Chapter 3
TYLER
Florida Coast
Three months ago
STRAPPED UP AND ready, sweat gliding down my back as a murky violet-gray dawn commences, the fading crescent moon peering down on us as the only witness.
The birds begin their scattered songs as if all is right in the world.
Despite the positioning of the men around me, there’s an unnatural stillness in the air—one I’ve become all too familiar with.
I first noticed it during my missions overseas.
It was just as present the morning Dom died.
This stillness is not at all a calm before the storm but an indication of the presence of evil.
That same awareness hit me hard just as we crept through the gate minutes ago, stealthily moving through the heavily manicured and whimsically deceptive grounds to surround the fortress.
Duplicitous to the naked, untrained eye, the exterior looks like something out of a fairy tale—blooming wisteria hanging from archways of expensive wood, trickling fountains surrounded by flowering bushes—but that’s where the illusion ends, at least for me.
Because I know the strategy behind this type of deceit in a way few others do, and what the pattern looks like.
My enemies and I share a commonality in deception for the sole purpose of maintaining our secrets.
Thanks to Dom, I’ve been made privy to more of the secrets kept by our growing number of enemies.
Thrust more thoroughly into the rabbit hole in the year and change since we’ve taken Antoine and his army down.
Full credit to Dom’s torturous legwork; I’ve witnessed the countless evils that have taken place inside the walls of the mansion we’re surrounding.
Walls covered with priceless art and highly polished marble floors flown in from Istanbul.
The other extravagant expenses make up the fraudulent palace—the lie—which commands acknowledgment from those of lesser power.
Those expected to bow to the owners, to receive and regard them as no less than the gods that these delusional fucks believe themselves to be.
But for me, just inside the oversized oak doors, mere feet away, rests the very definition of evil.
Their crimes against humanity are plentiful, the most damning of them cementing my participation in this morning’s raid.
With the lie-encircled secrets Dom left on his laptop for us to uncover along with his task list, he made us privy to the parties guilty of atrocities he had hopes of bringing to light, and for the possibility to both expose and dispose of these types of deity wannabes.
His older brother takes his place opposite me against the arched brick hallway just short of the mansion’s entrance. Tobias was insistent on participating today when I told him I would personally be overseeing the raid to take down these particular monsters.
Heaviness of what we’re about to do fills the still air, emanating throughout the space and bouncing from everyone occupying it.
Though I feel every bit of said heavy rattling inside my head and chest, I continue to play my part and keep my vow to shield those I love and care about from the thoughts I’m having.
A battle that started with my own time behind enemy lines and, more recently, the unveiling of Dom’s task list. A war Dom himself fought every day he kept the information in his mind and close to his chest.
The battle within me is raging daily now, along with my theory, which is rapidly threatening to solidify itself as fact—that we’re not enough.
That we have no fucking way of balancing the scales, let alone shifting their weight in our favor. That we have a very slim chance of winning the battles ahead, let alone the war.
What I suspected as a newly inked bird and budding soldier has become less a suspicion and more of an undeniable truth since I saw the evidence of just how easily this world can fall victim to the most depraved of minds.
The worst part? My dwindling desire to risk it all for a world that collectively seems to no longer give a fuck. Not about the damage they’re doing to each other, let alone anyone suffering at the hands of this type of evil.
Even so, I’ll continue to do my part. To try, as much as possible, to be a beacon of hope, even as my own diminishes. To convince those who are inked and fighting with me to believe that we have a chance of tipping those scales.
Daily, I think about the part my son recently signed up to play and wonder if he’s glimpsed the amount of doubt and fear growing inside me.
I’ve witnessed true evil in my time as a Raven and a soldier, and finally being able to fully combine both roles in these last years has been both freeing and damning.
As that initial high continues to wear off, the reality of what we’re up against has those hopes dwindling by the day because of the sheer amount of evil there is. Of how far it stretches, what it’s gotten away with so far, and for how long.
I was na?ve.
We all have been, but I refuse to point that out to my brothers—especially Tobias, a man who’s worked his whole life to get to this point.
In no way do I want to convey to him that we’re going to need more than just prime real estate in the White House to accomplish what we started so many years ago.
That truth weighs heavily on me as I study Tobias now, uncertain if I should go to him with this or if I should tell him at all. We’re doing what we can, and maybe it will be enough for him. Maybe it should be for me as well.
Deciding I can’t find it inside me to break this to him—at least not today—I do my best to briefly lighten the atmosphere as I take in his appearance.
“How did you already manage to scuff your shiny new boots?”
Tobias’s brows furrow in irritation as he glances down at his recently purchased, flawless black boots. It only takes a second for him to realize I’m busting his balls.
He rolls his eyes at me, lips lifting slightly in amusement as he mutters an “imbecile” under his breath.
His choice of insult draws an instant ache from me, the French lilt around the word taking me back in time, more particularly to a face and image burned into memory.
A sunny day in a former life. At times, it’s fucking torturous having a memory as vivid and as sharp as mine.
Being unable to forget the details can, at times, be a cruel gift.
Thankfully, Russell distracts me, dispersing the image by tossing in his own commentary for Tobias over the line through our earpieces.
“You do look ridiculous, T,” Russell snarks. “Seriously, who in the fuck dresses up for a raid? Please tell me your hair isn’t combed back with product?”
“Fuck you,” Tobias mutters, clearly embarrassed by being called out, his expression riddled with admission.
Because my bougie French brother did, in fact, slick his hair back with product as he dressed for a government raid.
Well, technically, a special ops raid by a legitimate government organization that’s still highly classified.
Something we’ve done our fucking best to protect in recent months with the amount of trash we’ve gathered and disposed of.
We’ve made every effort imaginable to make sure none of it has been televised or reported in any way.
At least not yet. We have a tactical plan for how we’re going to release the information and when.
And only if forced. But since two or three of our raids have been leaked and televised—something that still has me fuming—we might not have a choice.
These fuckers have ways of warning one another, and it doesn’t seem to matter how covert we are.
“My guess is he’s trying to camouflage the fact he’s gained the freshman twenty,” Russell coos.
“Isn’t it freshman fifteen?” I jest.
Tobias snaps his attention to me. “What is that? This freshman twenty?”
Shaking my head at my brother, I can’t help but marvel at just how un-Americanized Tobias is at times.
“The weight you gain when you get comfortable in a new relationship,” Russell happily supplies, and I can’t help but chuckle as Tobias palms his vest while craning his neck to check himself out.
“I wear the same pant size as I always have, connard,” asshole, he snaps.
“Doesn’t matter if you have a dicky-do.”
“Dicky-do?” Tobias poses as a question to me, but our mics are far too advanced to miss even a pin drop.
“It’s when your gut sticks out more than your dicky-do,” Russell quips in answer, pulling a laugh from everyone on the line.
“You still look good, baby,” I coo, giving him an air-kiss pucker of my lips, which earns me a death-threat return stare.
All traces of humor cease when two of our most trusted line up just outside the massive front doors, cueing us in that it’s showtime.
“For Dom.” I intentionally trigger every bird on the line into the heaviness of the moment to regain our collective focus. The shift is instant for Tobias, as his eyes blank out briefly before filling with a familiar determination and fury.
Our earbuds sound with Russell mimicking the same sentiment as he readies himself from where he sits in a control room hundreds of miles away.
One of the few birds I made damn sure flew with me to DC just after Preston won the election.
Now, a little over two years and change into what we can only hope is Preston’s first term, Russell has proven my demand to take him with me was a wise decision.
My most recent request is for Peter to join the fray under Julien’s wing.
Within one slow blink, I clear every imaginable thought to conjure the pocket.
A heartbeat later, I’m in the black, my tunnel vision at the ready.
Every bit of my focus is sharp, intent on my mission as I mentally run through the blueprint of the minutes ahead.
Looking past the faces of the men outside the door who search my person awaiting my signal, I summon the rage I’ve been harboring.
A single hand gesture later, we splinter the doors and unleash hell.
“ATTACK HIM WHERE he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War