“She’s not in love with him,” Jameson said, the words coming out before he could stop them. The fear that had been gnawing at his heart since he’d seen them together demanded voice. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jaeger raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t.”

“She doesn’t even like him,” Jameson pushed on. “She’s doing this to protect us. To protect the rings.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Jaeger asked, his voice cutting through Jameson’s defense.

The question sliced into Jameson like a blade between ribs. Because the truth was, he had seen something in that room—something in the way Shadera spoke to Greyson, the way she’d refused Jameson’s kiss—that suggested a complication he wasn’t ready to face.

Jameson deflected. “The only thing that matters is that we’re fucked. All of us. The rebellion, the Boundary, every plan we’ve made—it’s all compromised if Maximus knows where we are, what we’re doing.”

As they entered the deeper sections of Cardinal, away from Heart surveillance, Jameson’s thoughts shifted into something harder. Shadera was trapped, yes. But she’d given him information he could use. She was still fighting, in her way. Still part of the resistance.

And she wasn’t alone anymore. She had him. Had them. Even from inside the Heart.

“This ends now,” Jameson said as they approached the Boundary. His voice carried new resolve, steel beneath the exhaustion. “No more secrets between us. No more compartmentalized intelligence. No more separate agendas.”

Jaeger’s gaze turned toward him. “Careful, Ghost. You’re sounding dangerously close to giving me orders.”

“Not orders.” Jameson met his gaze. “An ultimatum. The Daggermouths and the rebels work together from now on. Complete transparency. Combined resources, combined intelligence, combined planning.”

“Or what?” Jaeger’s voice held no fear, only curiosity.

“Or we lose everything.” Jameson’s answer was simple. “If Maximus knows as much as he claims, if he’s really prepared to bomb the Boundary, we’re already at war. And I refuse to lose the woman I love and this fight in the same week.”

The vehicle came to a stop at the final barrier between Cardinal and the Boundary. The team shifted, preparing to disembark, to disappear back into the shadows of their respective territories. But Jameson’s eyes remained fixed on Jaeger, waiting.

Finally Jaeger nodded, a single sharp movement. “Tomorrow,” he agreed. “Bring Farrow to Wolf’s Head and we will meet.”

It wasn’t a full capitulation, but it was enough for now. Jameson would take it—take any victory, no matter how small, in a day defined by loss. Jaeger’s hand landed on his shoulder, giving him a small squeeze as he exited the vehicle and disappeared into the night with his unit.

Jameson took one last deep breath before he stepped out of the vehicle into the familiar grime of the Boundary, already planning his next move. Shadera might be lost to him for now, trapped in that tower with the Executioner. But the war for New Found Haven—for freedom, for the future—was just beginning.

And he would make sure she had a home to return to when it was over.

Chapter twenty-sixEleven

Consciousness arrived like an unwelcome guest, hammering at Shadera’s temples and setting fire to her throat. She groaned, pressing her face deeper into the pillow as memories from the night before flooded back in jagged, whiskey soaked fragments. The club, Jameson in Veyra uniform coming to free her. Blood. Broken glass. Bodies. Greyson’s mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, on her throat, between her legs, the weight of him against her body on the kitchen counter. Her fingers unconsciously rose to her lips, finding them tender and swollen.

“Fuck,” she whispered, the word scraping against her dry throat.

She forced herself to sit up, ignoring the protest from every muscle in her body. The room spun briefly before settling into focus. Morning light sliced through the gaps in the curtains, cutting across the bed in harsh lines and making the pounding between her ears pulse harder.

She dragged herself from bed, noting the bandage she’d wrapped around her thigh drunk and angry in the middle of the night. The wound wasn’t deep, just a graze. It had stopped bleeding now, but the area around it was bruised and tender. Another scar to add to her collection. Another mark left on her body by Greyson Serel. It stung with every step she took as his T-shirt brushed the edges of it.

She really needed to get her own fucking clothes.

Greyson’s voice filtered down the hallway as she opened the door and she hesitated for one moment, taking a step back into the room. She didn’t want to face him. Not after—

No. She shook her head.

She needed coffee and would not let him take that away from her too.

Let him see her like this—bloodied, disheveled, unmasked in every sense. Let him see what they’d done to each other.

The living room looked worse in daylight. Bullet holes punctured the walls, furniture lay overturned, glass shards glittered across the floor like malicious stars. Blood had dried in dark patches on the floor, the white walls, the couch. The bodies still lay where they fell, marinating in their own blood.

Her eyes roved over the room before they dragged up to look at Greyson. He stood by the cracked window, blinds drawn against the morning light, tablet pressed to his ear. He wore only sweatpants, his torso bare, revealing the full extent of the damage beneath the skull stretched across his back. The fresh graze wound from her bullet curved around his side, angry and red against his skin. Above it, his fathers bullet and the older one from the day they’d met was still healing, the skin puckered and pink.

His voice was low as he talked into the tablet and she took a step closer, trying to hear what he was saying, who he was speaking to.

He turned as her bare foot landed on a shard of glass, her hiss and the train of expletives that followed announcing her presence. Their eyes met across the destroyed room, and for a moment, neither moved. The phone call continued, his voice lowering further, but his eyes stayed on her. Watching. Studying.

Shadera felt exposed, vulnerable as the memory of his hands on her body, his mouth against her skin, swarmed her mind at the sight of him shirtless in front of her. The silence stretched between them, loaded and awkward until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“You know,” she said, voice rough from sleep and liquor, “you really need to learn how to dodge. That’s twice now I’ve shot you. Pattern’s emerging.”

Greyson’s lips twitched, almost a smile.

“Just get here,” he said, then ended the call without waiting for a response and set the tablet on what remained of the coffee table. “Maybe you should learn to use your words like an adult instead of just shooting me.”

Shadera turned away to hide the smile threatening to break free, moving toward the kitchen. Coffee. She needed coffee to deal with whatever this was, needed distance from his bare skin and the memories it evoked.

The body that’d been on the kitchen floor last night was the only one moved, creating a path to the coffee machine that was miraculously untouched by the violence. She poured a cup, black, strong enough to strip paint. The first sip burned, perfect in its bitterness. She moved to lift herself onto the island, then froze.

The island.

Images flashed—his hands on her throat, her legs around his waist, the desperate hunger of their kiss. Heat crawled up her neck, and she quickly moved away, leaning against the opposite counter instead, shaking the thoughts from her mind.

“About the bodies,” she said, needing to fill the silence with something, anything else.

Greyson sighed, running a hand through his hair. The gesture was unguarded, tired. “Callum’s coming with his men. They’ll handle it.”