1. Hellbringer's Brand

The air stinks of blood and gunpowder—sharp, metallic, suffocating. My left shoulder’s soaked in it, hot and sticky, where it seeps through my shirt. Some of it’s mine. The rest… I don’t have time to care. My head’s still ringing from when one of those Holt bastards slammed it into a metal shelf, and my arm is on fire. The bullet skimmed me good. But I’m still standing.

Still breathing.

Still moving.

The box digs into my ribs with every step, each breath punching against the bruises blooming beneath my skin. The safe’s tucked under my other arm, heavier than it should be for its small size, slick with something warm and suspiciously chunky that I refuse to look at.

We hit the stairwell hard—boots pounding down rusted metal steps like a military drum. Each one shudders up through my bones. Behind us, doors slam open. Voices roar. Footsteps hammer closer.

“Down the alley,” Ryker barks, shoving the door with his shoulder, gun leveled. “Go!”

We burst into the night like hellhounds on the run. Cold air bites into my sweat-soaked skin, burning across raw lungs and bloodied nerves. I’ve got no idea how long we’ve been in this fight—minutes, hours, eternity. Time stopped when I hit the concrete, and a Holt gangster started turning my face into pavement art. The box went flying, sending its contents scattering.

Maddox moved first—cold, yet efficient. One shot. Clean. The son of a bitch crumples beside me, skull blooming red. Maddox grabs the safe while Ryker dives for the spilled contents.

“You’ve gotta keep your chin up, Cali,” Ryker mutters, jamming a file into the box as Maddox hauls me to my feet.

“In my defense, he came out of freaking nowhere,” I snap, slapping grit off my jeans. I flick a glance at Maddox, breath ragged, as he hands me back the safe. “Thanks.”

He just nods down the alley. “Ride’s here.”

The car is idling at the far end, and the engine is growling low. The passenger door is wide open, and lights cut through the dark. Rain-slick pavement glitters with shattered glass, broken like the rest of this night.

We’re seconds away.

Then, the air shifts.

Not loud. Not fast. Just… wrong.

A presence steps from the shadows to our right. Calm and unhurried. Like he’s already seen the ending, and it’s written in our blood.

Dez, our youngest recruit, whirls toward him. The gun comes up too slowly.

The shot cracks like thunder.

Dez’s head jerks back. He drops. Just—drops, his eyes blown wide, mouth still forming the command he never gets to finish. Smoke curls from the wound—red. Thick. Twisting like some kind of unholy signature in the freezing air.

No one breathes.

My eyes narrows onto the red smoke and my chest tightens.

Only one person is notoriously known for using rounds like that.

Maddox’s voice drops, rough and shaken. “Hellbringer.”

Shit.

For a split second, I freeze.

The whole alley holds its breath—sounds warping, thinning, like someone hit mute on the universe. My pulse pounds too loud in my ears. Even the wind’s gone still.

Hellbringer lowers his pistol. No rush. No emotion. The matte-black mask hides his face, but I feel him watching me. Like I’m already dead, and he’s just waiting for the world to catch up. That kind of focus—glacial, meticulous, final.

Ryker snaps, “Go! Go now!”

My body jolts back online.

I don’t look at the man again. I want to—God, I want to. I want to plant a bullet between his eyes, sever his soul from the earth, and scatter the ashes where rot festers deepest—where the worms writhe in silence and filth clings to bone. But I know better. If I reach for my gun, I’ll be on the ground before I even clear the holster.

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches and move. Later, Hellbringer. I’ll see you again—with a bullet waiting.

We run.

The car’s right there. Freedom’s five steps away.

Then hands grab me, vicious and fast. The box skitters away, and my knees slam concrete hard. Pain blooms, but I’m scrambling up before the dust settles, teeth bared, one hand reaching for the door—and it slams in my face.

“What the fuck?” I pound the window.

Ryker’s stone-cold eyes meet mine through the glass.

“Ryker!” I snarl. “Open the damn door!”

He doesn’t. He lifts a hand.

Click.

The locks engage.

“No.” My blood turns frozen. “You don’t get to do this to me.”

He doesn’t even blink. “You’re a weight we can’t carry.”

“Bullshit! I got the damn box!” I slam my fist so hard into the window my knuckles bleed. “You spineless cowards!”

But they’re gone.

I’m left standing there in the cold rain, breathing like a wild animal, hands clenched so hard my nails carve bloody crescents into my palms.

“You better pray I don’t survive this,” I growl after them, voice raw and cracking. “Because if I do… You’re going to pay for this stunt.”

A slow, steady set of footsteps cuts through the night.

I don’t turn. I don’t need to.

The monster’s already here.

He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. His presence wraps around me, thick and heavy as death.

My hand fumbles for my gun, blood slick and trembling, but he’s already on me. A gloved hand crushes my wrist, twisting until my knees buckle.

I hiss through my teeth, biting down a scream. I don’t give him the satisfaction.

He crouches.

Slow. Calm. Deadly.

He peels the mask off.

And I almost laugh—a wild, broken sound caught in my throat—because of course he’s gorgeous. Of course only the devil would wear a face that sinful.

Dark hair, damp and tousled like he walked straight out of war. Because he did. Jaw sharp enough to cut, mouth sculpted like sin—cruel lips made for giving commands and breaking hearts. He shouldn’t look like this. No one this monstrous should be this fucking beautiful.

But it’s his eyes that gut me.

They’re darker than smoke and older than hate—black holes that suck the warmth right out of your soul. No light. No mercy.

My breath catches.

Not from fear.

From fury—at myself.

Because what kind of twisted soul sees beauty in the man who took their mother’s life?

The kind of beautiful that doesn’t belong in bloodstained alleyways. The kind that makes people stop and stare. That shouldn’t belong to the bastard who burned my world down. But it does. And that makes it worse.

This is the face from my nightmares.

“Calistra Ford,” he murmurs—low and lethal. His voice slithers under my skin, smooth as silk, cold as a muzzle pressed to my spine. “You’ve been busy.”

I don’t answer.

I swing.

He catches it effortlessly, fingers closing around my wrist like a trap. My bones grind. I grit my teeth.

“You stole from me,” he says like he’s reading off a grocery list, and not threatening me. No heat. No anger. Just a fact—one that ends in blood because that’s how his world works.

I bare my teeth. “You murdered my mother, you psychotic son of a bitch.”

Not a flicker in his expression. Not even a blink. “No,” he says softly. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

Ice floods my chest. Lies. All bloody lies. “Save it for someone who cares,” I hiss. “Rot in hell.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” His head tilts, slow and deliberate, a ghost of something dangerous flashing through those void-dark eyes. Then the corner of his lips quirked up into a sinful smile. “I already brought it with me.”

And then the world tilts as he hauls me up and over his shoulder like a rag doll.

I thrash—hard—cussing him out in every colorful, blistering curse word I know.

He doesn’t even grunt. Just walks like I weigh nothing, carrying me straight toward the black SUV idling at the alley’s mouth. The back door’s already open, waiting like a goddamn grave.

When he throws me inside, I slam into the seat, breath knocked out of me.

I push up, head spinning, and that’s when I see it.

Silver embossed on the inner panel—gleaming like a brand burned into my memory. A serpent wreathed in fire, eating its own tail.

The Holt crest.

The same one my mother bled for. The one stamped into the bullets that tore my world apart.

And now it surrounds me.

I twist to scramble out—but the door slams shut, locking me in with a brutal finality.

I press my forehead to the cold glass, breathing hard. The gut-punch truth settles in like a death knell—

No one’s coming to save me this time.

“You picked the wrong girl to fuck with,” I whisper into the darkness.

Because even if I have to tear apart the whole goddamn underworld by hand—I’m getting out of this.

And when I do, they’re all going to burn.