Hell of Havoc (Havoc Trilogy #3)

Chapter 1

Back Into Hell

Ghost

The Sanctuary still smelled like blood if you knew where to look for it.

Most people didn’t. They walked through the halls like the place had been reborn, like new glass and patched stone somehow erased what happened here. But I knew better. You don’t scrub violence out of a place like this. It sinks in. Stays. Waits.

Just like the Syndicate.

I leaned against the far wall of the war room, arms crossed, watching the screens flicker with half-cleaned data feeds and rebuilt systems. Vex had done her job.

Better than expected, honestly. The network was tighter now.

Faster. Meaner. But even with all that, there were still gaps. There were always gaps.

And the Syndicate? They lived in the fucking gaps.

Saint stood near the main table, silent as ever, his presence filling the room without him needing to say a word. Eden hovered close, her attention split between him and whatever fresh hell she was stitching back together in her head.

Reaper was on the opposite side, shoulders tight, jaw locked like he was one bad breath away from putting his fist through something. Or someone. I didn’t need to ask why.

My eyes flicked once, briefly, toward Vex.

Her being pregnant changed things. Reaper wasn’t just fighting for Havoc anymore.

He wasn’t just throwing himself into the fire because that’s what we did.

Now he had something growing inside her that wasn’t built for this world.

Something that didn’t deserve to bleed for our mistakes.

Saint had Eden. That was different, but not by much. She grounded him in a way nothing else did. Made him think twice. Sometimes.

Me?

I pushed off the wall and stepped closer to the table, eyes scanning the map like I hadn’t already memorized every inch of it.

“Ironhand’s expanding east,” I said flatly, tapping a point near the edge of our marked territory. My voice came out calm. Controlled … like none of this meant shit to me. “Faster than they should be able to. They’ve got backing.”

Reaper let out a low, irritated breath. “No shit,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “We already knew they were dirty.”

“Dirty doesn’t build this kind of structure,” I replied, tone sharpening just enough to cut. “This is organized. Funded. Coordinated.”

Saint’s gaze shifted to me, steady and unreadable. He didn’t ask the question out loud. He didn’t have to.

Syndicate.

I held his stare for a second, then gave a slight nod. “They’re not done,” I said. “Volk was a piece. Not the board.”

Silence settled heavily in the room after that. No surprise. No disbelief. Just confirmation of the shit we already knew.

Reaper swore under his breath, something creative and violent that I didn’t bother tracking. Eden stiffened beside Saint, her arms folded tighter across her chest as if she could physically hold the tension in place.

I didn’t react. Because this part? This wasn’t new to me. This was home.

“I’ll handle it,” I said, already anticipating the argument before it came.

Reaper’s head snapped up. “Like hell you will,” he shot back, voice rough with more than just anger. “We’re not doing this solo shit again, Ghost.”

I met his glare without flinching. “You’ve got bigger priorities now,” I said evenly, letting my gaze flick, just for a second, toward the hallway again before returning to him. “Both of you do.”

Saint didn’t move, but something in his expression tightened. “We handle our problems together,” he said quietly, his voice carrying weight like a fucking verdict.

“Not this one,” I replied, just as calm, just as final. Because this wasn’t just Havoc’s mess, this was mine.

I straightened, grabbing my jacket off the back of the chair, as if the decision had already been made … because it had.

“They’re tied to my past,” I added, pulling it on, my voice dropping lower. “That makes it my problem.”

Reaper stepped forward, tension rolling off him in waves. “And what happens when your problem becomes ours again?” he demanded, jaw tight. “What happens when you don’t come back?”

I paused for half a second. “Then you won’t have to worry about it,” I said flatly.

Eden sucked in a quiet breath. Reaper looked like he wanted to hit me. Saint just watched.

I didn’t give them time to argue. I turned and walked out of the war room, boots echoing against the stone, the weight of their stares following me down the hall like ghosts that refused to stay buried.

I was already gone. And this time, I wasn’t coming back until the Syndicate was nothing but ash.

The doors to the Sanctuary closed with a final bang that resonated far too loudly.

Good. Let them.

Let them feel the vibrations of silence left behind after my departure. Let them stew in the fact that this wasn’t something we discussed. Something we all agreed on. My coming back to the Sanctuary wasn’t democratic.

I walked past empty corridors till I pushed out the door, the chill of fresh air burning my lungs as I inhaled slowly through my nose. The air tasted of rain and copper and endings that never promised survival.

My Fat Boy idled beside the curb, black paint and worn leather blending into the shadows while the engine pulsed like restrained violence beneath me. No questions asked, like old times.

I flung a leg over and settled in. Gripped the handlebars as I found my center again. There was no going back.

No Sanctuary. No Saint. No Reaper.

Ironhand.

To look at it, anyone would think it was another street fighting ring looking to make a name for themselves. Prizefighters. Gamblers. Sweat and blood on dirty concrete floors, and assholes acting like this was civilized when all they were doing was dying poor.

Fuckers.

I knew better, though. Ironhand was something different. Something bigger.

Drug runs disguised as fighter/event schedules. Humans shipped the same way as currency was. Quiet. Efficient. Through hands that seemed deliberate enough not to raise suspicion.

They brought them in. Some left. Some stayed. Fucked if I knew what happened to them if they stayed. All I knew was that they didn’t just vanish.

The arms trafficking slid through, too. Boxed up with false labels. Wrong flight directions. Guns slipped through hands weaker or more corrupt than they were. Weapons. Ammo. Things that had no place being sold to the hands of civilians because, damn it, someone wanted a war.

And the money, of course.

That was the real beauty of it all. Syndicate currency never stayed in one place long.

It ran like water through businesses like Ironhand, through betting and losing on purpose, and through winning when they wanted to, through banks that didn’t officially exist but held more power beneath the streets than the mayor’s office will ever know.

That used to be my world. Hell, I helped run parts of it.

My hand tightened on the throttle as I rolled the Fat Boy forward, the engine rumbling low and steady beneath me.

Another job wasn’t going to cut it. Clean-up was child’s play.

This was bigger than that. This was me tracking right back down to where I started my ass off at.

Right down to the gentlemen who’d taken me in as a kid and taught me how to kill …

how to fly under the radar, how to weaponize a society that thought they were better than us.

Right down to the Syndicate.

Right down to where I never really left.

I pushed the pedal down hard as I rolled past the empty lot, water from the sky splashing under the tires. Streetlights passed over me in streaks of red and white as I melted back into the city.

Sanctuary hunting would be easy pickings. Ironhand wasn’t my target. It was my way in. And I was about to smash that shit open.

The city sprawled before me, all blaring horns and blinking lights and people lying to themselves they weren’t one fuck-up away from winding up somewhere like Ironhand. I rode through half-blind, letting instinct take the curves while my focus never wavered from the task at hand.

That was key. Focus on the job. Don’t let anything else cloud it that didn’t need to.

Stay sharp. Stay cool. Stay focused.

It didn’t take concentration anymore. It just…

was. Hardwired into me. Every choice became instinctive, separating needs from wants.

Needs from needs. There was no sitting on the fence.

No going back and forth on a decision. That part of me died years ago when I chose and chose and chose and never looked back.

The Syndicate operated like clockwork, and I knew how to play it, where to duck in and blend. Where to press. Where to wait it out and bleed until they had nothing left worth bleeding for.

Ironhand was no different.

I didn’t have to let it faze me. Didn’t have to care about who got caught in the middle just yet. Not until the house of cards shook and everything under it came crumbling out.

For now, it was about learning the layout. Knowing it. Making it mine.

Emotions clouded judgment. Clouded judgment got you killed. Or something worse.

I tightened my grip on the wide handlebars as I leaned the Fat Boy through another series of turns, pavement stretching open beneath me while the engine rumbled deep enough to vibrate through my ribs. It lulled me.

Routine. Everything played out the same way. Sound swallowed you whole while the road pulled at your shoulders and dragged you forward.

Forward. Always forward.

Effortless. Pure.

Just how I liked things to be.

Lots of things about my life were like that now. Shut off. Packaged neatly and locked away so they couldn’t affect the parts of me that mattered.

Goodbye things. Things that had to go to keep everything else in place.

I didn’t like looking back at those choices. I didn’t dwell on them. There was no sense in it. You decide, you deal with the consequences, and you fuckin’ move on.

That’s life.

I checked my mirrors and darted left, threading through traffic with nobody so much as batting an eye. Old habits kept my eyes sharp even though I didn’t expect trouble. I took note of everything around me. Ears open. Filed away useful information and discarded it just as fast.

Stay ready. Don’t get comfortable. Don’t give anyone anything to work with.

That was the entire reason I left everything I’d built behind me — burned bridges so thoroughly all they left behind was ash—nothing for anyone to follow back to me.

Kick ass and don’t look back.

Worked like a charm if I do say so myself.

Because if someone was onto me. Suppose anyone had tried to contact me. I would’ve known one way or another.

And I didn’t. So, the line I drew for myself two years ago was still intact, and that was how I liked it.

Perfect cut. No bridge to burn back across. Just move forward.

My thumb rubbed along the accelerator slowly as the city skyline before me darkened and grew more ominous. Sus kind of neighborhood people didn’t venture into without a damn good reason.

Didn’t apply to me, though. I had nothing left behind that could deter me now.

NOTHING.

Ironhand didn’t come calling. You didn’t need to see the door for it to bleed through the cracks.

I killed the engine a block away and walked the rest of the way — hands tucked in my jacket, shoulders relaxed but ready.

From the outside, nothing about the warehouse was impressive– it looked like a storage unit that had been beaten up over the years.

But the traffic spoke volumes. Guys entered bulky and left lean. Some do not leave at all.

It was worse once you were inside. Boxers trapped around the perimeter. Cocky ones. Broken ones. Staff avoided eye contact as if they knew exactly where not to look. Buyers off to the side, shaking clean hands with stained money.

I watched them all — who talked, who stayed quiet, and who everyone avoided.

Rank.

Dominion.

Possession.

Somewhere in that sea of bodies and chaos, there was something else quietly taking measure. Efficient. Silent. Familiar in a way I didn’t question at the time.