“I hope you did more than just talk,” Elliot said, popping an olive in his mouth as he joined them. “You need to get laid. You’ve been wound tighter than Davey for months.”
“I’m not wound tight,” Davey grumbled.
“Yeah, you are,” Dom and Elliot said at the same time.
“Granted, less so now that you have Rowan,” Elliot added before turning back to Dom and pointing a finger at his nose. “That’s what you need. Your own Rowan or Rue.” He studied Dom for a moment, then grinned. “But I’m thinking you and Vivi already worked out some of that tension. It would explain why you’re not bouncing off the walls despite the clusterfuck we’re in.”
“Fuck off,” Dom muttered, though there wasn’t much heat behind it.
Davey cleared his throat. “For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked her for you. And you deserve to be happy.”
Dom scoffed and jostled his older brother’s shoulder with his own. “Marriage has made you sappy, bro.”
“Yeah,” Davey said softly, “maybe.”
Across the room, Weston was still annoying Griffin. Liam and Bridger were still bickering in sign language. And Vivi was deep in conversation with Tessa. Probably discussing Sabin’s injuries, judging by Tessa’s focused expression and occasional nod. No doubt Tessa was already planning treatment options. It’s what she did—prepared for every medical contingency so that when shit inevitably hit the fan, she’d be ready.
Dom sat back and soaked it all in. The familiar banter steadied him in a way nothing else could. This was his constant. The immovable center of his universe.
His people.
His team.
His family.
For a moment, it felt like they were untouchable. Like whatever was coming next didn’t stand a chance against them.
Dom let himself believe it.
He needed to.
Just for tonight.
twenty-one
The salt-laden windslapped Vivi’s face as she and Dom rounded the corner of the abandoned warehouse. Her dress shoes clicked against cracked concrete, the sound swallowed by the crash of waves against the nearby shore. In her ear, the comms unit buzzed softly with Griffin’s voice: “Thermal showing six targets inside.”
Six targets. She didn’t like that phrase.
What if one of those figures was Sabin, and they mistook him for a target?
“Remember,” Davey’s voice came through the earpiece, “the moment they verify the contents, Daphne starts the hack. Fifteen minutes until systems go down.”
Dom’s hand found hers in the darkness, squeezing once before letting go. The brief contact steadied her, though she’d never admit it. The titanium case containing their fake Lazarus Protocol hung from his other hand, swinging slightly with each step.
“Ready?” he asked, voice low enough that only she could hear.
No. She wasn’t ready to face Malcolm Raines again. Wasn’t ready to see what they’d done to her brother. But she nodded anyway, because ready or not, Sabin needed her.
The warehouse loomed ahead, a hulking shadow against the moonlit sky. Rusted metal supports jutted from crumbling concrete walls like the ribcage of some long-dead beast. Most of the windows had shattered years ago, leaving jagged teeth of glass in rotting frames. The place reeked of neglect and salt and old fish.
At the main entrance, a single bulb cast sickly yellow light across the threshold. Moths fluttered around it in frantic orbits, casting erratic shadows on the ground. Vivi’s skin crawled. The setup was too perfect, too isolated, too easy to monitor and control.
“I don’t like this,” she murmured.
“We knew it would be a trap,” Dom replied quietly. “Just not what kind.”
They stepped through the doorway into a cavernous space. Their footsteps echoed off bare concrete walls and the high, exposed ceiling. Industrial lights hung on chains, creating pools of harsh brightness separated by deep shadow. The air inside was stagnant, tainted with rust and mildew and something metallic that might have been blood.