Chapter Four
Her scream echoes through the building, and I can’t help but smile.
She’s even more on edge now, just how I wanted her.
I swing a leg over my bike. The Kawasaki roars to life under me, and I take off, slicing through the street toward the estate.
It took Beau and me two hours to dig her up. Two hours, and I had her name, address, socials, schedule. The club’s security system was a joke. We walked right in, pulled the footage, scrubbed every image of us and her.
Beau and Caleb wouldn’t shut the fuck up the whole time, saying I was spiraling, that my obsessive streak was back and that I was “head over heels.” I told them she’s doing justice, same as us, and just needs help. My help, but honestly? Fuck that.
I want her on her knees. That hellcat who gutted Henry, cut his balls off, and sewed them into his eye sockets as a fucking message.
She’s unhinged.
Chaos.
A soul as dark as mine, and I’m letting her run free. Once we had her face from the cameras, the rest was easy; her socials didn’t have too much, but there were enough breadcrumbs, enough to see she was trying too much to look normal.
Beau found her address this morning, and I drove straight there and waited until she came rushing out—hair a black, tangled mess, eyes wide with panic. I’m guessing she’d just realized she lost the knife.
I picked the lock in seconds after she left. Her apartment looked nothing like what I expected. It’s cozy, and smelled of cinnamon candles, with books stacked in a corner, most with half-naked men on the covers. A Nintendo Switch sits charging in the corner with one game.
She’s a killer with a soft heart, a kitten with blades for claws.
I searched everything but she’s smart, no files, no notes, the laptop was clean.
She covers her tracks, so I did the same and left no trace of myself…
except the one I wanted her to find: the knife on her kitchen counter and the note with our symbol.
And just two little cameras, to make sure she’s safe of course.
The gates open as I pull into the estate, parking beside Caleb’s bike. He’s outside, smoking, and waiting to start shit, as always.
“So?” He grins.
I raise a brow. “So what?”
“Did you leave the knife?” He’s already laughing, smug bastard.
I don’t answer, just take off my helmet, my jacket, and pretend I didn’t hear him.
“You fucking did.” He walks over, smirking like a damn clown.
“Did what?” Beau steps out. Perfect timing.
“Eiden went full stalker with Psycho Barbie,” Caleb chuckles.
I clench my fists. One day I’ll beat the shit out of both of them.
“Just making sure she stays safe,” I grunt
“Right,” Beau says slowly, that shit-eating tone in his voice. I can see it in his eyes, he’s not done yet.
“Cameras?”
I nod, waiting for the jab.
“So… what if she brings a guy home to fuck?” Beau smirks.
For a split second the image slams into me—her legs spread, another man’s hands where they don’t belong. My jaw locks.
“I’ll kill him,” I say flatly, heading inside to the bar fridge and cracking open a beer.
“That’s healthy thinking,” Caleb mutters, dropping onto the couch.
“So you left the knife in her mail?” Beau asks.
“On her kitchen counter,” I murmur.
He sits across from me, brows raised. “So… let me get this straight. You picked her lock, placed cameras, ‘to keep her safe, obviously’, and left the murder knife out in the open?”
“With a note,” I say calmly, sipping my beer.
They both go still.
“Oh, perfect,” Beau deadpans. “Did you sign your name too?”
“No.” I smirk. “I used our symbol.”
Beau’s mouth falls open while Caleb just blinks.
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Beau’s voice cracks.
He knows how serious that is, we never use the symbol unless it’s business. It’s what our clients find on the dark web and what the dead see before they drop.
It’s how we stay invisible.
“I want her to search for us.” I shrug, leaning back with a grin. I want her to panic. To dig. To bleed for answers.
That’s how she’ll fall: face first into obsession.
Just like I did.
We get into the SUV, Beau behind the wheel, for a new mission, not a paid one this time.
Some fuckers are running a club just outside of town, but it’s not just a club, it’s a front where they force girls and boys into prostitution behind neon lights.
We’ve been getting emails for weeks from survivors, relatives looking for loved ones and some anonymous tips.
It took time to dig through it all, to find the leaders, the ones who mattered but we’ve got them now.
“Another hour and we should be there,” Beau says, eyes on the road.
I lean back and pull out my phone, and open the app. The screen lights up and there she is.
Hellcat.
Long black hair, curves that make me insane. Fuck me… I shift in my seat. One stretch, one glimpse of ink, and I’m hard enough to kill someone.
Tamsin’s friend is still there. It’s two in the morning and they’re drunk on cheap wine, watching some shitty horror flick on the couch.
Tamsin’s on the floor, legs crossed, wearing a tank top and shorts that show too much skin.
She stretches, and I catch it, a hint of ink.
A small tattoo peeking under her hip bone.
I can’t see what it is, but I want to. I want to lick it, trace the lines with my tongue, bury my face between her thighs and—
Nope.
I shut the app and force a breath through my nose. No way I’m walking into a kill with a hard-on.
I count to two hundred, but it doesn’t help.
“Twenty minutes,” Beau mutters.
Thank fuck.
I need out of this car and to move, break bones, paint the floor red just to take the edge off.
Beau pulls into the lot, and we gear up. We’re already in black; we add the balaclavas.
Mine’s marked with one crimson slash. Beau’s is navy. Caleb’s is golden, because of course the dramatic bastard needs to look like royalty at a bloodbath.
We slip around the back in silence, no lights and no sound but our boots on dirt. Caleb punches in the door code we cracked two nights ago.
I take point.
We trained for this. Spent two years with ex-military contractors; paid extra to have them live at the estate so they could teach us everything from guns to close combat, knives, and tactics. Caleb calls it torture. I thought it was fun, bloody as hell, but made me feel alive.
We breach the building as shadows, the hallway lit in flickering red, walls lined with guards who think they’re hard; they don’t even get a second to react.
I move first. My elbow slams into one’s face, bone crunching beneath the blow.
He drops before he can scream, another reaches for a weapon—too slow—I twist his wrist, snap it clean, drive my knife into his neck.
Blood sprays warm against my glove. Behind me, Beau’s silencer pops twice, and Caleb’s blade whispers across skin.
We clear the floor in under a minute.
Room after room, we sweep through like a storm. No mercy. No hesitation.
We reach the cells where we see women, girls, and young boys. Three big cages, buckets and blankets on the floor. They whimper when they see us.
“Easy. We’re here to help.” My rifle’s behind my back, palms up. I’m six-five, over two hundred pounds, trying to look non-threatening while wearing a balaclava with a dripping blood-eye symbol is not easy.
One woman, older than most but still no more than twenty-five, steps forward. “The keys.” She points left, toward a desk, and Beau’s on it while Caleb watches the hallway.
We open the cells. “Don’t make a sound. Walk slowly to the back door, straight ahead. Across the parking lot there’s an old bus with an older couple, they’ll take you to safety.” I hand the woman a gun.
She nods, whispers a thank you, eyes wet and I notice the bruises covering her skin, they all have them. Those fuckers will pay.
Colin and Mariah are in their sixties. We saved their daughter years ago; they’ve been helping with the… human side of our work ever since.
We move out the opposite side, but Caleb stays back to make sure they all get out safe, by the time we reach the back offices, only the fuckers we came for are left breathing.
The three heads of this operation are exactly where we expected, in the VIP office, sipping expensive whiskey while the victims rot in the cells.
They see us and freeze.
Beau closes the door behind us, and I take a slow step forward, rifle resting against my chest, my balaclava hiding the fury I’m about to unleash.
Caleb drops the file we printed earlier onto the table. The Eidolon symbol stares up from the cover, and they know.
Normal civilians have never heard of us. There’s nothing online. No whispers. No trace. Our symbol’s never been seen, except by the victims who hire us or the monsters we kill.
In the underground? In the sick, twisted corners of the world where men like these find their clients? They know. They’ve heard of us, tried to bait us with fake victims, fake perpetrators, and elaborate traps.
That’s why Beau checks every contact, every submission on the dark site, he screens, scrubs, and verifies, so we don’t end up walking into a set up.
We don’t get caught.
We hunt.
I lean in, and their eyes go wide seeing the symbol on our vests. The youngest one, the blonde with the weak jaw, goes pale first, his hands tremble. He’s fighting the urge to piss himself. Another tries to stand but his legs give up.
I crack my neck and roll my shoulders; my muscles tighten beneath the black combat gear.
“You know who we are,” I murmur.
They say nothing.
“You know why we’re here.”
Still nothing. One of them makes a sound in his throat, something between a sob and a prayer. I let the rifle drop, letting it hang by the strap—this isn’t going to be a gun kill. I’ve got too much adrenaline in me, I need to break bones.
“You sold them,” I say, voice low, calm, stepping into their space. “You drugged them, chained them, made them fuck strangers for cash.”
“You don’t understand—” one starts.
I punch him in the stomach hard enough to fold him in half. He hits the floor gasping. I kneel beside him, fingers wrapping around his throat.
“Don’t even try.”
His face starts turning purple.
Beau yanks the other two to their knees and zip-ties their wrists. Caleb paces like he’s choosing who to burn first.
The one beneath me starts to beg, tears in his eyes, and suddenly the front of his pants goes dark.
I grin. “I love when they break.” It means they are feeling like their victims.
I pull out my blade. Curved, perfectly weighted. I press the edge to his cheek and drag it slow, just enough to draw blood.
The sound he makes is almost identical to Henry’s in that cabin, and that’s when I see her, Tamsin, leaning over her kill.
Her eyes lit with unholy fire, her voice steady as she pushed the needle through flesh.
I remember the twitch of Henry’s jaw, the way she didn’t flinch when blood spattered her face.
My cock twitches.
I stand, grab him by the hair, yank his head back, and slit his throat in one smooth slice. Blood spurts up and paints the glass behind him.
He jerks. Twitches. Then stops.
The second guy starts muttering prayers. Caleb’s eyes light up.
“Oh, this one’s mine,” he says, dragging him by the collar toward the back wall. Already pulling out his lighter, already whispering to the flame.
The last one?
I want to feel him die. I drag him forward and force him to his knees in front of me. He’s sobbing, and I cup his face with a gloved hand, leaning in close.
“Do you know what she did to Henry Lane?” I whisper.
“I—” He chokes on a sob. “I don’t know who that is!”
“She cut his balls off and sewed them into his eye sockets.”
His mouth falls open.
“I think you deserve something special too.”
I punch him once, right across the face, his head snaps to the side. I punch him again and again, until his lip splits, his nose breaks, and he’s moaning through blood and spit.
I kneel beside him, and make it slow, cutting through his tendon first, letting him scream.
The sound is violent, loud, and it drags me right back to the cabin.
Tamsin muttering curses when her blade caught bone, adjusting her grip, learning how to do it.
I see the sweat on her neck, the pink flush in her cheeks.
Every cry is a symphony that reminds me of her and by the time I open his throat, I’m smiling.
We step out, bloodied gloves, soaked boots, the air thick with the scent of copper and gasoline.
“I’m gonna torch the fuck out of this place,” he says, practically bouncing.
“Try not to burn yourself again,” Beau mutters.
Caleb just cackles and tosses the match. The club erupts into flames.
It screams as it burns.
They died like dogs, and all I could see was her—eyes wild, fingers slick with blood, and a grin I want to break and worship at the same time.
I watch the fire consume the club, and her name is burned in my mind.
Tamsin.