Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
ANGELICA
The warehouse smelled like oil and steel, the air thick with tension and something darker—something unspoken. The men moved around me, their voices clipped, their steps quick, but they never looked at me for too long.
Not Silas.
Not Theo.
Not Jude.
I was invisible to them now, except for the moments they needed to remind me I wasn’t one of them anymore.
Silas leaned against a rusted metal table, a cigarette burning between his fingers.
His other hand rested against his ribs, the place where I had stapled his wound shut, but if it still hurt, he wouldn’t show it.
His eyes flickered between the men giving reports, his mind elsewhere—distant, calculating, dangerous.
Not once did those dark, haunting stares ever drift to me. It was almost like he’d convinced himself I no longer breathed the same air he did…almost like I wasn’t the one he wanted.
Or cared about.
Theo was worse. He barely even acknowledged me. I still smelled of him. Still, felt his savagery on my body.
And Jude… Jude just watched. Too careful. Too controlled.
I crossed my arms, pressing my back against the cold steel of a storage container. My stomach twisted as the weight of their distrust settled deeper into my bones. I had spent my whole life fighting to be a part of them. And now? Now I was just watching them move around me like I didn’t belong.
Maybe I didn’t? Maybe I was just a ghost in their life. A problem they never truly wanted and now they’ve finally made up their minds, I wasn’t worth a second of their attention at all. It sure felt like it.
I pushed off the wall and started walking, heading deeper into the darkness.
One of the men stalked in from outside, his radio crackling. His expression was sharp with unease. “We’re still missing three guys. No contact.”
I stopped, then slowly turned around.
Silas didn’t move. He just inhaled slowly, the cherry of his cigarette burning bright. “They’re dead.”
The words hit like a slap, flat and final.
Theo cursed under his breath and pushed off the crate he had been leaning against. “How the fuck did we not see this coming?”
No one answered.
Because there wasn’t an answer.
Jude exhaled sharply, rubbing his hand over his jaw, but his gaze flickered in my direction—just for a second.
I swallowed past the knot in my throat, feeling the weight of that glance like a silent accusation.
Because that’s what they all thought, wasn’t it?
That this had started with me.
Maybe they were right.
The radio crackled again, and this time, the voice on the other end was different—strangled, barely above a whisper.
“We’ve got bodies,” the man murmured. “Three. Could be more.”
The tension in the warehouse cracked like ice.
I barely had time to process the words before Theo slammed his fist against the side of a steel shelving unit with a boom! The metal rattling from the impact. “How the fuck did they get this close?”
Still, no one had an answer.
Gabe stepped forward, slow, deliberate. “They’re testing us.”
The words sent a sharp chill through my spine.
Testing us.
Pushing, inching closer, waiting for us to break.
An icy chill slithered down my spine.
Jude stopped pacing. His gaze flicked toward the warehouse entrance, then back toward me. There was something there— something unreadable in his eyes—but before I could place it, he looked away.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. My pulse was too loud in my ears, the weight of everything pressing down harder, suffocating.
Silas had said we needed to move. That the house wasn’t safe. But was anywhere?
The radio crackled again, this time with something quieter. More urgent.
I couldn’t hear the exact words, but I saw the way Gabe’s expression changed.
Saw the way Theo went still.
Saw the way Jude’s fingers flexed at his sides.
And then Gabe turned toward me, his expression grim, his voice edged with something cold.
“They took someone.”
Took. Someone?
What did that even mean?
The moment I asked myself the question, images of blood and terror surfaced.
The world tilted.
I stepped forward, my stomach twisting. “Who?”
His gaze met mine, sharp as a blade.
“Penn Hargreaves.”
Penn?
As in my Penn?
“What?” I didn’t understand. My mind struggled to keep up.
Silence settled over the warehouse like a storm about to break.
Penn was gone.
The words still hung in the air, suspended between us, crackling with something thick and wrong.
Theo was the first to react. His body jerked like a live wire, rage sharpening his every movement. “The fuck do you mean they took him? The Cartel?”
No one answered right away. Gabe was staring at the ground, jaw tight, and Jude had gone still. Too still.
Silas barely moved. His face was unreadable, but I could see it—the way his fingers curled slightly, the way his breathing slowed like he was working through the pieces of a puzzle he didn’t like the shape of.
“They don’t just take people,” Theo snapped, turning sharply toward Silas. “Why the fuck would they take him?”
Jude exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over his mouth, his brows drawn together in something close to frustration. “It doesn’t make sense.”
I shifted, my stomach twisting. He was right. None of this made sense.
The Cartel didn’t take people alive. They killed them. Quickly, brutally, without hesitation. A bullet to the head. A knife to the throat.
But they had taken Penn. Alive.
Gabe moved first, his voice low and careful. “Unless he saw something.”
Silas’ head snapped up. “What?”
Gabe’s expression darkened. “What if all this wasn’t about him?”
A sharp silence fell over the group.
My pulse spiked, my hands curling into fists as I forced myself to breathe evenly.
Silas’ gaze narrowed, his thoughts running too fast for the rest of us to keep up.
Gabe kept going, his voice controlled but deliberate. “What if they took him because he saw something he wasn’t supposed to?”
A heavy pause.
Something shifted in the room, something dangerous.
Theo let out a slow, measured breath. “If that’s true, then what the fuck did he see?”
No one had an answer.
The weight of the realization pressed down, suffocating. It wasn’t just that Penn was gone—it was why he was gone.
This wasn’t a demand.
This wasn’t about leverage.
This was a message.
I glanced around the warehouse, to the men armed with guns and a savage look of survival. And suddenly, it was obvious.
They hadn’t taken Penn because they wanted him.
They had taken him because they wanted us to know they could.
“We should contact London St. James.” Jude murmured.
There was a beat of silence.
I turned toward Jude, barely suppressing my surprise. He’d always been the least vocal of the brothers, but when he spoke, everyone listened.
Even Silas.
Especially Silas.
Theo let out a sharp laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
Jude arched a brow. “We need resources. Manpower. Someone who knows how to move outside the Cartel’s reach.” He shrugged. “We’re running out of options.”
A slow, creeping unease settled in my stomach.
Because he wasn’t wrong. London St. James—the man who destroyed the Order, moved in circles of power even beyond our family’s reach—could help us.
And yet…
There was something about the way Jude suggested it. Something in the way his fingers flexed at his sides. Excitement.
I saw it. Felt it.
And so did Silas.
“No,” Silas said, his voice cutting through the room. “We handle this ourselves.”
Jude’s jaw tensed. It was subtle. So goddamn subtle. But it was there.
For the first time, I saw it. The shift. The crack beneath the surface.
Once I saw it…I couldn’t look away.
Silas’ fingers flexed at his sides. The tension in his body was unreadable, but I felt it in my bones.
“We need to move.” Theo murmured, glancing from one brother to the other.
Silas nodded once, sharp, decisive. “Yeah we do…and now.”
The finality in his voice sent a chill through me.
Whatever had started tonight—we were already too late to stop it.
The warehouse pulsed with tension, thick and suffocating. The men moved with precision, setting up a perimeter, reinforcing exits, checking their weapons. Orders were issued, plans solidified, but I wasn’t a part of any of it.
I was watching. Always watching.
Like an outsider looking in.
I stood near the edge of the room, arms wrapped around myself, my breath slow and measured as I tried to block out the weight of their distrust pressing against my skin.
Jude had vanished outside, his suggestion about London St. James still lingering in the air. I had seen the way Silas had shut him down. The way his shoulders had gone stiff, the way his fingers twitched at his sides before he masked it under his usual calm.
Jude didn’t usually react like that.
And that meant something.
Theo was still fuming, pacing near the back of the warehouse, barking orders at the men like he was barely holding himself together.
Silas was silent, watching everything, his eyes dark and unreadable.
And then there was Gabe.
He wasn’t standing with the others. He was closer to me, near the stacks of crates, running a hand over his face like he was trying to shake off the weight pressing down on all of us.
I swallowed, shifting slightly, my boots scraping against the floor.
His head turned. His gaze landed on me.
And for a moment, we just stood there.
He was the only one who wasn’t treating me like I was poison, the only one who hadn’t let his anger consume him completely. Maybe it was because he had always been different from the others—softer in ways the rest of them weren’t.
Or maybe I was just desperate for any kind of warmth.
I took a hesitant step toward him. Then another.
He didn’t move, didn’t back away, but his jaw tightened slightly, a flicker of something in his expression that I couldn’t quite read.
I stopped a breath away from him. Close enough to feel the heat of him, close enough to see the tension in his shoulders.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.
He exhaled slowly, tilting his head slightly, watching me with something unreadable in his gaze. “Maybe you can’t.”
The words hit harder than I expected, but I didn’t pull away. I reached out instead, my fingers brushing against his wrist, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my touch.
His breath hitched. Just slightly.
I looked up at him, my pulse pounding, and for a split second, I saw it.
The hesitation. The war inside him. The way his gaze dropped to my lips before snapping back up.
He wanted this.
He didn’t want to want it.
But he did.
I took another step closer, my chest brushing against his. “Gabe…”
His hand twitched like he was about to grab me. Like he wanted to pull me in, like he wanted to break the space between us.
But then?—
“Shouldn’t you be with the others?”
Jude’s voice cut through the air, sharp and knowing.
I pulled back immediately, my stomach twisting. Gabe’s entire body went rigid.
Jude stood near the entrance, watching us with that same unreadable expression. The flickering light above cast shadows across his face, and for a second, I could have sworn I saw something almost smug in his eyes.
Gabe took a slow step back, putting distance between us.
The moment shattered.
Jude didn’t move, didn’t react, just waited.
I turned and walked away before either of them could see the way my hands were shaking.
The air inside the warehouse felt thicker—like the walls were closing in, like something was crawling beneath my skin. The silence stretched, tight and suffocating.
And then?—
Gunfire .
The first shot cracked through the air, shattering the uneasy quiet. Then another. And another. The warehouse exploded into chaos as bullets slammed into the walls, into the steel crates, ricocheting with deafening force.
A cry ripped from my lips.
Someone shouted—Gabe or Theo or maybe Silas—but I didn’t hear the words. I was already moving, throwing myself behind a stack of crates as the gunfire ripped through the warehouse like a storm.
Screams .
The sickening crunch of bodies hitting the ground.
The sharp, acrid scent of blood and gunpowder filled my nose.
I peeked around the edge of the crates, my heart pounding. The cartel wasn’t holding back this time. They moved in from the open bay doors—fast, ruthless, brutal.
One of our men went down, a bullet tearing through his throat. He dropped without a sound, his blood splattering across the concrete floor. Another staggered back, clutching his stomach, eyes wide with shock before his legs gave out.
We were losing men too fast.
Silas was already on his feet, his body protesting but his fury keeping him upright. He raised his gun, his movements sharp despite the bloodstains on his shirt. He fired—two clean shots.
A cartel man collapsed. Another stumbled before Theo finished him with a ruthless blow.
But there were more. Too many.
I pressed my back against the crate, forcing myself to breathe. Gabe was near the loading dock, his knife flashing in the dim light as he buried it into a man’s chest. He ripped it free, blood arcing through the air before he turned to the next.
Another gunshot rang out—close. Too close.
I twisted just in time to see a man lunging for me. My pulse spiked. I barely managed to duck, his blade slicing the air where my throat had been a second before. I scrambled back, hands slipping against the bloodstained floor, panic surging in my veins.
He was on me in an instant, grabbing my wrist, dragging me forward. I fought, kicking, twisting, but his grip was ironclad.
And then—a gunshot.
The cartel man’s head snapped back. Blood sprayed, hot and sickening, across my arm.
I gasped as his body dropped.
Silas stood behind him, gun still raised, his expression dark with fury.
“Move,” he snapped, his voice cutting through the chaos.
I pushed up on shaking legs, but the moment I stepped forward—I saw it
The cartel men weren’t advancing anymore.
The bodies on the ground—their own men—hadn’t mattered to them.
Because this attack wasn’t about winning.
No… it felt more than that.
Like the attack wasn’t their purpose at all. I sucked in the fetid, terror-stained air and tried to think. Not an attack…then what was it? A distraction.
The realization struck like ice through my veins. My breath stilled.
Silas knew it too. I saw it in the way his eyes darkened, in the way his fingers curled tighter around his gun.
And then he turned sharply, his voice deadly quiet beneath the ringing silence.
“We’re not safe,” he said. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Marco hesitated. “And go where?”
Silas exhaled slowly, his jaw tightening.
The weight of the moment settled over all of us, pressing down, squeezing, suffocating.
And deep down, I knew—we were exactly where they wanted us to be.