Chapter 11 Something Is Wrong #3
Jameson hadn’t even considered his own life in this scenario, at the possibility that it was now in danger. He thought of the clinic, how the drones had found him there. How many others had they been watching? How many of Shadera’s connections had they already uncovered? Was it just him?
“Kael just became the face of the revolution to the rings because of what those prisoners did,” Jaeger said, his voice cutting through Jameson’s thoughts.
His gaze turned to the mercenaries around the room, many of whom were listening intently now.
The crowd had already doubled since Jameson entered Wolf’s Head, and they were all watching him.
“Their deaths weren’t wasted. The Heart wanted to silence them, but they just made the message louder.
The Cardinal is buzzing with it. Even parts of the Heart’s service class have heard whispers.
” Something passed over Jaeger’s eyes—a calculation, a decision being made.
“We’ve been planning for years, building networks, preparing for the opportunity to strike.
This might be it. The spark we need to light the fire properly. ”
Jameson’s blood ran cold. “You want to use her as a symbol, while she’s their prisoner?”
“She’s already a symbol,” Jaeger snapped. “Whether she wants to be or not. The question is how we use that to help her—and help the cause.”
“Fuck the cause,” Jameson hissed, low enough that only Jaeger could hear. “Get her out.”
Jaeger’s eyes narrowed on Jameson. “You think I don’t want that? She’s one of my best. My most loyal. But rushing in blind gets her killed faster than waiting for the right moment.”
“While you wait for the ‘right moment,’ they’re doing God knows what to her in that tower,” Jameson said, his voice dangerously close to cracking. “We all know what the President does to his prisoners.”
“She’s stronger than you think,” Jaeger countered. “Trained for this exact scenario. She knows what to do, how to survive, how to feed them just enough to keep herself alive without giving away anything important.”
“And if they break her? If they turn her against us?”
Jaeger hesitated for only a moment, then answered. “Then I’ll put her down myself.”
The words hung between them, cold and final. Around them, the bar had fallen into an unnatural silence, every Daggermouth watching the exchange with calculating eyes. Jameson was acutely aware of how outnumbered he was, how many blades and bullets could find him before he reached the door.
But fear had burned away, replaced by a clarity he hadn’t felt in years. Shadera was alive. Captured, but alive. That was all that mattered.
The bartender approached again, refilling their glasses without being asked.
This time, he lingered a moment longer than necessary, his eyes flickering between Jameson and the broken drones before speaking.
“Word from the Cardinal. The Veyra are doubling patrols along the main routes between rings. Something big is happening.”
Jaeger nodded once in acknowledgment, then turned back to Jameson. “We have people inside the Heart. Not many, but enough to get information. As soon as we know more about Shade’s situation, we’ll plan accordingly.”
Jameson took the fourth shot of whiskey, the alcohol doing nothing to dull the edge of his growing anger. Jaeger was playing a longer game—he always was—but Shadera didn’t have the luxury of time. Not if Maximus had his hands on her.
“How long?” Jameson asked. “How long before your informants get anything useful?”
“Days. Maybe a week,” Jaeger admitted. “The Heart is locked down tighter than usual. Something else is happening that we don’t fully understand yet.”
A week was too long. Far too long.
Jameson stood, gathering the broken drone parts and shoving them back into his bag. “Keep me informed. Anything you hear, I want to know immediately.”
Jaeger watched him, expression sliding back to unreadable. “Where are you going?”
“To find someone who might know more than your informants,” Jameson replied, already turning toward the door. “I have my own contacts.”
“Be careful,” Jaeger said, the warning clear in his tone. “The drones were just the beginning. If they’re watching you, they’ll be ready for your next move.”
Jameson paused, looking back at the Wolf of the Boundary. “Then I’ll make sure it’s not what they expect.”
He strode to the exit, feeling the eyes of every Daggermouth tracking his movement. His mind was already five steps ahead, creating contingency plans, mapping routes into the Heart, cataloging the weapons he would need.
Jameson was halfway to the door when something inside him snapped.
The accumulated pressure of days without sleep, the fear that’d been his constant companion since Shadera walked out of her warehouse, the casual way Jaeger spoke of waiting while she suffered—it all crystallized into a single, blinding point of rage.
He pivoted on his heel, strode back to the table, and slammed his fist down so hard the whiskey glasses jumped. One rolled across the table then shattered against the floor.
The sound echoed through the silent bar like a gunshot.
“You should’ve never given her this contract,” he shouted, his voice ricocheting off the walls. The words tore from his throat, exposing nerves he usually kept buried. “You knew how personal it was for her. You knew it would throw her off her game instead of taking the easy, calculated kill.”
Jaeger’s eyes darkened, the only indication he gave that Jameson had crossed a line. No one spoke to the Wolf this way, not in his own territory, not surrounded by his killers. The coin that had reappeared in his hand went still, caught between two fingers like a promise of violence.
“Mind yourself, Jay,” Jaeger said quietly, the sound more dangerous than a raised voice. “Remember where you are.”
Jameson leaned closer, past caring about the consequences. “Where I am, is in a room full of people who sent her to die because none of you understood what killing Greyson Serel actually meant to her.”
Around them, the Daggermouths moved in unity.
The woman with the scarred face slid from her stool, a gun materializing in her hand as if conjured from air.
The two men by the window turned fully toward the confrontation, shoulders squared and hands hovering over holstered weapons.
Behind the bar, the bartender reached beneath the counter, pulling out a shotgun, and slowly rested it over his shoulder.
“She was never just taking out another Heart elite,” Jameson continued, ignoring the tension as his voice dropped without losing an ounce of intensity.
“Greyson represents everything she lost. The man executes rebels in the same plaza where her parents were murdered by his father. You made it personal the moment you gave her that contract.”
A muscle in Jaeger’s jaw twitched. “She’s a professional, she knew the risks.”
“She’s a woman with a fucking vendetta,” Jameson countered.
“One you encouraged and exploited. You may not have wanted to see it because she is your best, but knew she’d get sloppy with him.
You knew she’d want to see his face, to make him understand why she was killing him.
That’s why she got caught, the only way she would’ve ever been caught—because she made it personal. ”
A man stepped forward, one hand twisting a silencer into his gun.
“That’s enough,” he growled.
“Stand down, Reeve,” Jaeger ordered without looking away from Jameson.
Jameson didn’t wait for Jaeger to respond to him. The dam had broken, and words poured out of him like blood from a severed artery.
“You know what she told me that night? She said she was doing this for her. Not because he was another name on a contract, not because you asked her to, but for her. That’s not a professional speaking—that’s someone blinded by emotion.”
Jameson’s hands splayed on the table, fingers pressing into the wood hard enough to leave marks. “And you let her go like that. Knowing. Fucking. Better.”
Jaeger’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of what might have been remorse. Or guilt. It vanished as quickly as it appeared.
“You love her," Jaeger said, the words landing and cutting into Jameson.
“Don’t try to make this about me,” Jameson snarled. “This is about your failure to protect one of your own. This is about you sitting here, plotting how to use her capture to spark your rebellion, while she’s being tortured in Haven Tower.”
An mercenary near the bar—a woman with tattoos mapping half her bady—spoke up, her voice carrying in the tense silence. “Since when does a smuggler tell the Daggermouths how to handle their business? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Several others murmured agreement, hands tightening on weapons. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees as killsights aligned on Jameson from multiple angles.
“He’s the Ghost Shade’s been fucking,” someone else said from the shadows. “Thinking with your cock clouds judgment a bit.”
A low ripple of laughter spread through the room, dark and mocking. Jameson’s shoulders tensed, but he kept his eyes locked on Jaeger.
“I know her,” he said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“I know how she thinks, how she plans, what drives her. I know she sleeps with a knife under her pillow and wakes up screaming five nights out of seven because she still sees her parents being executed. I know she drinks to numb the pain but never enough to dull her reflexes. I know she carries the names of every person she’s ever killed tattooed on her body so she never forgets the weight of what she does. ”
The mockery in the room faded as he spoke, replaced by a different kind of tension—the recognition of loss, of the pain this city caused.
“And I know,” Jameson continued, “that she would tear this city apart brick by brick to save any one of you if you were in her position. So tell me, Jaeger, what the fuck are you doing to save her?”