White Ravens (Ravens #3)

Chapter One

Black Ravens

Meridian

The Pacific air tasted like copper and salt.

Meridian crouched low on the perimeter wall of the cliffside villa, pausing to allow the night’s darkness to consume him.

Ten acres of imported marble, onyx, and triple-paned bulletproof glass sprawled down the rocky terrain until it reached the surf—a luxurious fortress of corrupted wealth.

The frigid wind pushed his hood against his cheek but couldn’t cool the heat that lived under his skin.

Always to his right, his partner, Ex, lay still on the slate roof—one shadow melded into another—watching the patrol pacing beneath them.

“Four outside,” their handler, Corvo, informed them through their undetectable earpieces.

Meridian listened to the timing of the guards’ boots hitting the cobblestone. Counted the cadence of their inhalations and cataloged the exhales. They were both distracted in the way boredom made most perimeter security officers. Not enough discipline and too much confidence behind the high walls.

One was tall and gaunt with sunken cheeks. The other was short, thick-necked, and carried too much weight. The last two seemed younger in the way they kept shifting their rifles as if they didn’t know what to do with them.

Ex brushed his gloved hand twice over his forearm: Ready.

Meridian answered with one tap: Go.

And the two men separated like oil meeting water.

Ex ghosted across the roof in a blur, as Meridian slid to the edge, and dropped silently onto the landing.

The tall one turned his head a fraction too late.

Meridian slammed his palm over the startled man’s mouth, raised his head to expose his slim throat, then unsheathed, sliced, and ended.

His Sakimaru, stiletto, double-edged dagger—Whisper—rested comfortably in his palm, a thirty-inch stalker that never made a sound.

The body fell to his feet, and Meridian stepped over it, as if what he’d done wasn’t murder, but just removing an obstacle from his path.

Across the patio, Ex appeared behind his mark’s back. In two swift moves, he gripped the younger guy’s jaw, cupped his other hand across the back of the neck, and wrenched it hard to the left, snapping the bone like dry timber.

He lowered the officer’s lanky body into the shrubbery as if he’d simply fallen asleep.

Meridian was already behind the pudgy one, who had the audacity to be scrolling on his phone. Unaware and unprepared. He deserved death.

He wrapped him in a chokehold that cut his voice, then his breath. Five seconds of resisting, ten until the pulse slowed, twenty to be sure before he let go.

The fourth one turned and Ex was there, blade in hand, and delivered one upward puncture beneath the rib cage. The guard’s last breath left his throat in a wet question of confusion.

The entrance to the villa was a display of indulgent taste bought with dirty money. Everything shone and reflected. Thankfully, his hood cut the shimmering down to a tolerable annoyance.

A long hallway, overcrowded with abstract art, led to a great room. Music mixed with the laughter and the moans of women came from somewhere deeper inside.

They crept in silence across the imported rugs, their heads on a swivel despite the confirmation from their handler that no other guards were present inside.

They paused at the archway of the primary suite, that had a sitting area and a massive bed on a raised platform covered in silk linens and naked women.

Their mark, Graham Graves—a prior Ravens investor, arms dealer, and plague in the US—lounged in the center of the bed, eyes closed, with his arms wrapped around two women’s waists, his mouth full of another woman’s breast, and the fourth kneeling between his legs.

The fifth was circling the floor and filming everything on her phone as if directing a porno.

Meridian stepped in first. Hood low, face concealed, Whisper back in the hidden compartment of his knee-length black armored trench.

He entered the room and let his mere existence do the introduction.

Ex walked in behind him, going toward the French doors that opened onto a balcony and checked each corner.

The woman filming gaped at him before she asked shakily, “Who’s that?”

Graham opened his eyes. When he saw Meridian, he didn’t answer her question—fear always stole the first words.

“Out,” Ex gritted at the women. “Drop the phone and leave. Do not turn around.”

The tone his partner used conveyed they should either obey or forfeit any chance of making it out of there alive.

The phone hit the rug. The women didn’t bother to search for their clothes. They wrapped their arms around their privates as they took wary steps toward the door.

Meridian stepped aside and allowed them to pass.

Graham swung his legs over the side of the bed and found Ex already in front of him. He pressed the barrel of his Glock in the center of his sternum and guided him back down.

“Stay there,” he ordered.

He stayed.

Meridian cut off the music.

“Do you know who we are?” he asked in a low voice.

Graham’s breath stuttered. “I’ve, um…I’ve heard…stories.”

“Of course you have,” he said, glaring. “Then you must’ve also heard that I don’t enjoy repeating myself or being fucked with.”

He glanced past him, noting the alarm panel on the headboard, the 9mm on top of the nightstand that Graham had glanced toward twice already.

“Don’t,” Meridian said calmly.

He didn’t.

Ex moved around the room, hood low, searching for anything usable, before he stopped in front of the safe concealed behind a painting and took a few pictures to send to their intelligence officer.

Meridian sat on the arm of the chaise, close enough so Graham could feel how near he was to danger.

He clasped Whisper’s onyx handle and unsheathed her the way a viper would reveal its fangs.

He let the blade rest flat against Graham’s naked thigh, the tip terrifyingly close to his flaccid cock. Meridian felt a tremor run through the muscle and radiate up the steel into his palm.

His mark’s eyes blew wide. “Wh—what do you want?”

“Everything,” Meridian said. “But we’ll start small.”

“What was your affiliation with the Ravens organization?”

Graham swallowed. “I was only an investor. I didn’t do anything, I swear it. I was never allowed inside.”

That was a lie. Footage recovered before the servers were destroyed showed Graham having multiple meetings with other investors and the former director inside the headquarters.

Meridian slid his dagger up an inch, making Graham’s breath hitch.

He leaned in, his voice so low and calm it almost sounded kind.

“If you lie to me again, I’ll make sure the last thing you experience is your brain trying to remember how to scream.”

Meridian shot his gloved hand up, clamped it around Graham’s throat, and pushed his thumb and index finger into the trigger points until tears flood Graham’s eyes.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

Graham answered with a tight nod.

“Now, let’s start again, shall we?” Meridian shifted his weight. “What was your investment supposed to get you?”

“The connections the organization had with certain agencies. To, y’know, keep the feds off my back and out of my business.

And a new set of Ravens that would eliminate my competition.

The director didn’t say it, but a lot of us knew that you two and the other Ravens were all uncontrollable.

” He swallowed. “We were told the new ones would be loyal, and work for us.”

“Move on to the Whites,” Corvo spoke in his ear.

“These new Ravens… Where’d they come from?” he asked next.

“They were ex-cons, gang members, I think.”

“Names,” Ex said.

“Scar Calloway and Gage Harrington. Both were serving time in prison.” Graham blinked. “Why don’t you guys already know this? I mean, aren’t—”

Meridian moved faster than Graham’s next breath. Whisper spoke, carving a clean, shallow line across Graham’s cheek.

Meridian wasn’t angry… yet.

“You don’t ask the questions,” he said. “You answer them.”

As blood ran down Graham’s jaw, he cupped both hands over his junk, as if he were afraid his balls would be next.

Meridian rested his dagger’s edge just below Graham’s chin, waiting for his next mistake.

“I wasn’t given a whole lot of info on them, only what was public knowledge. The director was careful like that.” Graham’s lips trembled. “Scar and Gage were from rival crews in Chicago. One South Side, the other West.”

Meridian’s tone cooled another five degrees. “Which gangs?”

“South Side Kings and the 13th Ward Hustlers. The most vicious ones,” Graham muttered, no longer able to hold back his tears.

Ex sucked his teeth as Meridian rolled his eyes.

Goddamn crybaby.

“Was it the director who got them out of prison?”

“Yes. I mean, I think.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Whisper kissed the other cheek.

“I don’t know… I swear!” Graham sobbed. “The director shut everything down. Gage and Scar wouldn’t cooperate. That’s what we were told. The scientists couldn’t get their shit right and the experiments didn’t work, so all of us lost our goddamn money when the director disappeared.”

When Meridian killed him.

“All of us?” Ex stood beside him now. “Who’s us?”

“Fuck if I know, man. I think there was a CEO from a pharmaceutical firm. A few politicians, cartel lords, smugglers, black-market brokers.” Graham bared his teeth. “We didn’t exactly have dinner parties to get to know each other.”

Meridian flicked his wrist and opened Graham’s lower lip with a clean surgical cut.

“If I were you, I’d be more mindful of the slick shit that comes out of my mouth,” Ex warned.

Blood mixed with spit and tears as Graham clutched his mouth, trying to hold his lip together.

“Transport ETA, two minutes,” Corvo informed.

The women had been gone six minutes. They could’ve contacted the authorities by now. They had to wrap this up.

“What’s the code to the safe?”

Graham hesitated, looking more afraid than he had during the interrogation, which meant the truth to the rest of the lies was inside it.

“Say the numbers, and I’ll make it fast,” Meridian gritted. “Drag this out…”

Graham spilled the code.

Ex keyed in the numbers and slid the door open.

Inside were bundles of cash wrapped in elastic bands, multiple passports, vacuum-sealed blocks of white powder, and bingo—a neat row of thumb drives and an armored laptop.

He and Ex would leave with more than they came for. They always did.

“I was only an investor,” Graham said weakly. “It was just business.”

“No, it’s always more than that…until I arrive,” Meridian said. “And then it’s just business.”

He removed his hood and waited for the man to meet his eyes. When he finally did, Meridian let him see the ledger that lived within his glare—every life taken, every debt repaid.

It was time for Graham Graves to settle his own account.

His tears rained faster as he fell to his knees at Meridian’s feet, hands steepled together as if it were God judging him and not the devil.

“I’ll leave the country immediately. Tonight, I swear. I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

Meridian cocked his head as if he were confused. “I know you won’t. Dead men can’t talk.”

He left Graham flat on his back, eyes wide, the shock barely registering before he’d drawn his last breath.

He’d kept his word. The death had been swift.

He and Ex rushed to the helipad where their black stealth helicopter waited, blades still spinning.

As the aircraft lifted from the villa’s rooftop, climbing toward the clouds, the mansion exploded from the charges they’d set around the perimeter. It detonated in perfect sequence until it looked as if the night had been set on fire.

Ex stood in front of him, hood pushed back, face streaked with sweat and blood.

He’d never looked more beautiful.

“Mere,” Ex whispered.

Meridian studied him—the only person who could reach the part of him not overtaken by evil.

The helicopter banked sharply, Ex’s shoulder hit his, and Meridian caught him, steadying him before he pulled him into his chest. Ex leaned into the touch, gazing up at him as if he were his entire world.

He removed his glove and brushed his thumb along Ex’s jaw, wiping away a streak of crimson.

“You’re bleeding,” he murmured.

Ex’s mouth twitched in a near-smile. “It’s not mine.”

“Well done, fellas,” Corvo noted. “See you stateside.”