9. Wraith
Chapter 9
Wraith
M y fingers move fast.
Precise.
Keys clack under pressure as lines of code unfurl across the screens in front of me.
A river of transactions, each one laced with a lie.
It should’ve been a trickle.
A few desperate drops to keep Voss afloat.
Enough to drag out the rebuild.
Slow him down.
Stall the inevitable.
But it’s not.
It’s a flood.
A fucking tidal wave of cash, funding agony by the gallon.
Straight into Voss’s new accounts—no red flags, no laundering through the usual channels.
Clean. Fast. Aggressive.
Someone isn’t just backing him.
They’re re-launching him .
Propping him back up like he’s the golden god of biotech?—
not the fucking devil himself.
Labs, equipment, security?—
every piece of the machine coming back online like it never burned.
Like I didn’t just gut his whole network.
Two months.
Maybe less.
And he’ll be right back where he started.
Fuck.
I clench my jaw, a sharp pop echoing through the quiet room.
The thought of it?—
him breathing easy again?—
scrapes nails across the inside of my skull.
I can already see it.
Oblivious white coats.
Sterile floors.
Test subjects lined up like cattle.
The air thick with chemicals and screams.
All built on the bones he left behind.
Built on my bones.
Hidden. Funded. Dangerous.
Not faith. Not hope.
Bloodied knees on cold stone.
Hands calloused from clawing through the rot they left behind.
The kind of devotion that doesn’t pray for salvation?—
it demands retribution.
Because that’s what this is now? —
a dark kind of devotion.
Not to him.
Never to him.
To the reckoning that’s coming.
To the silence he’ll beg for before I’m done.
Whoever’s behind this?—
they’re not patient.
They’re not cautious.
They’re not afraid.
But they should be.
Tick-fucking-tock.
I’m coming.
And I don’t lose.
My cell buzzes against the desk.
I check the caller ID before tapping to answer.
S’s voice crackles through, rough as gravel.
“It’s done. Vaughn’s network is dust.”
I lean back, knuckles whitening around the arm of my chair.
Hundreds pulled out. Hundreds of lives we just yanked from the fire.
It should feel like a win.
It doesn’t.
Not while Voss is still breathing.
“And Voss?” I ask.
A grunt.
A rough scrape, like he’s dragging a hand across his face.
“What the fuck do you think?” he bites out. “Same shit. Different day.”
His voice is clipped. Irritated.
S doesn’t get irritated.
I let the silence stretch between us until I hear him sigh.
“You good?” I ask, eyeing the monitors in front of me.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Caught myself a bit of a situation.”
I smirk against the phone.
“Female troubles. Relatable.”
“Yeah, well. Kitten’s got fucking claws. More trouble than she’s worth.”
Somewhere on his end, a door slams—loud, pissed off. Followed by another sigh from S. This one even heavier.
I lift a brow.
“Uh-oh.”
“Fuck off,” he snaps. “She’s a goddamn brat.”
Another slam. Muffled yelling.
I huff a quiet laugh.
“Sure sounds like it.”
He grumbles something about duct tape and felony charges, then lets it go.
Focus snaps back into his voice, cold and vicious.
“Word is, someone dumped enough cash to rebuild Voss overnight.”
Figures.
I already fucking know.
I exhale slow, checking the monitors again.
The numbers blur for a second—just long enough for the heat crawling under my skin to start to fucking boil.
So much goddamn money.
“Put me in a few fights soon,” I say. “Need a face to break.”
S huffs a laugh, low and approving.
“Yeah. I can make that happen.”
There’s a pause.
“You sure?” S asks. “It’s been a while. ”
I freeze for half a second.
The weight of it—the question, the memory—slams harder than I expect.
It has been a while.
Since the rage started chewing at me.
Since the violence felt more like home than the places I sleep.
Since the last time I let myself off the fucking leash.
S found me like that.
Half-starved, half-feral, fully angry.
Fists split and swinging at anyone who looked at me sideways.
Underground fight clubs don’t care where you come from—only how hard you hit and how long you stay standing.
No past.
No future.
No problems.
Just blood. Breath. Bone.
I didn’t even have a name back then.
Didn’t need one.
Names were for people who expected to be remembered.
S didn’t try to fix me.
Didn’t hand me false promises and tell me it was going to be okay.
He handed me bigger jobs. Higher payouts.
He taught me how to stop swinging wild and start aiming.
He looked at the wreck I was and saw a weapon.
And for the first time in a long fucking time?—
The rage simmered. Mind cleared.
I owe him for that .
Not in words.
Not in blood.
In what I do best.
Cyberwarfare.
When he needs a favor, I don’t ask—I deliver.
But it’s been years since I felt the snap of a real hit.
Since I felt my knuckles crack against someone’s jaw and didn’t have the space to think.
Just let that creature inside me burst through.
I need it now.
Not like the weak ass hits I got in on the fucker in the street.
The kind that hit back. And hit hard.
The kind of pain that scrubs your brain clean.
The kind of fight that makes you remember what being alive feels like—and not just something crawling around in the dark, haunted by memories.
It’s not the fight I miss.
It’s the clarity that comes after.
It’s the only thing that shuts up the voice whispering that I’m slipping.
That I’m losing the edge.
Losing control.
“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “I’ve got some shit I need to work out.”
“Ah. Female problems?” S throws back, amused.
“Fuck you. Go deal with your door slammer and get me in the fucking ring.”
S laughs, low and rough.
“Alright. I’ll send you the details. Probably gonna be a few weeks.”
“That’s fine. ”
“You gonna bring your problem?”
I huff, tipping my head back against the chair.
“Which one?”
A beat of silence.
“Oooh, it’s like that? Can’t decide if I’m impressed or horrified for you.”
“S? Respectfully—fuck off.”
He’s still laughing when he cuts the call.
I drop the phone back onto the desk.
Stare at the endless web of transactions still bleeding across my screens.
Every thread pulling tighter around Voss’s neck.
Eventually I’ll rip the right one out and everything will unravel.
Permanently.
Whoever’s bankrolling him?—
They’re not prolonging research.
They’re accelerating it.
And putting themselves in my crosshairs while they’re at it.
I lean into the screen.
Fingers moving fast.
Precise.
Code streams by, a blur of false names and paper-thin companies.
The money splits fast.
Branches through offshore accounts, shell corporations, fake charities.
Every move designed to look clean.
Legit.
I dig deeper.
Each layer peels back another lie.
Another mask.
Anonymous deposits out of Switzerland.
False nonprofits registered to empty lots.
A donation from a hospital that doesn’t fucking exist.
Whoever’s backing Voss knows what they’re doing.
Not some amateur with dirty cash.
A professional.
Or a whole team of them.
But everyone leaves a fingerprint eventually.
I dig deeper.
Anonymous deposits.
Shell companies.
False identities.
But one name keeps surfacing, no matter how deep I go.
Markus Elridge.
Polished.
Obscene watch flashing under his cuff.
Smile sharp like the fucking shark he is.
I pull up a few photos. PR shots.
Smiling next to military contractors.
Shaking hands with pharma CEOs.
Cozy with the monsters funding the world’s next disaster.
He launders money like priests launder sins—quiet, clean, without a second thought. Just make sure the donation is paid, and you’re absolved.
No scandal touches him.
No bloodstain clings.
Not on the surface, anyway.
But underneath?
He’s filth .
The kind that doesn’t get his hands dirty because he pays other people to do it.
The kind that makes monsters—not because he has to.
Because it pays better than stopping them.
I watch a short clip from a security feed.
Elridge, striding into some exclusive restaurant like he owns the fucking place.
Custom suit. Shiny shoes. Plastic smile.
I clench my jaw.
I already know his type.
Rich. Arrogant.
Convinced he’s untouchable.
Just like Vaughn did.
And like Vaughn—he’s not.
I open another window.
A pattern takes shape.
Every Friday night.
Same overpriced bar downtown.
Same private booth in the back.
Predictable.
Vulnerable.
Easy.
I smile, cold and mean.
Middlemen like him?
They think distance keeps them safe.
That if they pay enough hands to move the pieces, they’ll never bleed for the game they’re playing.
He’ll learn different.
I’ll teach him.
Bingo.
Elridge isn’t the one pulling the strings.
He’s just the errand boy.
The little bitch.
But middlemen know things.
They hear whispers.
They move chess pieces.
And I’ll carve the truth out of him if I have to.
I set the plan into motion.
Surveillance. Patterns. Habits.
Every breath he takes, I’ll be watching.
Target fucking acquired.
I run a final sweep of the area.
Routine. Automatic.
Nothing I haven’t already checked.
Until—
The screen flickers.
Footage from a security cam.
Grainy. Shitty.
But the silhouette’s unmistakable.
A body slipping through shadows like smoke.
Half comedy. Half tragedy.
That fucking ridiculously horrifying paint.
Her.
I lean closer, watching the footage roll.
She doesn’t sneak.
She prowls.
Like the shadows bend to her instead of the other way around.
Like she was born from the dark, not swallowed by it.
No wasted movements.
No hesitation.
She’s not even trying to be careful .
She doesn’t have to—she just is.
She’s fucking graceful. Fluid.
Casually lethal.
Like the kill’s already decided and the rest of us are just waiting to catch up.
Which apparently is exactly what I’m fucking doing.
I drag a hand over my face, jaw flexing.
There’s a part of me—a fucked-up, masochistic part—that can’t help but admire it.
The way she slips through security like it’s a game.
The way she acts like she owns the goddamn night.
Like we’re still playing.
A beat of memory flashes—her laugh in the dark, taunting.
Tag, you’re it.
I snarl under my breath.
This isn’t a fucking game.
This is Voss.
This is the endgame.
I shut the laptop.
Stand.
All precision.
All intent.
The chair creaks under the shift of my weight.
My muscles coil tight, itching for release.
The air hums around me, charged with violence.
Every breath I take tastes like blood and purpose.
This isn’t a mission.
It’s a fucking reckoning.
A war.
And she’s about to fucking lose.