was just a math equation. It meant the variables had changed. It meant the man standing in front of me was no longer a person. He was just an obstacle between me and the earth beneath my feet. Between me and Kirrily.I didn't ask why. I didn't scream his name.I simply pulled the trigger.My rifle barked, a harsh, cracking spit of lead aimed directly at the c
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 83
THE BAIT AND THE BLEEDINGJaxsonI didn't mind the blood. I never had.In my world, blood was just a currency. It was the price you paid to keep the things that mattered, and right now, the only thing in this godforsaken world that mattered to me was underground, breathing in the dark.The heavy recoil of my SCAR-H rifle slammed into my shoulder, a familiar, punishing rhythm. I exhaled slowly, letting the trigger reset before squeezing off another three-round burst. Down the cracked concrete expanse of Pier 4, a syndicate guard taking cover behind a rusted forklift jerked backward, his chest plate shattering as my rounds found their mark. He dropped, vanishing into the torrential rain and the shadows."Push the line!" I roared, my voice tearing through the deafening cacophony of gunfire and howling wind. "Do not give them an inch to breathe!"Around me, the Iron Skulls moved with the lethal, synchronized precision that had made us a nightmare in the criminal underworld. We were a
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 82
THE BLACKWATER LABYRINTHo Kirrily”Rindy” CrossHis thumb pressed down.The click of the red button wasn't loud, but in the echoing silence of the sub-basement, it sounded like the snapping of a bone.“No!”The scream tore from my throat, raw and bloody, but it was instantly swallowed by a concussive roar that fractured the very air. The explosion didn't just shake the ground; it liquified it. The ceiling above us ruptured in a blinding flash of orange and violent red. Concrete groaned, rebar shrieked like dying animals, and the floor beneath my boots simply ceased to exist.I was falling.There was no time to process the betrayal, no time to grieve the ghost of my father standing in the firelight. There was only the sudden, weightless terror of the drop, the deafening roar of collapsing architecture, and the suffocating crush of dust.Then, Kaelen was there.Even in the chaotic freefall of shattered concrete and darkness, his arms wrapped around me, a steel vice locking me to
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 81
GHOSTS IN THE DARK Kirrily”Rindy” CrossThe first explosion shook the earth so hard my teeth rattled against each other.Dust, old and foul, rained down from the arched brick ceiling of the maintenance tunnel, coating my eyelashes. I blinked it away, my breathing loud and shallow in the suffocating dark. Above us, a quarter-mile away at the main gates of Pier 4, Jaxson and the Iron Skull squad were making their introduction.Loud. Bloody. Unforgiving.That was Jaxson’s way. He was the distraction, the roaring fire meant to pull every set of eyes toward the front door so we could slip through the cracks."Keep moving," Kaelen murmured.His voice was a low vibration right behind my ear, so close I could feel the heat of his breath against my freezing skin. I swallowed hard, forcing my frozen legs to take another step into the ankle-deep, brackish water of the historic smuggler's tunnel."I'm moving," I whispered back, my voice trembling in a way I hated. I wanted to be brave. Fo
BOUND IN IRON AND INK Chapter 80
The Shadows of Warehouse 9 Kirrily”Rindy” CrossThe static hissing from the main monitor was the loudest sound I had ever heard. It scraped against my eardrums, sharp and mocking, a digital tombstone for the man I loved.Loved.The word hit me with the force of a physical blow, knocking the breath out of my lungs. I had spent weeks fighting it, drowning it in anger and betrayal, burying it under the weight of his lies. But staring at that dead, black screen where Silas had just been fighting for his life against an absolute nightmare, all the anger evaporated. It just vanished, leaving nothing but a raw, bleeding crater in my chest."Get him back," I choked out, my voice sounding entirely foreign to my own ears. "Reynolds, get the feedback!"The comms tech was pale, his fingers hammering frantically against his keyboard. Sweat beaded on his forehead in the dim red light of the mobile command unit. "I'm trying, ma'am. The signal is totally jammed. Whatever hit that pump house, it
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