No one looks twice. If anyone’s watching at all, we’re just two lovers heading home. But beneath the surface, we’re already vanishing—two predators slipping back into cover.
When we reach the van, Ronan leans over from the driver’s seat with a nod, and Emerson looks back with that expression he gets when he’s already playing out a fight three steps ahead like a chess match.
Before I climb in, I ask quietly, “You good?”
Berk’s jaw shifts, her expression closed off for a beat. Then she nods. “I’m fine. Just calculating.”
We slip into the van, the doors closing with muted thuds.
“They can’t hide behind go-betweens forever,” Emerson says. “Eventually one of these assholes is going to slip.”
“They already did,” Berk counters, lifting her phone. “Riker led us straight to his house on his first run. He’s either cocky or stupid. Either way, he’s useful.”
Ronan starts the engine, pulling us away from the curb. “What’s the plan, Pix?”
Her eyes stay glued to her screen, voice cool as ice. “First, we go home. I need full access to dig deeper into Riker’s financials, employment, and personal contacts. Once I find the gaps—and therewillbe gaps—we grab him.”
I nod. “And then we make him talk.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. “We don’t have time to sit on this for days. Kimber doesn’t have days.”
Silence fills the cab for a long breath before Ronan says what we’re all thinking. “Then tonight… he bleeds.”
Berk exhales slowly, steady and sure, like a blade being drawn from its sheath. “Tonight,” she repeats.
Hours bleed together as we unpack Matthew Riker’s life piece by piece. Berk works like a machine built from rage andbrilliance, leaning toward the screen as line after line of data scrolls past her eyes. Every few minutes she murmurs something under her breath, a curse or a triumphant “there you are,” and each one draws us a little closer to the truth.
By evening, she’s mapped his entire world. Eight years in that quiet little house, a spotless military record in Recon, steady security work afterward, no family, no close friends, nothing remarkable on the surface. A man who disappears into the background so completely he feels built for it.
But the money—that’s where the truth turns foul.
Horizon Logistics payments start small. Clean. Almost harmless. Side-job numbers. Then they scale up—slow at first, the kind that slide past alarms unless you’re paying close attention. Berk was. Now, the recent deposits tell a different story. Bribes layered over blood money. Thirty grand here. Fifty there. Even more last week.
Ronan whistles low under his breath. “He’s definitely in deep.”
Emerson crosses his arms, jaw ticking. “Deep enough that he’s seen things he shouldn’t.”
“And deep enough to talk,” I add, pushing back from the table. “With the right persuasion.”
We all know what that means, and none of us flinch.
Bringing him here isn’t an option. Not to the safe house. Not to any location tied to us or to Berk’s network. Too many people have already suffered because of Dean and Bryce. We won’t risk adding more names to that list. So, the van becomes our temporary black site—steel, shadows, restraints already waiting.
Emerson loads extra ties and gags. Ronan tests one of the new cuffs until it creaks. I check the doors, making sure the reinforcement bars are still holding strong. The place smells like gun oil and vengeance—sharp, metallic, and ready.
Berk wipes down each of her knives one by one, her grin sharpening with each gleam of polished steel. She’s humming again. A soft tune. Almost playful. It’s her hunting song, and it curls heat deep in my stomach.
Ronan catches her smile and bumps her shoulder. “You ready to make someone bleed?”
She kisses one of her blades—actually kisses it—and says, “I’ve been ready for days.”
We move back through a maze of alleyways and side streets, keeping clear of cameras and predictable paths. By the time we slip into Riker’s neighborhood again, the sky has faded to the color of dying embers. Everything is quiet. Too quiet. It’s the kind of street where people keep their heads down and pretend the fractures don’t exist.
But we see all of it.
Berk’s voice is soft when she says, “He hasn’t left since we tailed him. Cameras show zero movement outside the house. He’s in there. Alone.”
We park three houses down. Engine off. Lights cut.