Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Riot
The room’s still humming with the aftershock of death.
Smoke coils through the air, hanging like the ghost of a scream. Kane’s body is a heap of meat and bone at our feet, his blood soaking into the grates. Hole in his forehead. Eyes frozen wide, staring at nothing.
And Sin, fuck, Sin is a goddamn vision of ruin, rage and raw defiance. Blood splattered on her face. Smoke in her hair. A gun clenched in her hand like it was made for her. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t crumble.
Instead she’s standing over him like the Valkyrie she is.
She did it.
She pulled the fucking trigger.
I’m still trying to catch up to that fact. Still trying to slow the whiplash of adrenaline crashing through my system. My muscles are twitching. Vision flickering. Hands shaking from the storm that finally broke.
She’s safe, she’s here, and yet again, my little stray, saved me.
Sin turns to me like she just woke up from a dream, her eyes glassy but locked onto mine.
“Riot?” she says. Her voice is hoarse, cracking. “Hey, look at me.” She drops to her knees beside me, cups my face in both hands, and forces my gaze to meet hers. “I’m okay,” she whispers.
Fuck. That wrecks me. Everything I’ve been holding in. The rage, the desperation, the drive that kept me from falling apart when they took her—it hits all at once. My hands snap around her waist and I yank her into me, burying my face against her shoulder as I collapse back against the floor.
She straddles my lap without hesitation, arms around my neck, holding tight. Her chest heaves against mine. Our breathing syncs—broken and ragged, like we’ve both been underwater too long.
For a while, we just sit like that. In the blood, in the silence, in the fucking aftermath.
Then she leans back enough to look at me.
“What did he say to you?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. Just swallows hard, eyes fixed on the red pooling beneath Kane’s skull.
“That I’m his daughter,” she murmurs.
I freeze.
She finally lifts her gaze and meets mine with something that isn’t shock, it’s fury barely leashed. “He said my mother tried to run from him. That she betrayed him.”
My jaw clenches.
“He couldn’t stand how much I looked like her.
Just seeing me was a constant reminder of her, and what she did.
So he sent me away,” she says, voice flat now.
“That’s how he framed me so easily. He knew exactly where I was and had the power to make sure everything went the way he needed it to. I was the last loose end.”
I want to put my fist through every wall in this goddamn building. Instead, I just take the gun from her hand and toss it aside. She lets me.
Then she wraps her arms around me again, and whispers, “He was right about one thing.” I tense. “I’m not afraid to kill the people who hurt me.”
Fuck. I press my mouth to her temple.
“You’re not alone anymore, Little Stray,” I breathe. “And he’s never touching you again.”
Her expression is unreadable. “He was my father, Riot. I was the mistake he buried. The loose thread he cut.”
My jaw clenches. I can’t find words. All I can do is stare at her like I’m seeing her for the first time again.
No wonder she was fire. No wonder she was fury.
She was born in the middle of a fucking storm, and yet she doesn’t break.
She doesn’t apologize. She just holds my gaze like she’s waiting for me to flinch.
Instead, I grab her jaw and kiss her. Hard.
“You didn’t just kill him,” I murmur against her lips. “You exposed every lie he built.”
Her eyes glisten, but she doesn’t cry.
A crackle in my comms yanks us back.
“Riot? Sin? You copy?” Ghost’s voice, urgent.
I hit the mic. “We’re here.”
“Holy shit,” Ghost blurts through the comm, breathless. “You’re alive?”
I wipe blood from my mouth and scoff. “What the fuck does that mean, Ghost? You think some weak-ass, half-trained Syndicate grunt actually took me out? Me? I’m the fucking Reaper, asshole.”
There’s a pause, then Ghost scrambles to recover. “Wait—no, I didn’t mean it like that! I just meant you were gone and—”
“He panicked,” Sin says dryly, brushing blood from her temple.
“Ghost panicked,” Bishop confirms through the comms, deadpan.
Taz barks in the background like she’s backing him up.
“I did not panic!” Ghost snaps. “Okay, maybe like a little—shut up.”
Sin smirks. “Missed you guys.”
“We’re two minutes out,” Bishop says, cutting in. “What part of the building are you in?”
I glance around for the first time. Past the blood and broken glass, there’s a wall of screens. Servers. Racks of hard drives and tech. A command center built for control and surveillance.
“Kane’s control room,” I say. “Northwest wing, top floor.”
“Perfect,” Ghost says. “Don’t torch anything yet. I want to plug in, see what dirt we can dig up. Maybe rip the whole Syndicate net out by the roots.”
Sin glances at me. “Think it’ll be enough?”
I flex my knuckles, stepping over Kane’s body. “I don’t know, but it’s a damn good start.”
A few minutes later, a metal security door groans open down the corridor, hinges screeching like a warning siren as it’s pried back. Footsteps. Heavy, purposeful. Boots against concrete. Then they’re here.
Ghost first. Silent as death, dragging wires like a noose in one hand and his laptop in the other. He doesn’t say a word, just surveys the room with that unreadable gaze like he’s already dissecting the entire system.
Bishop comes in behind him, rifle still up, eyes sweeping left to right. Luca follows, bleeding from his knuckles, scowling like he’s still itching for another body to drop. And Taz, Taz barrels through and straight to Sin. She drops to her knees the second she sees her.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around the mutt, burying her face in her fur. “I’m okay, baby. I’m okay.”
Ghost moves past me without a glance, heading straight for the control rack like he’s done this shit a thousand times.
Fingers already flying—no hesitation, no wasted movement.
Yanking cables. Snapping on adapters. He drags a busted chair across the floor with his foot, props the laptop on it, and starts slicing into the system like it’s already pissed him off.
No barking orders. No dumb questions.
Just Ghost doing what Ghost does.
The rest of the crew floods in through the compound bay doors behind us—boots slamming, voices rising, energy spiking like the fight’s not over.
“Jesus,” Bishop mutters, taking one look at Jace’s body on the floor. “’Bout fucking time. Piece of shit should’ve died ten Gauntlets ago.”
Luca pushes past him, glancing at Sin, then me. “You good?”
I nod once. “Still breathing.”
I lean against the wall and light a smoke, sucking down that first hit like it’s oxygen. The nicotine tears through my lungs and I let the burn settle somewhere under my ribs. We’re alive. All of us. Fucking miracle.
I fish another from the crumpled pack and hand it to Luca.
He takes it without a word, eyes scanning the room like he’s still waiting for a second wave of hell to break loose. I flick my lighter, watch the tip catch.
“What the fuck happened?” I ask, voice low, raw.
Luca exhales, the smoke curling out of his mouth in a tight, frustrated stream. “Everything went sideways the second you took off after her. You were the spark, man. As soon as people saw you going for blood, others followed.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The crowd turned first—handlers started catching hits from racers, then from spectators. They couldn’t contain it. Syndicate leaders were being escorted out while the rest of us were fighting to stay alive. No one made it to the end of the race.”
My jaw grinds.
“You said leaders. Voss?”
Luca nods, face tight. “He made it out. Barely. Word is he was the first one they got off-site, he vanished before anyone could grab him.”
Of course he fucking did.
“Coward,” I mutter.
I push off the wall as Ghost cracks open the main panel, silent as a scalpel. His fingers tear through the mess of wires like he's dissecting a beast, methodical and merciless.
The hum kicks in. Power coils up in the walls like it’s holding its breath.
Then a whine. Static.
The screens flicker. Buzz. Blink. Lit up one by one until the center monitor expands.
Kane.
Standing right where we are now. He paces the room like he owns it, like the floor itself is lucky to hold his weight.
That smug tilt to his jaw. Calm in that creepy way snakes get right before they strike.
Then the frame shifts. And there he is. The kid.
Young. Defiant. Black hair. Pale skin. Eyes full of fire.
Stephan.
He stands across from Kane, shouting—though the feed’s silent.
His hands are clenched. His shoulders squared.
He’s not begging. He’s calling him out. Kane’s expression doesn’t flicker.
He just lifts the gun. One clean shot. Straight to the chest. Stephan stumbles back like the breath’s been ripped from him.
He drops. Kane steps forward, looking down at him then spits.
Cold. Final. Like he was never anything more than dirt.
And that, right there, is what not only burns this whole kingdom to the fucking ground, but it clears my girls name.
“That’s him,” she chokes out. “That’s… my brother.”
The words hit the air like a bullet.
The crew stiffens.
Bishop’s jaw tics. Luca’s brows pinch. Even Taz lets out a low, uneasy whine like she felt the shift in the room too.
No one says a word.
Not yet.
But I catch the glance Luca throws me—brief, sharp. The unspoken Did I hear that right? hangs between us like smoke. We both file it away. We’ll unpack it later.
Right now, there’s only one priority: burn it all down.
Ghost keeps typing. Still silent. Still calm. His screen glows against his face, cast in that cold blue light of vengeance finally coming home.
More footage now.
Kane again, ordering beatings. Signing executions.
Clips of him giving the nod as people are dragged away—screaming, begging, bleeding.
Names being wiped from files like they never fucking existed.
Every lie. Every coverup. Every murder—documented and bleeding across every screen in the compound like the walls themselves are confessing.
“Ghost,” I say, “we seeing what I think we’re seeing?”
“Yep. We’re in,” Ghost mutters, eyes locked on the screen. “And the second I hit this key, it all goes live. OmniCast, full override. Every district, every screen. The whole goddamn empire’s about to choke on its secrets.”
I smirk, leaning in close. “Drench it in gasoline, brother.”
He hits the key. The feed detonates across OmniCast like a virus with a vendetta.
Screens meant for race stats and betting odds glitch once then Kane’s face takes over.
His voice. His confessions. That smug fucking tone bleeding into every sector—Dusk, Forge, Hollow.
Syndicate brass freeze mid-command. Handlers stop moving.
The crowd? Dead silent. No more cheering.
No more deals. Just the sound of power crumbling under its own filth.
And Kane?
Broadcast in 4K, as the king who killed his own blood.
Sin watches the screens, her fists clenched. Her face looks carved from war itself.
“You did it,” I whisper to her.
Ghost spins in his chair, eyes locked on the data. “Riot. Get over here.”
I move behind him, wiping blood off my jaw as the monitors flicker.
He points at a cluster of screens. “Three offshore accounts. Clean. Untraceable.”
“How much?”
He leans back, jaw ticking. “Enough to disappear. Start new lives. Five of ’em.”
“Split it,” I say. “Equal shares. Everyone.”
Ghost nods. “On it. Just gimme ten minutes—”
“Make it five,” Luca barks from the other side of the room. The pulse of a red light beats like a warning against the steel wall. “Syndicate’s closing in. Too many signatures to count.”
Bishop’s already locking and loading, eyes cutting to me and Sin. “We’ll hold the heat. Buy you two a clean exit.”
Luca claps me on the shoulder. “You earned it, brother. Now don’t fuck it up.”
“No promises,” I mutter.
Sin shifts beside me, blood still smeared on her temple. “Taz,” she calls, voice soft.
The dog’s ears twitch. But she doesn’t move. Instead, she trots forward and plants herself at Ghost’s feet. Solid. Silent. Like she made the decision hours ago.
Ghost blinks. “What the hell…?”
“She chose you,” Sin says with a faint, broken laugh. “She knows you need someone to watch your six.”
Ghost looks down at her like he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with the loyalty pressing into his side.
“She’s not leaving you,” I add. “You good with that?”
He nods slowly, still stunned. “Yeah. Yeah, I got her.”
We all pause. The sirens outside are getting louder. Boots pounding. The Syndicate’s not giving up without a war. This is goodbye.
For now.
“We’ll meet up when it’s clear,” Bishop says, pulling up his hood. “You know the spot.”
“When it’s safe,” Luca adds.
Ghost shoulders his gear. “I’ll vanish for a while. Get the footage backed up, spread it further and see what else I can find out in the rest of these encrypted files.”
Sin wraps her arm through mine, gaze locked with each of them in turn. “We lit the match.”
I smirk. “Now let it fucking burn.”
No tears.
No goodbyes.
Just a shared nod, the kind that means you’re not alone and then we move. Different directions. Same goal.
Freedom. Revenge. And the promise that when the smoke clears, we’ll finish what we started.