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“When the bag comes off his head, he isn’t going to find a badge,” he murmurs. “He’s going to find the ghost he created. Holding a blade.”

A hot, vicious thrill cuts straight through the numbness in my chest.

I picture the thick, soundproof walls of the holding trailer Cole showed me the other day. The single bulb swinging from the ceiling. Raymond, stripped of his expensive suit, bound to a chair with industrial zip ties. I imagine the exact moment he realizes his money and his connections mean absolutely nothing. The exact moment he looks across the dark room and recognizes the teenage girl he abused, grown into a woman who catches flying steel for a living.

I crave the look of terror in his dead, gray eyes.

“Just a chair,” I state. I look at Logan. “I just need him tied down tight enough that he can’t squirm away from the knife.”

Logan’s mouth stretches into a wide, chaotic grin. “I like her. I really like her.”

“Get in line,” Cole mutters.

Elias stands. The movement commands instant, absolute attention.

“We move at midnight,” the ringmaster orders. “Silas, prep the data dump. Jules, get the journalists ready. Jonah, Logan, load the gear. Cole, you’re with me on surveillance. Once Turner realizes the raid is coming, we wait for him to break cover.”

His pale gaze moves across the trailer.

“He runs, we follow. We take him on the access road, before he reaches I-40.”

Chairs scrape against the floor as the meeting comes to an end. I remain in my seat. My hands rest on the table, and my pulse thuds a heavy, frantic rhythm against my collarbone.

Cole steps into my space. He blocks the harsh glare of the screen, his broad shoulders casting a shadow over my face. He leans down, planting his palms on the arms of my chair, trapping me in place.

“You ready for this, Archer?”

I look up. His face hovers inches from mine. He smells like leather and danger.

“I’ve been ready since I was fifteen years old.”

Cole dips his chin and presses a hard, bruising kiss to my mouth. The contact is brief, rough, and entirely devoid of hesitation. He pulls back, his dark eyes locking onto mine.

“Go get dressed in black,” he orders. “We have a monster to catch.”

17

COLE

Midnight ticks over on the digital dash display. It smells like adrenaline in this blacked-out surveillance van.

Silas sits hunched in the driver’s seat, his face bathed in the blue glow of his laptop screen. He hacked into the gated community’s security grid hours ago, looping the feed for the guardhouse and pulling a direct, high-resolution stream of Raymond’s personal surveillance system.

On the monitor, the regional director of youth outreach programs paces the length of a sprawling, immaculate living room. Raymond’s tailored suit jacket lies discarded on an expensive leather sofa. His tie hangs loose. He drags a hand through his gray-streaked hair, a phone clamped to his ear, his mouth moving in frantic, desperate bursts.

The data drop worked exactly as intended. Silas and Jules sent the offshore accounts, the dummy servers, and the indisputable proof of Raymond’s filth directly to the FBI and the journalists. A conveniently timed anonymous text tipped the bastard off twenty minutes ago.

Now, we watch the rats scramble.

Elias leans against the metal partition separating the front cab from the back of the van. He rests both gloved hands on the ruby knob of his cane, his pale eyes tracking Raymond’s every panicked step on the screen.

“When we have him in the chair,” Elias dictates, his voice an absolute, frigid calm, “extract the names and locations of any former or current compounds he knows about. We need the rest of the network before you dispatch him.”

I cross my arms over my chest, a feral hum vibrating right beneath my breastbone. “Not a problem. I’m feeling incredibly persuasive tonight.”

Sloane sits right beside me in the cramped dark. She wears black combat boots, fitted black cargo pants, and a tight black long-sleeve shirt. No jewelry. No loose hair. She looks like a shadow. Her shoulder presses against my bicep, radiating heat.

“Agreed,” she states. Her voice lacks any trace of the tremor that haunted her a week ago. “I want his contacts just as much as you do.”