Laundering Down the Legions (Black Ops #5)

Chapter 1

The compound corridors were quiet for a breakfast hour.

Too quiet. No voices carrying from the common room, no smell of coffee or toast, no familiar sounds of Seph's music drifting through open doorways.

Just the soft hum of the air system and the click of my boots against the concrete as I made my way toward the archives, the dagger a warm weight against my hip, tucked into the waistband of my jeans where my jacket would hide it.

I'd spent the early morning turning theories over in my head until they'd worn smooth as river stones, none of them fitting quite right.

The man in the photo, half-hidden and deliberately obscured, haunted the edges of my vision every time I blinked.

I knew him. He was my father… but it was the ghostly echo of another face superimposed on top that seemed familiar, but somehow not.

Grayson stepped into the corridor ahead of me, and I nearly walked into him.

He looked wrong. Not hurt, not physically.

But something had cracked the careful composure he wore like armor.

His gray eyes were too bright, his posture too rigid, like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will.

He wore a dark shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, his forearms bare, and I could see the fine tremor running through his right hand before he shoved it into his pocket.

"You need to come with me," he said, his voice flat.

"I was headed to the archives..."

"Not now." He cut me off with a gentleness that made the refusal worse. "Please, Parker."

Behind him, the rest of the team materialized from side corridors and doorways with a coordination that would have been impressive if it hadn't been so unsettling.

Trux first, his massive frame filling the space beside Grayson, his gaze narrowed and wary.

Rhiot flanking his left, weirdly quiet, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Seph appeared from the common room doorway, her wild hair sticking out in all directions, mouth set in a hard line.

Ryker trailed next, in human form. Rarely in human form around me these days, as if his human shape was too vulnerable to risk.

He kept his distance near the wall, gaze fixed on the floor.

And Kearan. Always Kearan, bringing up the rear with that quiet, deliberate walk, his expression giving away exactly nothing.

They'd gathered without me. Planned without me. Something in the way they occupied the hallway, spread out but connected, a formation built for containment rather than confrontation, told me everything I needed to know about why the compound had gone quiet this morning.

They'd been waiting for me. Of course they had.

"What's going on?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. The dagger warmed against my skin, responding to the spike of adrenaline flooding my system.

Grayson's hand came up, palm open. Not a command. A request. "The photograph from the grimoire. I need to see it."

My stomach dropped. "How did you..."

"Please." Just the one word, and I'd never heard that much urgency from him before.

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the folded photograph. The one of Eloise laughing in the garden, the man's face half-turned from the camera. I placed it in Grayson's open palm, my fingers brushing his, and felt the faint electric tingle of his power at the contact.

He didn't look at it immediately. Just closed his fingers around it and nodded toward the common room. "Sit. All of us."

We filed into the common area without a word.

Nothing like a silent six-person escort to really set the tone for your morning.

I took a seat at the long table, the same one where we'd shared Kearan's stew just days ago.

The memory of that night, the warmth and the normalcy and the fragile peace we'd built, felt like it belonged to someone else.

Trux sat to my right, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

Rhiot took the chair across from me, his usual jovial energy banked to something watchful and still.

Seph perched on the arm of the couch, one leg swinging.

Ryker remained standing near the doorway, arms crossed, his gaze lifting briefly to mine before dropping back to the floor.

Kearan took up position against the far wall, near the kitchen entrance, his posture deceptively casual. I caught the way his fingers tapped a slow, deliberate rhythm against his thigh. Not nervousness. Counting. Measuring.

Grayson remained standing, the photograph still clutched in his hand. He took a breath, deep and controlled, and finally looked down at the image.

His body went completely still. That specific stillness I'd learned to recognize.

Where everything in him locked down and his focus went somewhere interior, somewhere none of us could follow.

There was a faraway look in his eyes. His breathing slowed as his fingers tightened on the edges of the photo until the paper creased.

No one spoke.

"Grayson." His name came out sharper than I'd intended. "Whatever you're seeing, say it. Out loud. Right now."

He looked up, and whatever was on his face made me go still too. Not fear. Worse. Certainty. The kind that looks like a man who's been running the same theory in his head for years, hoping he was wrong, and just ran out of time.

"Ro's psychic signature," he said, each word deliberate, like he was making sure it landed before placing the next.

"It's always had two layers. His own. Demon, old, the kind of old that makes my gut churn.

And something else riding on top of it. Not part of him.

Attached to him. Whatever it is, it's been there as long as we've known him.

Two signatures in one body, but they're not equals.

One is Ro. The other is something using him. "

The room didn't move. Didn't breathe. I sat frozen, Grayson's words rearranging the inside of my skull.

"He's been circling this for years," Grayson continued, voice dropping.

"Watching you. The dual signature predates your birth, Parker.

By decades, at minimum. I've felt it reaching back through time whenever he's near you.

This double presence, this echo of something older beneath the surface.

I thought it might be residual, some mark left on him.

But the photograph..." He held it up, his hand steady now.

"The man beside your mother. His psychic residue is all over this image.

The base layer matches Ro's. His signature.

Unmistakably." He paused. "The second presence is there too.

Whatever has been riding him. And I don't recognize it.

I've never encountered that signature anywhere else. "

The world tilted sideways. I gripped the edge of the table.

"You're saying Ro is possessed or being controlled, and that's what we are seeing in the photograph?" My voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere down the hall. "The one who's been watching me since before I was born."

Grayson didn't nod. Didn't need to. The answer was in his face. Shoulders dropped, jaw tight, the look of a man who'd been dreading this conversation long enough that finally having it didn't bring any relief.

While he was still speaking, I caught movement in the corner of my eye.

Kearan pushed off from the wall and walked into the kitchen without a word, without a glance in my direction.

The kitchen was visible from the hallway through a half-open doorway, and I tracked him with my eyes as he moved through the space with that quiet efficiency, opening cabinets, pulling things out, his back to the room as he worked.

The world was ending, and Kearan was making eggs. Honestly, respect.

Grayson didn't say anything else. The photograph sat on the table between us, Eloise's laughing face turned upward, caught in a moment she didn't know would become evidence.

The man beside her was half-hidden, his features obscured by shadow and angle, but I didn't need to see his face anymore. Or the thing with him.

Which one was responsible for everything? Who had actually intended my creation? Had my mother known Ro was possessed when she was with him? My mind spiraled with questions faster than I could process.

The silence was complete. No one moved. No one offered comfort or confirmation or the hundred other things people say when the world collapses. They just sat with it, all of them, carrying everything they'd known and when they'd known it and how long they'd kept it from me.

Kearan emerged from the kitchen. He crossed to the table and set a plate in front of me without comment.

Steaming eggs scrambled soft the way I liked them, with flecks of green onion and a sprinkle of cheese melted just enough to be gooey but not brown.

A thick slice of sourdough toast, buttered and cut diagonally.

A small bowl of berries on the side, because he'd noticed, in some offhand moment I couldn't even remember, that I liked fruit.

I hadn't asked for any of it. Hadn't said a word about being hungry. Hadn't done anything except sit here while my understanding of my life dismantled itself piece by piece. Again.

He didn't look at me when he set it down. Didn't wait for thanks or acknowledgment. Just placed the plate with the same careful precision he applied to everything, then straightened and fixed me with that clinical, assessing gaze.

"At the first compound," he said, his voice cool and measured. "When Seph arrived. Did you eat anything?"

Not a question, the way he said it. More like a form being filled out.

"Yes," I said. "Right before Cerbie appeared and caused all that chaos."

He nodded once, filed the answer away without follow-up or commentary, and turned back toward the kitchen.

Just like that. Clinical data gathered, mission accomplished, retreat executed.

No comfort. No hand on my shoulder. Just the food I needed and a question that gave me something concrete to focus on besides the hole Grayson's words had blown through my chest.

No one at the table remarked on the plate.

No one glanced at it. Seph studied her nails.

Trux's jaw worked silently. Rhiot had gone very still, his usual fidgeting completely absent.

Ryker, still standing by the door, had turned his face toward the wall, one hand braced against the doorframe like he needed the support.

None of them looked at the plate. Not one. That was the tell… they'd seen Kearan do this before. Clock something no one said out loud, drop exactly what was needed, retreat before it got weird. Old news. Just another day.

Which meant they'd been watching him do this for me for longer than I'd been paying attention.

I looked down at the food Kearan had placed in front of me. The eggs were still steaming. The toast smelled like butter, warm and solid. My throat closed anyway.

I picked up the fork he'd set beside the plate. Not a plastic spork from the Division cafeteria. An actual metal fork, the kind from the set he kept in his private cabinet. I pushed the eggs around without eating.

The theory assembled itself with the particular horror of things that make too much sense.

Ro. Two signatures. A demon old enough to predate my birth, carrying something inside him that Grayson had never seen before.

The echo of a man in the photograph with Eloise, his face deliberately turned from the camera because of some reason.

My father's enemy.

Or.

My father.

Shit.

What did that even make me? What did that make—

The dagger warmed against my hip, responding to the spike of horror that hit me. I set the fork down very carefully, my hand trembling too badly to trust with metal.

No one spoke. None of them looking directly at me, like eye contact would make it real. Grayson's words sat between us, undeniable. Kearan's food steamed gently on the plate, untouched. Ryker's presence by the door ached like a bruise I couldn't stop pressing.

I sat very still at the center of it all, the theory turning over and over and finding no way out, and didn't say a word.