The boys will clean up the kitchen.
I’ll clean up our enemies.
And the moment breakfast settles, I’m ready to dive back into the hunt with blood on my teeth and fire in my veins.
Because the world might pretend monsters don’t exist… but I’ll make sure they remember me.
Chapter Ten
Rowan
The days crawl.
Six long, suffocating days of checking Jory’s phone like it’s a fucking detonator waiting to blow.
Six days of refreshing feeds, cross-referencing bank activity, digging through files, chasing shadows connected to men we’re itching to bury. And nothing.
Every night, Berk curls tighter between us—restless, twitchy, that razor-sharp part of her pacing inside her skull. At night I feel her cracking just a little more. Every morning, she wakes up and pretends she’s fine.
She’s not.
None of us are.
But on the morning of day six, while the sun climbs through the blinds like it’s mocking me, Jory’s phone delivers.
One message.
Encrypted.
Short.
Precise.
Pickup.
PO Box 1013.
Thirty minutes.
Ronan freezes halfway through a cup of coffee. Emerson drops whatever he’s holding—a spatula, a fork, who knows—which clatters across the counter.
Berk stands so fast that her chair skids backward across the floor.
My chest tightens, adrenaline hitting like a fist.
“Finally,” Berk whispers. It’s not relief—it’s hunger. A promise. A threat.
Ronan is already strapping his vest on.
“Gear up,” he says, voice low and vibrating with violence. “We’re moving.”
I flip the portable command case open—our mobile brain, our lifeline. Inside, everything gleams. Wireless interceptors, scramblers, our burner system, software Berk built that can skin a digital footprint in seconds.
Emerson loads his gun with cold efficiency, eyes flicking to Berk. “Are we letting the drop go through?”
“We have to,” she answers, tying her hair back in a brutal twist. “We need the entire chain. Sender. Drop. Pickup. Whoever’s running these routes for Dean and Bryce—they’ll be watching.”
Her tone is steady, but her hands tremble. I catch it, but pretend I didn’t.