Chapter 6 Sterling
Sterling
I don’t realize my hands are shaking until the paper crumples in my hands.
The words blur together. Fragments of sentences hit me, jagged and sharp. Each word’s worse than the last. Every single letter tears through me.
From the notes, I learn Elle’s from a criminal family. Drug production. Taken during a house fire. Any police station or firehouse involved paid off.
Clo put her through surgeries. Some necessary, some to change her appearance. Skin grafts for burns. Rhinoplasty to change her nose shape. Iris depigmentation to turn her eyes from a deep brown to a glassy sea blue.
My chest tightens, air barely filling my lungs. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. This is worse than I thought. So much damn worse.
I stand there, frozen. There’s a place in my past I swore I’d never return to, dust-covered and sealed for a reason. Pages I buried. If the truth’s in them, I already know what I’ll find. And I don’t know what’s worse—that I didn’t see it then, or that I might have and turned away anyway.
Clo did this. Clo’s been doing this. To Elle. And I let it happen. How the fuck did I miss it? Why did I convince myself it was over, when I knew better?
The room spins.
Mirrors catch me at every angle. All fractured and eerily infinite. Versions of me with blood on their hands and panic in their eyes.
I grip the desk hard, trying to breathe through it, trying to anchor myself into focus, but the floor feels like it’s tilting.
Focus. Fucking focus.
I shove the folder into my jacket, forcing myself into action. Clo probably expects me to break down—wants it, even. But she has no idea what she’s unleashed.
A sound outside reaches me from here. Tires on gravel, approaching fast. It’s Clo’s car coming back.
I snap into motion, adrenaline burning through the numbness. I grab as many files as I can, stuffing them hastily into my jacket, under my arms, in my hands. Papers slip through my fingers, scattering across the floor. I ignore them.
No time. Need to move.
Heart pounding, I rush toward the hole in the floor.
I drop down into the crawl space, landing roughly.
I scramble forward through darkness, files pressed tight against me. My mind races, anger boiling, desperation clawing at me.
I don’t know exactly what Clo’s planning, but now I know some. And I know I’ll tear her world apart before I let her keep Elle.
***
I don’t stop moving.
The papers dig into my sides as I rush through the hidden passageways, my breath tight, my steps quick but precise.
These walls have always been my refuge and my prison.
I used to hide here as a boy, pressing my back against the cold stone, waiting for Clo to lose interest in her latest game of making me feel less than, like my existence was a sin.
Now, I run through these corridors, gripping stolen secrets in my hands, racing against time before she even realizes I’m gone.
The flickering lights above cast jagged shadows as I navigate the maze. I know every twist, every turn, every loose brick that can be used to slip further into the dark. My fingers skim along the uneven walls, counting the familiar ridges until I find the right one—an exit only Kai and I ever used.
I push against the panel, and it gives way, revealing a narrow gap leading outside.
Fresh air rushes into my lungs when I emerge onto the overgrown path behind the estate, my hidden parking spot only a few yards away. My car sits where I left it.
I pop the door open, tossing the folders onto the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel. My fingers twitch against the ignition.
Gotta get out. Now.
The engine purrs to life, and I don’t waste another second. Gravel spits from beneath the tires as I back out, maneuvering onto the narrow road leading away from the estate.
The moment I hit the main road, I push the accelerator down, letting the speed pull me forward, letting that haunted mansion disappear in the rearview mirror.
I should feel relief. But my pulse is still hammering, my grip tight on the wheel. My mind is too full. Elle. The files. Clo.
The lines of the road blur while I drive toward my safe house, a secluded space buried on the outskirts of the city.
My knuckles are white on the wheel, my mind spinning too fast. I take the next turn too hard, tires screeching as the Valkyrie slices through the curve.
I should be thinking about my next move.
I should be planning. But my thoughts aren’t on the files.
They aren’t on Clo. They’re on old memories that flood my mind.
The only mission I failed. The family involved in it. My first mistake. The same shame I feel right now, the way control slips away from me.
It was my first failed mission—not one as a mercenary—but one as a boy who still believed there was a chance to earn his mother’s love. By killing as she instructed. By killing the target she saw as competition.
A father, corrupt and dirty. A mother who knew and let it happen. And their kids. Teenagers. Around the same age as me at the time.
Blood, screams, eyes. Eyes of horror. Fear. Disgust. Fuck!
I have to stop. Not just the car—my mind. It’s scattering.
I pull off onto a dirt path just a few miles from my safe house, killing the engine before I grip the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather groan under my fingers. My breath is shallow, too fast. My head’s a fucking mess.
Focus. But I can’t. The memories are bleeding through.
That night. The father begged first. Then the mother fought back. Then their kids—teenagers. Not much younger than I was. They saw. The way their parents stuttered through apologies, clawing at words like they might work. Like guilt was currency. Like regret hadn’t already come too late.
As if I had a choice. I was still learning then. Taking Clo’s orders before I became my own. Before I had my own training, not her lies.
I was young. Younger than a killer should have ever been. I thought I was strong enough to handle it. I wasn’t.
That night… The sounds, the smells, the way the blood wouldn’t wash off no matter how hard I scrubbed my hands afterward. It all comes rushing back, slamming into me.
No—I rip myself out of it before I fall too deep. Slamming the heel of my hand against my forehead, I force the memories back into the grave where they belong. Not now. I suck in a sharp breath and let it out slowly.
Clo. The files. Elle. I have too much at stake to lose myself now. I have to stay sharp. I have to be the monster everyone already thinks I am. So I shove the old ghosts back where they belong and drive. I need to keep moving, before the past swallows me whole.
My eyes are on the road. My path is clear, but in the back of my mind, the memories come up clearer.
Blood, screams, eyes of horror.
The gun felt too heavy in my hand that night. My grip too tight.
My body too still as I forced myself to move. Forced myself to be what I had to be.
The boy I was, he recoiled. The man I became, he didn’t.
I swore I buried that night. Pushed it so far down it would never surface again. But now, as I try to focus—as I try to breathe—it’s clawing its way back up.
Elle’s face flashes in my mind. Her fear. Because of the bodies. Because of me.
I can’t think about this. Not now. I slam my foot against the gas, letting the engine roar as if speed alone can outrun my own mind. I need to focus. Get to the safe house. Go through the files. Find the truth.
I don’t have any more time for ghosts in my past.
***
By the time I reach my safe house, the adrenaline’s burnt itself out, leaving me in shuddering exhaustion.
The place is buried in the outskirts of the city, a forgotten structure surrounded by rusted-out buildings and roads no one drives down unless they have a damn good reason or a death wish.
My refuge is a bunker disguised as a warehouse, with reinforced walls, blackout windows, surveillance wired into my own private network. No one knows about this place. No one can.
I park the Valkyrie, shutting the garage door before stepping out. The folders sit in the passenger seat like a weight waiting to crush me. I grab them, carrying the mess of stolen pages inside.
I toss the files onto a metal table in the center of the room and head straight to the fridge. I need something to keep me from tipping over, from drowning in the exhaustion crawling in my skin.
I pop the tab of a matte black can and down half of it in one go.
The liquid burns like fire down my throat, overclocked with stimulants the average person wouldn’t walk away from.
It’s underworld stuff, made for people like me.
People who need to stay on guard when they’ve been running on fumes for too long.
I lean against the counter, waiting for it to kick in, for my mind to settle into something useful. I need to focus. I need to read.
Turning back to the table, I flip the first file open. L. I already know it’s bad. But reading it over again, I feel something inside me crack open. Clo didn’t just find Elle. She purposely collected her. Like a fucking experiment. Like she was a problem to fix, a puzzle to solve, a test subject.
I skim through pages too fast, my mind tripping over details that don’t make sense.
Clo’s keeping her for a reason. A reason I still don’t fully understand. I rake a hand through my hair, already reaching for the next file, desperate for more pieces to this fucked-up puzzle.
Then I see it. A name I didn’t expect. Lix. The ghost. The one I couldn’t trace. I flip the folder open, scanning the first few pages. Nothing. It’s just as vague as everything else about him.
I exhale hard, forcing my mind off Lix. I’ll deal with him later. Right now, I need to focus—
But then I see it. A photo I shouldn’t. One I never expected. Stanley.
I freeze. His face as a smiling boy stares back at me from the tab of a folder buried beneath the others. My chest tightens as I reach for it, dread coiling thick in my gut.