24. Huck
HUCK
The dark doesn’t bother me. Never has.
Inside, it always feels like I’m cramped, like the ceilings are too low and the walls are too close, like I might break something if I breathe too deep.
It’s not so bad in Bailey’s mansion, but tonight, I need space.
Out here, the dark stretches wide. The night air makes room for me.
I can walk the edges of the property and not worry about knocking over a lamp or denting a wall with my shoulder.
My boots crunch on gravel, the night bugs humming in the grass, the faint sway of trees above. This place is too clean for my taste—hedges trimmed into neat lines, security lights that blink when a leaf moves—but it’s still land. Still air. Still something bigger than me.
My flashlight stays off. Don’t need it. My eyes know how to drink in shadows, how to adjust until the outlines sharpen and every sound separates itself from the others. It’s instinct by now. Years of moving in the dark, finding threats where most men see nothing.
But it’s not the dark that has me wound tight tonight. It’s everything else.
Sean’s gone. He walked out an hour ago with nothing but a sharp stay put and left me and Wesley here to watch Bailey.
That’s not like him. Sean doesn’t disappear, doesn’t leave holes in the line.
He doesn’t play mysterious. And him pulling rank on us?
That rattles me. We don’t run Orion like that.
We talk, we plan, we move together. For him to cut us out—it makes my teeth grind.
And Bailey—she won’t let me do what I want to do.
If it were up to me, David would already be in the ground. Quick, clean, done. Bailey wouldn’t have to spend another night clutching cold coffee and staring holes into her dining table. She wouldn’t have to send her kids off with a man who uses them like weapons.
But no. She says killing him isn’t an option.
Too much risk, too much fallout, too much…
everything. I get it. Sort of. I don’t like it, but I get it.
She wants it to be legal, above board, something that won’t come back to burn her later.
Problem is, that means she’s still suffering now.
And I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands still when I know the fastest solution is the one she won’t let me use.
Then there’s Wesley. Quiet tonight. Too quiet.
Wes is usually the one who talks too much, fills the silence with dry observations or some half-sarcastic complaint.
But when I came back in earlier, he looked hollow.
Eyes dark. He wouldn’t tell me why. Just shook me off, like a dog hiding an open wound.
Everyone’s not themselves. Sean’s gone rogue, Bailey’s breaking in silence, Wesley’s locked down. And me? I’m pacing the grounds like a caged animal trying to trick himself into thinking he’s free.
I round the northeast corner of the mansion, thoughts scattered like the stars above.
The security light flicks on above me, buzzing faintly.
The pool glitters a few yards away, flat and black in the night.
I pause, scanning the hedges. Nothing moves.
No sound but the steady rhythm of crickets and the occasional bark of a dog in the distance.
I start walking again, slower this time, ears open.
That’s when I hear it.
Not much. Just the faintest scrape, like fabric against leaves. Too heavy for the wind. Too deliberate. I stop dead, breath held, eyes fixed on the bushes near the outer fence. There it is again—a rustle, low and controlled. Someone’s out there.
I move without sound, slipping into the shadows cast by the hedge. Every step is measured, deliberate, the kind of stealth that comes from years of hunting men who don’t want to be found.
Closer, closer. The figure shifts in the dark, half-hidden by the branches. Big. Broad shoulders. Not some skinny paparazzo hoping for a payout. Whoever this is, they know how to move. They’re keeping low, deliberate. Trained.
Good. I’ve been looking for a fight.
I lunge, all force and momentum, tackling them into the dirt.
They grunt, twist hard, and I take an elbow to the jaw.
It’s a good hit. This isn’t some amateur.
They roll with the hit, use my weight against me, drive another elbow toward my ribs.
I block, slam a knee in, and we’re both straining, muscles locked, every inch of us trying to dominate the other.
It’s been a long time since I fought someone who could keep up.
We grind into the dirt, two bulls in a narrow chute. He slips an arm under mine and tries to lever me over. I drop my weight, hook a leg, and we slam into the hedge hard enough to shake leaves loose. Thorns rake my forearm. He grunts. I grin without humor and drive a shoulder into his sternum.
He doesn’t fold.
Thank fuck. I’m tired of fighting cardboard men.
He pivots, hips slick, tries for a throw. I break the angle, yank his sleeve, and we go skidding over gravel. It’s ugly, fast, quiet. No shouting. No swagger. Just breath and impact and the blank math of who breaks first.
He’s bigger than I thought—my size, near enough. Strong in the right way. Knows how to use his center of gravity, knows when to chicken-wing an elbow, when to relax to slip a hold.
He feints low. I don’t bite. He comes high with a headbutt instead, skull to cheekbone.
White pop of light in my eye. I ride it, grab his collar, and slam him backward.
He flips the momentum, plants a palm, kicks up—boot catches my ribs, skids.
We separate a half step, chests heaving, both of us cataloging the other in the dark.
“Who sent you?” I rasp.
He doesn’t answer. He ghost-smiles in the dark—mean little curve I want to rearrange—and comes in tight again.
I catch the shape of his arm a half second too late.
Blade flash, small and mean. He goes for center mass, but I jam him off-line with a forearm.
The knife kisses fabric, then meat. Heat sears my left bicep open.
It’s not theatrical. It’s efficient. He yanks back fast, tries to stab again.
I trap his wrist, twist, hear tendons snap.
He answers with a headshot, low and mean, crown of his skull into my temple.
The world tilts.
I hang on anyway. My left arm goes hot, blood slicking down to my elbow.
My right hand stays on his knife wrist. We’re nose to nose, breathing each other’s breath.
I try to knee him. He slides. He hammers my ear with the heel of his free hand.
A high whine opens in my head. Gravel shifts under my boots—the only warning before he yanks hard, throws his weight, and we fall.
Impact. A spray of dirt. I lose the wrist for a fraction of a second—just long enough for him to rake the blade across my sleeve and come back for a third try.
I jam my forearm into his throat, shove.
Air bursts out of him. He buckles just enough for me to punch straight down.
Once, twice. Knuckles bark. He absorbs it and answers with a short, filthy hook that clips my jaw and fuzzes the edges of the night.
He’s good. Almost as good as me. Almost.
We hit the hedge again. Leaves explode around us.
He snakes his knife hand under, stabs once more, shallow this time, like he’s testing range.
I smash his wrist against a buried rock.
The blade leaps—fingers open reflexively—and skitters somewhere dark.
We both know better than to dive for it. Diving gets you killed.
He adjusts instantly, palms my shoulder, and drives his forehead into mine.
That does it. My knees wobble. The cut in my arm spits fresh warmth. He feels the wobble—predators always do—and rams me with everything he’s got. I stumble, heel catches the edge of a landscaping stone, balance goes, and the back of my head kisses the ground hard.
For a beat, I’m falling inside my skull. The sky rips open and closes again.
When I blink, he’s already up, already moving. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t finish. He sprints. Not toward the fence. Toward the side yard, where the shadow between hedges turns into a path. He knows the grounds. He did recon.
I force my body to answer. Sit, stand, stagger. The left bicep is a live wire. Blood runs hot down my forearm, fills my palm, drips off my fingertips. I press the wound hard with my right hand and jog, vision juddering with each step.
“Hey!” I bark, mostly to test my voice. It’s there, rough and pissed. “Coward.”
He doesn’t look back.
He disappears behind a cluster of camellias.
I crash through after him and almost trip over the bag he’s dropped in his rush.
A duffel. Heavy. Industrial nylon. Black, no brand, no flair.
The zipper’s open a touch, enough to show me gray edges and taped shapes tucked inside like bricks that were never meant for building anything.
Bricks of C-4, if I’m seeing clearly.
I pivot, scanning the dark. Listen. The night breathes around me, unconcerned. The intruder is gone—fast, clean, just like he came. I crouch, palm still clamped to my arm, and nudge the zipper wider with two fingers. The shapes are neat, stacked, wired. There’s a handset tucked against the side.
He didn’t come to scare her. He came to murder her.
The world spins— focus .
Stupid concussion. My head throbs in a slow, ugly pulse. I steady my breath, leave the bag where it is, and move. If he planted one, it’ll be where damage and drama meet—a load-bearing point, something efficient like his movements.
Front door.
I follow the drive’s curve on instinct, staying in the hedge shadow, every footfall placed just in case he didn’t leave.
My blood trail is obnoxious—dark drops on pale gravel—but I don’t have a spare hand to deal with it.
The security light on the portico paints the steps in soft gold.
Pretty. The kind of pretty rich people think means safe.
At the base of the front stairs, tucked under the lip of the lowest riser, a box that isn’t ours. Matte casing, taped edges, a wire where a wire shouldn’t be, just out of sight if you’re not crawling. A rookie would have walked past it twice.
I crouch again, left arm screaming, head swimming, and look without touching. Someone got close to my charge and knelt where I’m kneeling and glued death to wood like it was an errand.
Rage spikes, bright and clean.
I will do what I was taught and what I’ve done before when lives were stacked on my hands. Take its teeth, then its tongue, then its voice. Take its power away piece by piece until it’s just a box again.
Blood slicks my fingers. Slippery, unreliable. I wipe my palm on my shirt, press again, work slower. My breath stays even. My heart does not. Twice I stop and wait out the dizzy buzz behind my eyes, twice I continue because stopping is not an option.
The night contracts to what’s under my hands. The smell is adhesive and dust and copper. Somewhere behind me, a palm frond ticks against stone. In the distance, a plane climbs into the sky and hums away.
The bomb is defused.
I sag, just a fraction. Sweat slides down my back in a cold sheet.
I sit there another beat with my palm braced on the step, counting to eight because that number has saved me more than once. Then I gather the components into the crook of my good arm. Evidence.
I don’t want to tell Bailey someone wanted to blow her up. I don’t want to show her my wounds. I don’t want any of this to have happened, because I know what it means.
She’s going to have to change her mind about David’s life, and I know that’ll bother her. If she tells me to kill him, it will haunt her for the rest of her days. But I won’t do it without her permission.
No matter how much I want to save her from that guilt.
Bailey has to make the call. One way or another.
Headlights trail down the driveway, pausing at the gate. Sean’s truck. Good. Maybe he can help me get inside, ’cause the world is getting kind of dark.