David Baldacci Archer Series In Order Novels & Stories

Sera Darnell was with her, moving with cold efficiency, her green eyes bright with the thrill of the fight. I stayed behind Bastian and tried to breathe. The two bonds in my chest were pulling in different directions. Bastian's was a hot wire of protective fury. Kellan's was a cold steel cable of command and calculation. I felt them both like twin heartbeats, and I didn't know how to hold them without being torn apart. A figure burst through the smoke. Archer. His auburn curls were black with soot, and his hazel eyes were wild, but his hands were steady as he dropped beside a wounded enforcer and pressed a cloth to a gushing wound.

Then they both looked at their eldest brother. "The plan," Archer said, with the particular relish of someone who had been waiting to say this, "to fuck the truth out of our little hunter maid." He tilted his head. "Brother." The room was quiet. Outside the windows, the estate grounds were dark and still, the kind of deep nighttime quiet that belonged to places with a lot of space between them and the rest of the world. Alaric sat in the reading chair. He looked at his brothers, Archer with his bright dangerous eyes and Aiden with his precise hungry smile and both of them watching him with the patient certainty of wolves who already knew what his wolf had already decided, who were simply wai

“Damn, Lyla. You’ve been playing checkers while everyone else is playing chess.” Chad stepped forward. “Abel. Who is he?” Abel let the silence hang before finally saying, “Bailey’s father is the architect.” His words hit me like a big blow to my face “No,” I whispered. “That’s impossible.” Abel shrugged. “You can believe what you want. But the architect wasn’t just some legendary tale; he is real. And his blood runs through Bailey's veins.” My head sparked. The Architect was the name whispered in the darkest corners of the criminal world. A man who built empires, then burned them to the ground when they no longer served him. A ghost. A nightmare.

“About your mother… and the child.” Beside me, Archer sat up straighter, his shoulders no longer tense with anger but with something far more vulnerable. For a fleeting moment, his guarded exterior cracked, revealing a glimmer of hope that caught me completely off guard. His eyes lit up, and his voice, usually so composed, trembled with a mix of excitement and disbelief. “Have you found them?!” he asked, leaning forward. “Where are they hiding? Are they okay?” The air seemed to shift, his sudden hope piercing through the tension in the room like a knife. My heart clenched painfully, and I dared a glance at my father, who looked momentarily shaken by Archer’s reaction.