Chapter Six
Mara knew something was wrong the second the house went quiet.
Not the normal quiet—the kind that settled in after midnight when everyone found their rhythm and the building breathed around them. This was sharp. Abrupt. Like a held breath that never let go.
Then the gunshot came.
Close.
From inside the house.
She was off the bed and moving before the sound finished echoing, heart slamming hard enough to rattle her ribs. Another shot cracked, followed by shouting—short, panicked—and then a heavy thud that vibrated through the floor.
“No,” she whispered.
She grabbed her phone. No signal. No bars. She tried the panic button they’d shown her anyway.
Nothing.
Her chest tightened. Luca’s voice cut through her memory—If something feels wrong, don’t be brave. Be gone.
Mara ran.
The panic room was hidden behind the false wall panel they’d showed her how to access on the first night. She slammed it shut behind her and locked it, breath tearing in and out as she pressed her back to the steel reinforced wall.
More shots. Screams. Then silence.
Footsteps approached her door.
A voice she didn’t recognize called out, calm and coaxing. “Mara, I know you can hear me, and I know that I cannot get you out of that room. You need to come out yourself. We just want to talk.”
She said nothing.
Something heavy struck the wall. Once. Twice.
Then another voice—young, shaking, and one she recognized as one of the young guards.
“Mara,” he said, fear breaking through every word. “Please. They said if you don’t come out—”
Pain cut his voice off mid-sentence.
Mara’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Open it,” one of them said lightly. “You don’t want this on your conscience.”
She stayed frozen, nails digging into her palms, until the sound of the guard crying out—really crying out—ripped something open inside her.
“Stop,” she shouted. “I’m coming out.”
The door slid open.
The guard was on his knees before her, blood on his shirt, face pale and wracked with terror. He looked at her like she was his salvation.
“I did what you asked,” she said, voice shaking. “Let him go.”
One of the men smiled even as he pulled the guard’s head back with a hand in his hair and ran a knife across his throat.
Blood arced in a similar line, the wet heat of it across her bare arms almost dropped her to her knees, the gurgling sound of distress the young man made in the moments before he died would be with her forever she was pretty damn sure.
She’d done as they’d asked and they killed him anyway.
“If it makes you feel any better,” the killer said as he dropped the guard’s body to the floor. “The wound I had given him to lure you out was killing him slowly anyway, he just didn’t know it.
Mara screamed as hands grabbed her, yanked her arms behind her back, snapped cuffs around her wrists and a hood came down over her head, cutting the world to black.
“You belong to Mr. Havelock now,” someone said. “And he has plans for you, baby.”
She was hauled upright and thrown over someone’s shoulder like a sack of grain, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs.
Her wrists were already cuffed behind her back, metal biting deep into tender skin every time she shifted.
Someone slammed her into the back of a vehicle and the door closed hard, sealing her into darkness and motion.
The hood muffled sound, but she forced herself to listen.
One turn. A stop. Another turn taken too fast. Gravel crunching. The smooth hum of open road. Time stretched and folded in on itself as she counted, mapped, memorized—anything to stay present. Panic would waste oxygen. Panic would get her killed.
When the vehicle finally stopped, hands dragged her out and her boots scraped concrete. The hood came off in a harsh jerk and light stabbed her eyes.
A warehouse.
Cold. Damp. The air reeked of metal, oil, and old water. Chains hung from beams overhead. They shoved her into a chair bolted to the floor and locked her down—cuffs switched for heavier restraints that bit into her skin.
Guards took positions. Blank faces. No curiosity. No pity.
Time lost its meaning.
Her shoulders burned. Her ribs throbbed. She focused on breathing through it, on keeping her spine straight, on not giving them the satisfaction of seeing her fold.
Then the air changed.
Grant Havelock walked in like the space belonged to him, shoes immaculate, expression faintly irritated rather than angry.
“You made a mess of everything,” he said mildly, as if commenting on a spilled drink. “I want the drive.”
Mara forced her chin up. The movement sent a spike of pain through her ribs, but she welcomed it—pain meant she was still here. Still herself. “Fuck you.”
Havelock sighed, a sound of faint disappointment. Then his hand came out of nowhere.
The blow landed hard enough to snap her head sideways. Light burst behind her eyes, a clean white flare, and the taste of copper flooded her mouth. Her chair rattled as she absorbed it, breath tearing out of her in a sharp, humiliating gasp.
Don’t fold.
She swallowed blood and lifted her head again, neck screaming, vision swimming but clearing by sheer force of will. She made sure he saw her look back at him.
“You think you’re clever,” he snarled now, the mask finally cracking. “You think running buys you something. You think they’ll come for you.”
Mara’s heart hammered, loud in her ears, but the fear underneath it was less than she expected. Because fear had already done its worst.
“They will,” she said. Her voice came out rough, scraped raw, but it didn’t shake. “And when they do, this ends. And by that, I mean you’ll be dead.”
Havelock laughed, short and sharp. “You really believe that?”
Before she could answer, the first gunshot tore through the warehouse doors.
Metal screamed. The sound echoed off the concrete, off the beams, off the chains overhead.
Then another shot.
Not wild. Not frantic.
Measured.
Controlled.
Professional.
Mara felt it in her bones before she understood it. Her breath hitched—not in fear this time, but in hope.
Havelock spun toward the sound, fury stripping the last of his composure, his mouth opening to shout orders that hadn’t mattered yet.
Mara smiled through the pain, slow and certain.
“Told you,” she said softly. “Your time’s up.”
****
The first breach charge exploded. Steel screamed as the lock failed inward, the sound tearing through the warehouse like a warning bell that came too late.
Luca was already moving, rifle up, boots eating concrete, the world narrowing to angles and targets and the single name beating behind his eyes.
Mara.
Gunfire answered them from inside. Short bursts. Defensive. Panicked.
“Left!” Mateo barked.
Luca cut right, shoulder slamming through the doorframe as splinters and sparks rained down. Dominic took point behind him, Elias moving at the rear with lethal calm, weapon steady, presence anchoring the formation.
Kol’s voice threaded through their comms, calm as a metronome. “Two hostiles on the catwalk. Third behind the generator. Moving.”
Shots rang out. A body pitched from the catwalk and hit the floor hard enough to shake dust loose from the rafters.
“Clear,” Kol said.
They moved deeper.
The warehouse was a maze of cold metal and shadow. Chains rattled overhead, stirred by concussion. Luca clocked everything without seeing it—angles, exits, places where a body could be dragged or hidden. He stepped over blood that wasn’t fresh enough to be theirs.
A guard lunged from behind a crate. Luca fired once, center mass, then again when the man didn’t fall fast enough. He didn’t slow.
“Where is she?” Mateo snapped into a fleeing man’s ear.
The answer came with a scream and a wet thud as Dominic put the man down.
“Office,” Kol said. “North side. Reinforced.”
Luca felt it then—pressure behind his eyes, a tight coil of fury and relief fighting for space.
They hit the office door together.
Mateo kicked. Dominic followed. Luca was through the gap the second it opened, weapon sweeping, finger steady.
Havelock was there.
He’d dragged Mara’s chair closer to the desk and had positioned himself half behind her, one arm hooked around the back of her shoulders like a shield. Like a threat. His grip tightened when he saw them.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Havelock snapped, voice sharp with sudden panic. “This was contained. This was private. The Covenant doesn’t touch this kind of business.”
Elias stepped forward a fraction, calm as a blade laid flat. “How do you know that name?”
Havelock laughed, brittle and forced, puffing himself up as if arrogance could armor him. “Because I’m important. You should be bowing before me, not pointing guns. You have no idea who I answer to.”
He straightened, confidence surging as he convinced himself of it, chin lifting, chest out.
Three shots hit him almost at once.
Havelock jerked violently—one impact snapping his head back, another punching through his chest, the third tearing into his throat. He collapsed backward into the desk, papers exploding into the air, blood spraying across polished wood as his body crumpled to the floor.
Silence.
Kol’s voice came over comms, clipped. “I didn’t fire.”
Dominic shook his head once. “Me, neither.”
Luca lowered his weapon. “Forehead was mine.”
Elias reholstered with precise calm. “Mine took him in the heart.”
Mateo exhaled. “Throat. Couldn’t stand to hear the fucker’s voice a minute longer.”
Luca went to Mara, knelt in front of her and picked the locks on the restraints. It did not take long before the metal clattered to the floor. She swayed when he lifted her, arms going around his neck on instinct.
He held her like he’d burn the world before he dropped her.
“You did good,” she whispered into his shoulder.
He shook his head. “You were hurt.”
“We’ve got her,” Mateo said, already checking the door. “Time to go.”
They moved fast.
Outside, the night swallowed the sound of sirens somewhere far away. Luca set Mara down only long enough for Dominic to wrap her wrists and Elias to press a bottle of water into her hand, his grip steady and reassuring.