Chapter 4
KANE
The cut wasn't deep.
I sat on the edge of my bathroom sink, tilting my face toward the mirror, examining the split along my cheekbone where Dmitri's first punch had landed.
Clean edges. No jagged tearing. It would close on its own in a few days, leave a thin line that would fade into the collection I'd stopped cataloging years ago.
I dabbed antiseptic along the wound, the sting bright and clarifying.
I'd learned to tend my own injuries at St. Paul's.
The infirmary had been reserved for breaks and concussions—things that might interfere with training.
Everything else, you handled yourself. Bleeding taught you about bodies.
Yours and everyone else's. Where skin was thickest. How much pressure bone could take before it gave.
The difference between pain that stopped you and pain that just reminded you were still alive.
This was the second kind.
I pressed gauze against the cut and taped it down, movements efficient and practiced. My reflection stared back—swollen cheek, bruised ribs visible when I shifted, knuckles raw and split.
Evidence.
I reached for my shirt when the knock came.
Three sharp raps.
I froze.
There shouldn't be a knock.
I paid my landlord monthly, online. No maid service. No deliveries. No one had this address.
Which left one option.
Them.
Adrenaline sharpened everything. I moved silently across the apartment, bare feet soundless on tile, and pulled open the kitchen drawer where I kept a pistol. No need to check. It was ready to fire.
The knock came again.
Louder. More insistent.
I approached the door from the side, angling myself for cover. My finger rested against the trigger guard.
Two options: open the door and put two in their chest, or go out the back window and disappear into Bangkok's maze.
I was weighing which would be faster when a voice came through the door.
"How do you spot a kid from St. Paul's?"
I stopped breathing.
That voice.
The question hung in the air, familiar and impossible. An inside joke from another lifetime. Something only nine people in the world would know.
My throat worked.
"He's the one who thinks sports are for fun."
Silence. Then: "Close enough. I remember it being funnier."
"Humor died at sixteen."
A low chuckle. "Fair."
I lowered the gun and unlocked the door.
Connor Ward stood in the hallway.
Older. Harder around the edges. But unmistakably him—sharp eyes that had tracked threats on the ballfield at St. Paul's, controlled stillness that came from knowing exactly how dangerous you were.
Relief hit like a fist to the chest.
I hadn't realized how much tension I'd been carrying until it released all at once.
"Hello, Kane," Connor said carefully.
I wondered what I looked like to him. Shirtless, bleeding, gun in hand, living in a Bangkok shithole because it was the only place that didn't ask questions.
Before I could think better of it, I stepped across the threshold and pulled him into a hug.
The contact startled us both.
I wasn't a hugger. Hadn't been since before St. Paul's, definitely not after. Physical touch meant vulnerability. Openings.
But something in my chest cracked—just for a second—and I needed proof Connor was real. That I wasn't alone in this. That someone from before still existed.
I released him quickly, covering the moment with a rough clearing of my throat.
"What the hell are you doing in Bangkok?"
Connor's expression softened. "Can I come in?"
I moved aside, letting him enter, then locked the door. Three locks. Deadbolt. Chain.
Old habits.
"Sorry about the ..." I gestured vaguely at my bare chest, the blood-stained gauze.
Connor's eyes swept the apartment—sparse furniture, weapons he'd already cataloged, the bag by the door that never got fully unpacked.
"How'd the fight go?"
"I won."
He smiled faintly. "You always win."
I almost laughed. "What are you doing here, Connor?"
"I'm here to help."
The automatic response rose in my throat—I don't need help. That's what I'd tell anyone else. What I'd been telling myself for years.
But this was Connor.
Connor fucking Ward. The kid who'd sat next to me in that first assembly at St. Paul's when we'd still thought we'd grabbed life by the balls, before we understood we'd been tricked and enslaved. The one who'd held the line when everything went to hell.
My friend.
So, instead I asked, "Is this about St. Paul's?"
"It is."
I waited.
Connor's jaw tightened. "Merrick's dead."
The name landed like a blade between ribs. Merrick. Sadistic prick who'd been a couple years ahead of us, who'd perfected cruelty into an art form.
"Did you kill him?"
"Yes."
"Good."
But that couldn't be the end of it.
Connor shook his head, reading my silence. "St. Paul's didn't disappear. They grew. Part of something bigger now."
I leaned against the counter, arms crossed. "What's that got to do with me?"
He gave me a look—really? Did you really just ask that?
I didn't apologize. Just waited.
Connor exhaled. "There's a place. In Paris. I want you to come."
"I'm fine in Bangkok."
"My assets say they know where you live. Where you fight. It's only a matter of time."
Assets.
I studied him more carefully. Connor had been Navy—SEAL Team Six, last I'd heard. Operators didn't have assets. They were assets.
"Who are your assets?"
Connor's expression shifted into something I couldn't read. "You need to come to Paris to see. Everything will make sense there."
I shook my head. "I'm good here."
"What if you could have whatever asset you needed?" He paused. "What if we could take down St. Paul's together?"
I snorted. "Look how well that worked out before."
His face went serious. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a black card. Matte finish. No visible markings.
He held it out.
I took it.
The moment it touched my hand, the surface flared red—a pulse of light that traveled across the card's face before fading back to black.
I stared. "What the hell?"
"DNA-coded. Only works for you. Credit card. And more."
"More?"
He didn't elaborate. Instead, he pulled out a notecard with an address written in Thai script.
"Private airport. There's a plane waiting."
I looked up sharply. "What is this?"
"Safest way to travel. A car will meet you in Paris. Take you the rest of the way."
"The rest of the way where?"
Connor's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"The Sanctuary."
I waited for him to laugh.
He didn't.
"And then what?"
"Go to the door. Press the bell. When someone answers, say these exact words: I request sanctuary."
Silence stretched between us.
"Is this a joke?"
Connor punched my arm—gentle, brotherly. "No. This is life and death." His expression sobered. "Enjoy the flight. The booze is free. See you in a couple days."
He moved toward the door.
"Connor—"
He paused, hand on the knob, looking back.
A hundred thoughts crowded my throat. I swallowed them, all except one.
"It's good to see you."
Something softened in his eyes. "You, too, brother."
Then he was gone.
I stood there holding a black card and a piece of paper with an address I couldn't read, wondering what the hell had just happened.
But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't good seeing him. More than good.
Proof the Nine still existed. That brotherhood wasn't just trauma. That maybe, somewhere in the wreckage St. Paul's had made of us, something worth saving had survived.
So, what the hell?
Worst case, I got a free trip to Paris.
It took me five minutes to pack.
One duffel. Clothes, cash, three weapons I could travel with, documents I kept in a fireproof box under the bathroom sink. Everything else was replaceable.
Never own anything you couldn't leave behind in under ten minutes.
Bangkok would still be here if I needed it. The city didn't care whether I stayed or left. It would absorb my absence the same way it absorbed my presence—without comment, without judgment.
That's what I loved about it.
I stood in the doorway, bag over my shoulder, taking one last look. Bare walls. Minimal furniture. The kind of place that held no memories because memories meant attachment.
The kind of place a weapon lived.
I closed the door and didn't look back.
The address led me to a private airfield thirty minutes outside the city—low buildings, minimal security.
A man in a dark suit waited by a sleek jet, engines already warming.
He looked at me. I looked at him.
"Mr. Black?"
I nodded.
"This way."
No questions. No paperwork. No security screening.
Just a gesture toward the stairs.
I climbed.
The interior was obscene—leather seats, polished wood, enough space for twelve though I was apparently the only passenger. A bottle of expensive whiskey sat on a side table with a note: For the flight. —C
I dropped my bag and sank into a seat by the window.
The engines roared. The jet began to move.
I watched Bangkok shrink beneath me—neon lights blurring into patterns, streets becoming tributaries, the whole chaotic beautiful mess compressing into something small enough to hold in memory.
Then we climbed above the clouds, and it disappeared.
I poured three fingers of Connor's whiskey and leaned back.
Paris.
The Sanctuary.
I request sanctuary.
It sounded like something out of a movie.
But Connor had been serious. And Connor didn't joke about survival.
I took a slow sip, letting the burn settle.
Whatever waited in Paris, I'd handle it the same way I handled everything else: assess the threat, kill anyone who got in my way, survive.
I'd been doing it since I was sixteen years old.
I wasn't about to stop now.
Outside, the sky stretched endless and dark, stars scattered like broken glass across black silk.
I closed my eyes and let the engines carry me toward whatever came next.