“Inside,” he says.
The main room has been converted into an operations center. Screens on every surface — satellite imagery, traffic camera feeds, communications intercepts. And in the middle of it, cross-legged in a chair too big for her, three laptops open, a bag of chips balanced on a stack of printouts, a woman who can only be Mara Jones.
“You must be Briar.” Green eyes, sharp face, a grin that doesn’t match the gravity of the room. The tips of her dark hair are bright blue. “I’m Mara. I’ve been stalking your boyfriend’s kidnappers through the Texas Department of Transportationtraffic camera network for the last fourteen hours, and I have to say, the Syndicate’s operational security is embarrassing. They drove a black van through three toll plazas without covering the plates. Three. It’s like they’ve never heard of E-ZPass.”
“Can you find him?”
“I can find the van. Which I have. It entered a private road system outside Laredo at approximately six p.m. yesterday, after which it vanished from public camera coverage because, shockingly, drug cartels and shadow organizations don’t install traffic cameras on their private roads.” She crunches a chip. “But I cross-referenced the location against Syndicate facility records that Vanya very helpfully stole from the Ivory League before she quit, and guess what sits twelve miles outside Laredo on a private road system that matches the van’s last known trajectory.”
“A facility.”
“A converted meatpacking plant that the Syndicate acquired through a shell company nine years ago. Twelve buildings on the county assessor’s records. Utility consumption patterns consistent with a facility running full climate control and high-draw electrical equipment — which, in Syndicate terms, means detention and research.” She spins a laptop toward me. Satellite image. Low industrial buildings surrounded by fencing. “Meet your boyfriend’s new address.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Right. He’s your… What’s the wolf term? Also mate, like the dragons use? The one who left that huge freaking mark on your neck? That guy?”
My fingers instinctively move to my neck, where I no longer bother to button my shirt.
Conner makes a sound behind me. Half cough, half something else.
“Mara.” Caleb’s voice. Mild.
“I’m being helpful. Information delivery is my love language.” She turns back to her screens. “Anyway. Facility confirmed. Vanya’s been marking up the blueprints.”
Vanya is at the table. Pale hair, pale eyes, the kind of beauty that cuts. She’s working through facility blueprints with a red pen, crossing out sections, circling others.
“Three buildings relevant to detention,” she says without looking up. “The main processing plant houses the holding wing. Sub-level. Concrete construction, reinforced. The layout matches four other Syndicate facilities we have records of.” She circles something. “Stairwell access here. Northeast corner.”
Jericho is at the far wall. Arms crossed. The stillness of a man who spent decades inside the organization he’s helping dismantle. Nadia beside him — not touching, but close. She nods at me. I nod back.
“Guard complement,” Merric says.
“Thirty to forty based on comms traffic,” Mara says. “I’ve been intercepting their shift-change communications. They use encrypted radios, which is adorable because the encryption is military-grade from 2019, and I cracked it on the plane ride here.”
“Against our team of twelve,” Rook says from the doorway, where he’s been listening.
“Thirteen.” Kael’s voice. He comes in through the back. He’s not what I expected. The stories say Dragon King. What I see is a man whose presence makes the air feel heavier, and who sits down at the table like he has to displace magic to do it.
Mara’s expression changes when he enters. The attention of a woman who loves someone powerful enough that his presence in an operation creates a specific kind of danger.
“Babe! You’re reserve,” she tells him. “We discussed this.”
“I’m here. If things go wrong, I’m available.”
“If things go wrong and the Syndicate gets their hands on you, Viktor will have my head. And then yours. And then probably mine again for good measure.”
“Viktor doesn’t have jurisdiction over my decisions.”
“Viktor has jurisdiction over everyone’s decisions. That’s literally his job description.” She turns to Caleb. “Tell him.”
“She’s right,” Caleb says. “You’re reserve. The Syndicate has been trying to acquire you since before you woke up. Walking into one of their facilities is exactly what they’d want.”
“Which is why I’m reserve and not point.” Kael settles into his chair. “But if your extraction team runs into something they can’t handle, having a four-hundred-year-old dragon sitting in a car a mile away is better than not having one.”
Nobody argues with that. Because he’s right, and because arguing with Kael when he’s decided something is apparently a universal experience that everyone in this room has already had and lost.
Dorian Craven arrives an hour later. Louder than his twin.