Chapter 43
Wraith
The manor feels wrong. Not quiet — wrong. Quiet is what we had this morning. That coiled kind of calm before movement, where everyone’s loading weapons and checking angles and pretending not to feel what they’re feeling.
This isn’t that. This is the air after someone fires the first shot in a war you didn’t admit you were already in.
Ember’s upstairs resting. I carried her there myself.
Not because she couldn’t walk — she could.
She kept saying “I’m fine,” like she hadn’t almost been shot and hadn’t just had to listen to the man who burned her life talk about her brother like he was disposable.
Like she hadn’t put a bullet into someone and held her aim and not shaken until we were clear.
But she was glass-edged. Running hot on adrenaline and stubbornness and fury. The kind of hot that cracks if you touch it wrong.
Rook told her to shower. Eat something. Sleep. He didn’t ask. He told. She rolled her eyes and obeyed.
That alone tells you how bad this is. Now it’s just the rest of us.
We’re in Rook’s study. Heavy dark wood. Leather, old money, and newer weapons. The map table’s already been cleared and replaced with folders. Two laptops. One hard case. A bottle of whiskey Saint didn’t bother to pour into glasses.
Rain hits the windows, steady and mean, rattling against the panes.
Rook stands at the head of the table, jacket off, sleeves still rolled, jaw tight, eyes colder than I’ve seen them in a long time.
Vale leans back in one of the leather chairs like he’s lounging in a confessional, boots up on the corner of the desk, twirling a pen between his fingers.
Saint perches on the arm of the other chair, shirt open at the throat, cross glinting faintly against his skin.
Ash is pacing. That’s how you know it’s bad.
Ash doesn’t pace. He’s a still-bleed type.
But right now he’s burning a line into the rug.
No one’s talking yet, but it’s Caelum who finally breaks the silence. “We crossed it.” It’s a question, and no one argues. He drags a hand down his face. “Up until today, Damien had room to claim ignorance. Wiggle. Spin. Deny. ‘Owen who?’ ‘Ember who?’ ‘You must be mistaken.’ Not anymore.”
Saint whistles. “We pulled his veil.”
“We ripped it,” Vale says, smiling like that’s his favorite memory.
“It means,” Rook goes on, ignoring him, “we’re officially past containment. Which means I need contingency.”
He looks at me on that last word. I know what he’s asking before he says it.
“Speak,” he says.
I plant my hands on the table and lean in. “They’ll come for her first.”
Saint snorts softly. “Obviously.”
I shoot him a look. “I’m not finished.”
He gestures an apology without saying the words.
I nod once. “They’ll come for her first. Damien has two options now. Bury her, or prove he still controls her. Either way, it starts with getting hands on her. That means eyes on this property, bodies moving in patterns they shouldn’t, and pressure where they think we’re weakest. That’s her.”
“We reinforced the grounds tonight,” Saint reminds me. “I’ve already rotated the exterior patrol. No one blinks near the perimeter without me seeing them.”
“You think Syndicate’s going to knock at the gate and ask to speak to management?” I ask him.
Saint’s mouth curves. “Fair point.”
“They won’t start here,” I say. “They’ll start with her habits.
Her soft spots. Anywhere she’s consistent.
She likes to sketch in the solarium. She keeps her tea in the second left cupboard in the kitchen.
She showers so hot it steams the hall mirror.
They’ll watch first, and map her. Then they’ll strike. ”
Vale lets out a low whistle. “Fuck, you have been paying attention.”
I cut him a look. “Always.”
Ash stops pacing. “They’re going to try to snatch her off property,” he says quietly. “Not hit the manor. Too much noise. Too much exposure. They’ll follow her the first second she steps off these grounds without full presence.”
Saint frowns. “She’s not stepping off these grounds without full presence. Ever.”
“You can guarantee that for how long?” Ash shoots back, voice sharp. “A week? Two? You expect Ember fucking Calloway to sit here and let us lock her in a tower now that she’s tasted blood? You expect her to ask permission to walk down a hall?”
Saint’s silence is his answer.
Rook exhales through his nose. “Exactly. We can’t board the windows and call that safety. We’ll lose her before we ever lose Damien.”
I feel something low and ugly coil tight in my gut at that. “No,” I say. “We’re not losing her.”
Rook’s gaze flicks to me. Not warning. Agreement. “We won’t,” he says. “But that means we plan for failure as much as we plan for control.”
Vale drops his boots off the desk and leans forward, interest sharpened. “Escape hatch discussion, then.”
Saint huffs a quiet laugh. “How dramatic.”
“How necessary,” Rook corrects.
He reaches to the far edge of the table and pulls a black leather folio toward him opening it. It’s full of passports. Stacks of them. Clean, crisp, no bends, no wear. Some already worn-in just enough to pass a quick inspection. Different names. Different countries. Photos of us. Photos of her.
Seeing her face there — still Ember, but with different names, different hair, different nationalities written beside her eyes — twists something in me I don’t like.
Because part of me wants to burn every single one of them and make sure no one ever calls her anything but Ember Calloway again.
And the darker part of me knows Rook is right to have them.
He lays them out one by one. “We have identities built in Berlin, Marseille, Porto, and Dubrovnik. Each with accounts pre-seeded. Cash and crypto, spread across five banks so they can’t freeze us in one go.
Transport secured for all six of us to move under separate flags if we need to move in pieces.
Safe houses in two of those cities. The others we can spin in twenty-four hours. ”
Ash moves in fast, eyes scanning. “You have fresh sets for her already.”
Rook doesn’t look at him. “Of course, I’ve planned for every contingency.”
Ash’s jaw flexes. “Since when?”
“Since she walked into our lives,” Rook says simply.
The room goes quiet for a beat at that.
Saint lets out something that’s almost a laugh — not because it’s funny. Because it’s obscene, the way honesty from Caelum Voss can be. “You planned exit routes for her before you even trusted her,” he says softly. “Caelum. My son. My king. That’s almost tender.”
Rook shoots him a look that says shut up before I make you pray for real. Saint smiles anyway. Vale leans back. “Alright,” he says. “Geography handled. Money handled. I assume weapons caches handled because I know who I work for. So let’s talk timing.”
“Not unless we have to,” Rook says.
“Define have to,” I say.
He doesn’t flinch when he meets my eyes.
“Have to is Ember bleeding in my hands and me needing to move her before she dies. Have to is Syndicate getting federal eyes pointed at us in a way I can’t dig out from under.
Have to is Damien trying to vanish offshore with protection heavier than I can punch through in this city. ”
Vale nods slowly. “Fair.”
Saint tilts his head. “And if they come with lawyers and badges instead of guns?”
Rook’s mouth curves in a cold almost-smile. “Then we burn the lawyers and keep the badges.”
Saint laughs. “Ah. Good. I was worried we’d go soft.”
Ash’s voice cuts through the dark humor. “There’s something else.”
Everyone looks at him, but he keeps his eyes on Rook. “We need to assume Damien has more than Syndicate muscle now.”
Rook’s brow ticks. “More… how?”
“He had NATO ID on the table with Syndicate,” Ash says quietly. “That’s not just muscle. That’s infrastructure. That’s access. That’s protection. That’s quiet corridors and diplomatic cover and people who can take a shot and make it disappear in paperwork.”
Saint’s eyes narrow. “So not just street guns.”
“No,” Ash says. “This is bigger. He’s not thinking gang war. He’s thinking extraction. Rendition. Clean snatch, van, sealed room, off-book interrogation. They don’t need to storm the manor to do that if they can peel her off in transit and ghost her in two minutes.”
Everything in me goes still. I know exactly what that means. I’ve done extractions. I’ve watched black-bag teams move. I know how fast a person can vanish without screaming once. I taste fucking metal again. “No,” I say.
My voice comes out low. Final. Ash’s gaze flicks to me, something like understanding moving behind his eyes. He nods. “Agreed. Which means we handle it now. Tonight.”
Rook folds his hands on the table. “Plan.”
Ash doesn’t hesitate. “She doesn’t go anywhere alone.
Not to the kitchen. Not to breathe on the balcony.
She doesn’t go near a window without eyes.
She doesn’t answer a door I didn’t open.
She doesn’t touch a phone I didn’t vet. We start running rotating watch shifts, inside, not just perimeter.
If she twitches, one of us is already in the hall. ”
Saint makes a soft sound. “We’re caging her.”
“Yes,” Ash says. “Because they’re going to try to take her. And if they take her, we don’t get her back.”
Something primal claws at my throat hearing that. “They’re not fucking taking her.”
Ash doesn’t blink. “Then prove me right.”
Vale whistles low. “She’s not going to like this.”
“No,” I say. “She’s not.”
Saint hums softly. “You planning to be the one to tell her she’s on full lockdown?”
“Yes,” I say.
Vale grins. “You volunteering, wolf? You’re either brave or stupid.”
“She’ll listen to him,” Ash says. Then, after a beat, quieter, “She’ll listen to you if you give her respect while you cage her. If you try to handle her, she’ll bite.”
“She can bite me all she wants,” I mutter.
Vale smirks. “We know.”
Rook clears his throat. Vale puts both hands up, innocent. Saint looks like he’s about to bless someone ironically.