MasukJarekThe second Brian said, “I’m so sorry,” I hit him.My fist connected with his face hard enough to snap his head sideways into the van door with a metallic crack. Brian stumbled backward against the vehicle but didn’t fight back. Didn’t even raise his hands.Blood appeared instantly at the corner of his mouth.“Jarek—” Sable started.“No.”The word tore out of me before she could finish.Every emotion I’d been barely holding together since finding her exploded violently to the surface all at once. Fear. Rage. Guilt. Panic. All of it twisted together into something ugly enough that my hands physically shook with it.Brian straightened slowly beside the van and wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.“I deserved that,” he said hoarsely. “And probably worse.”Then his eyes shifted
MarcusThe barn still echoed with gunfire by the time I stepped away from Jarek and Sable.Not constant anymore.Just scattered shots.The kind that meant the fight was ending and cleanup had started.Bodies littered the floor between overturned tables and shattered glass while the smell of blood and gunpowder hung thick enough in the air to taste. Somewhere behind me, Sable still sat curled against Jarek’s chest while he held her like letting go might kill them both.I’d never seen Prez look like that before.Not angry.Not furious.Broken.And honestly?That scared the shit out of me more than the gunfight had.I tore my attention away from them before I did something stupid like start killing every surviving motherfucker in the building one by one.“Clear the loft!” Bryce barked somewhere overhead.A couple Daggers answered him i
JarekI had never wanted to kill someone this badly in my entire fucking life.The bike beneath me tore down the highway like a living animal, vibrating hard enough beneath my body that every ounce of fury already pumping through my veins felt amplified tenfold. Cold desert air lashed against my face while the engine screamed loud enough to drown out almost every rational thought left in my head.Not all of them though.One remained.Go open the gate, baby girl.Jesus Christ.The memory kept replaying over and over no matter how hard I tried to focus on the road ahead. I could still see her jogging toward the back of the compound while Marcus and I dealt with Kandy bleeding in the alley like neither of us had just sent Sable directly into a fucking trap.Guilt sat beneath my ribs like a knife twisting deeper with every mile.Behind us, the rest of the Daggers thundered across the highway in
Brian“What do you want?”The question left my mouth steady, but every instinct in my body had already gone sharp.Gino didn’t answer right away. He stayed seated in the center of the barn with Kimberly draped across his lap like some kind of decoration, one hand moving lazily over her thigh while his attention remained locked on me. The men around the room had gone quiet, which told me they knew something I didn’t.Or maybe they just knew Gino well enough to understand silence usually came before something ugly.Sable was still on her knees a few feet away from me, jaw tight, shoulders straight, looking furious instead of afraid. That almost made it worse. She had no idea what he was about to ask, but I could feel it coming like pressure gathering before a storm.Gino finally smiled.“I want proof.”My stomach sank.“Proof of what?”“Loyalty.” His fingers tapped once against Kimberly’s leg. “Luke’s dead. You killed him. That leaves a question hanging in the air, Brian. Did you kill h
SableThe closer we got to the barn, the harder my pulse pounded.Floodlights illuminated the property harshly against the surrounding darkness, throwing long shadows across the gravel lot and the men standing guard outside. Trucks and SUVs lined the area around the building while armed men paced slowly near the entrances with rifles slung over their shoulders.Gino clearly hadn’t come lightly prepared.The realization sat heavily in my stomach as Brian slowed the van several yards short of the barn before finally putting it in park.For a few seconds neither of us moved.The engine ticked softly beneath the silence while dust drifted lazily through the headlights outside. Somewhere in the distance, music played low and muffled from inside the barn, blending strangely with the sounds of boots crunching across gravel and men talking nearby.It felt wrong.Too casual.Like this wasn’t a trafficking exchange involving human lives but just another business deal between criminals.Brian fi
SableThe farther south we drove, the emptier the world became.The glow of Southtown disappeared behind us first, swallowed gradually by long stretches of dark highway and empty desert. Gas stations became sparse. Houses vanished entirely. Eventually the only things outside the van windows were old fences, scrub brush, and the occasional set of distant headlights cutting across the night miles away.The isolation settled heavily into my chest the longer we drove.Out here, nobody would hear you scream.Brian stayed tense behind the wheel the entire time. I noticed it in the rigid set of his shoulders and the way his fingers kept tightening around the steering wheel until his knuckles paled beneath the dashboard lights. Every few minutes his eyes flicked toward the rearview mirror before returning to the road again like he expected headlights to suddenly appear behind us at any second.Honestly, I hoped they wo







