Chapter 24 Hunting Monsters
Ethan
Tension makes the air in the war room feel like sludge. Bastian stands at the head of the table, arms crossed, his jaw granite—that look he gets when his mind's already five moves down the board. Ryker paces, energy thrumming off him like a live wire. His knife flicks, the shink, shink, shink of his knife slicing through the sounds of the monitors.
Me? I’m right where I belong—in front of my screens, my fingers hovering over the keys, itching to rip Kolya’s world apart. My heart’s steady, but something feels different about this. Raw.
I glance toward the hallway. Lila's in Bastian’s room, tucked under his covers, safe for now. He insisted she rest there, away from the chaos, somewhere secure. She had argued, of course, Lila never goes down without a fight, but exhaustion had won out in the end.
“We need to stop playing defense,” Bastian says, his voice even, controlled. "Kolya's made his moves. Now, we make ours. Ethan, what do you have?"
The weight of the moment presses down as I flex my fingers. "Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have his world cracked open. But we need a plan for when I do. This can’t be reckless, Kolya’s too smart for that."
A nod from Bastian, his expression unreadable. "We exploit his weaknesses. We hit where it hurts, make him scramble, take away his control piece by piece. Ryker, prep for a physical strike. We’ll need firepower ready when we move. No half-measures. Ethan, dig deep—finances, shipments, bribes, hidden assets. Everything. If he has a single crack in his armor, we find it and break him open. Clean. Efficient. Devastating."
Ryker flips his knife, the motion almost lazy. "Finally. About damn time we took the fight to him." He’s practically vibrating with anticipation, like a predator waiting for the cage door to open.
Bastian shoots Ryker a look, sharp and full of unspoken warning. "We do this my way. Smart. We don’t give him a chance to react until it’s too late. This isn't a street fight, Ryker. This is war. And wars are won by strategy, not impulse."
Ryker scoffs, flipping the knife again. "I know exactly what war is, Bas. I was a prisoner of one, remember? "
Something flickers across Bas's face, pain quickly masked. I know exactly why. It was his call that had gotten Ryker captured.
Ryker smirks, clapping Bastian on the shoulder. "Water under the bridge, Bas. Mostly."
He lets the words hang for a second before his grin widens, unbothered. "But let’s not forget the best part of this, violence. That’s the fun part."
I smirk, my focus already shifting back to the screen. "Let me get us the intel first. Then you can have your fun."
Ryker chuckles, twirling the knife between his fingers. “Just don’t take too long. I’ve got an itch to put Kolya in the ground.”
Bastian exhales, rubbing his temple. “You’ll get your chance. But we do this the right way. No mistakes. We can’t afford to lose you, Lila, or anyone.”
I settle into my chair, the worn leather conforming to my shape, becoming an extension of my focus. My fingers fly across the keyboard, weaving through Kolya’s digital defenses. He thinks his network is a fortress? Amateur hour. He’s so fucking wrong.
Firewalls crumble; encryption protocols shatter like brittle glass, cleanly bypassed. Backdoors yawn open at my command, ghosts of code flickering across the monitors as I slip past his watchdogs. Layers of security peel back under my assault.
Lines of code bleed across the dark screens. Data streams past, I navigate by instinct honed over years of this shit. Financial records, offshore accounts bleeding through shell corporations, routing logs for illegal shipments, the surface stuff. All so predictable.
Easy pickings, but not what we need. I'm hunting for the rot beneath the foundations. Cross-referencing transactions, access times, personnel logs... looking for the pressure point.
And then I find it. An anomaly. Too deliberate to be accidental. Financial transfers flagged—large sums moving into an account belonging to someone on our payroll, coinciding with system glitches around the time of the attack. I follow the outflow, almost immediately after the deposit, smaller but significant payments shoot out from that same account to known online betting sites and high-risk, off-books lenders Grim keeps tabs on.
Debts suddenly cleared, serious, off-the-books markers, the kind that get legs broken, not just credit scores dinged. A bitter taste fills my mouth. It's always something stupid. Money. Fear. Desperation makes people break so damn easily. Makes them forget loyalty, forget everything… The familiar ache twists in my gut, the shadow of my brother falling over the screen. My own brother, finding his way into the darkness because he thought there was no other choice, because I wasn’t there to stop him.
The parallel is a punch to the gut, a fresh wave of that old guilt and frustration. This isn't about him now, not directly, but the echo of that pain, that betrayal of self, makes this discovery sharper, more personal. For a second, the thought of having to navigate that kind of broken loyalty again, even indirectly, makes me want to walk away from the screen. But Lila needs us. Functionality has to win. A digital trail leading somewhere that was never intended for anyone to see. Shit. One of ours . I sideline the file for a moment, marking it priority, my gut tightening into a cold knot.
Ignoring the ice forming in my veins for now, I push deeper into Kolya's main network, beyond the personal accounts, looking for operational weaknesses. Financial records, offshore accounts bleeding through shell corporations, routing logs for illegal shipments, this is where we can cripple him. And there it is. Another thread.
Adrenaline surges, a low electric hum mixed with cold dread, but my voice comes out steady. “Got it. Found two vulnerabilities.” Jackpot.
“First, one of his top lieutenants, someone in Kolya’s inner circle, has been skimming off the top. Big money. Looks like Kolya doesn’t even know yet.”
Bastian steps forward, scanning the screen displaying the lieutenant's data. “That’s our in. We can turn him against Kolya or leak just enough to make Kolya suspicious. Either way, it sows chaos.”
“And the second vulnerability?” Bastian asks, his gaze sharp, sensing there’s more.
I take a breath, the weight of the other discovery settling heavily. “The financial trail tie into the recent security glitch… the money trail for the payoffs… it leads back to someone on our payroll.”
Bastian’s expression hardens instantly. “Who?”
I pull up the sidelined file, spinning my chair to face him. "Luke Bradley. Perimeter security. One of Grim's guys."
Silence. Ryker goes utterly still, the restless energy vanishing, replaced by something cold and dangerous. His gaze flicks to Bastian, then back to me, absolute focus.
Then Bastian exhales. “We hold off for now. We don’t tip our hand until we’re ready.”
Ryker’s muscles stay coiled tight. "We’re just gonna let him walk around like nothing’s wrong?"
“For now,” Bastian confirms. "He's finished. He just doesn't know it yet. And he is not allowed anywhere near Lila. Don't worry, we'll keep a close eye on him."
I send a quick message, summoning Grim. Within moments, his heavy footsteps echo down the hall before he storms into the room, eyes scanning the screen, then narrowing at the name.
A harsh breath grates out of Grim, his jaw tightening until the muscles stand out like cords. “Luke Bradley.” He says the name like it tastes foul. His face, usually a mask of stoic menace, flickers with something raw, disbelief warring with a dawning, savage fury. Luke. A name tied to years of shared blood, sweat and tears. A man he’d trusted with his back in firefights that would make hell look like a vacation. “He’s been on my books for decades. Went through hell and back together. Trusted him with my life... fuck, trusted him with hers.” The last word is a bitten-off curse, the realization that this man, this brother-in-arms , could have exposed Lila, our pregnant Lila, to unthinkable danger hitting him like a physical blow. His eyes scan the screen again, disbelief chased instantly by a cold, dangerous rage.
“He’s been on Lila’s detail more than once.” He shakes his head slowly, disgust twisting his mouth. “That son of a bitch. I knew his markers were piling up, the gambling… but this? This level of treachery?” “I should’ve seen it coming. I knew he had gambling problems, debts that kept pulling him under with the wrong kind of sharks. ” His voice drops, roughened by bitterness aimed squarely at himself. “Just didn’t think… didn’t think he’d sell us out for it. For a bit of fucking money .”
Bastian watches him carefully. “I know.”
Grim doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, quiet, dripping menace, he mutters, “I don’t take well to people who lie to me. Or to those who put the people I care about in danger.”
He turns to Bastian. “What’s the call?”
Bastian’s voice is cold. “We wait. We use him. And when the time is right—he’s yours.”
Grim nods once and turns to leave, the promise hanging heavy in the air. But before he's fully out the door, his phone buzzes audibly. He glances down, his expression instantly hardening. He stops, turning back, phone still clutched in his hand.
"Problem," he states flatly, his voice tight.
Bastian straightens, alert. "What now?"
"Just got an alert," Grim reports, his eyes narrowing. "Perimeter check pinged an anomaly half an hour ago. Luke Bradley isn't accounted for. He missed his last check-in."
Silence slams down in the room.
Bastian’s brows draw together. "Missed check-in? Or gone?"
"Assume gone until proven otherwise," Grim growls. "I'll pull the logs—"
"Already on it," I interrupt, fingers flying across the keyboard, accessing the security feeds Grim pinged. "West perimeter... disabled camera feed... timestamp matches the timeframe... Searching adjacent feeds..." Something ugly coils in my stomach. "Wait..."
I freeze the image on the main monitor, enlarging it. The grainy picture is a punch to the gut.
Grim sucks in a breath beside me. He reaches for the tablet linked to the security server, quickly mirroring the feed and highlighting key data points I just uncovered, the disabled camera icon flashing red, the exact timestamp matching Luke’s missing check-in, the specific path taken through a known blind spot. He shoves the tablet towards Bastian and Ryker. "Confirming Ethan's findings. Disabled sensors here... blind spot exploited here . This was planned."
Bastian leans forward, his expression going dark as he focuses on the image I have displayed.
The grainy image shows Luke Bradley leading Lila off the compound.
She isn’t struggling. She isn’t fighting. Her posture is tense, her fingers clenched tight at her sides, except for one hand, which clutches a folded piece of paper. There’s no fear on her face, just... resignation? Uncertainty? Her gaze is fixed somewhere beyond the camera's view.
It looks like she’s going willingly. But what the hell is in her hand?
Willingly? The thought hits me—cold, impossible. No. It can't be. Blood hammers in my ears.
Bastian’s voice is dangerously low. "When did this happen?"
Grim’s jaw tightens. "The timestamp puts it nearly two hours ago. It happened while we were in here, focused on Kolya. We missed the initial alerts."
Ryker slams his fist onto the table, sending papers flying. "Two hours? Fuck! We need to move. Now."
Bastian’s hands curl into fists at his sides. "Find out where they went. We’re getting her back."
Chaos explodes in the war room, but all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart echoing the image on the screen. Lila is gone.
And the image burns behind my eyes—walking away. Willingly?