Maeve
She sprinted toward the steel door, and the keypad hung open where she'd left it, wires spilling from the panel.
The lock was still disengaged. She grabbed the door handle, but it didn't move.
"Damn it." It wasn’t electronically locked anymore; it was mechanically barred from the other side.
Someone had dropped the emergency deadbolt.
She wasn't getting through without another way.
She crawled behind an overturned crate and forced herself to breathe. She needed to think because she knew for sure that panic got people killed. Her instructor's voice echoed from years ago. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
She looked around the tunnel at the old shelves, rusted pipes, electrical conduit running along the ceiling, and the generator lines.
Her eyes narrowed. It wasn’t a generator, but a power feed.
She followed the conduit with her gaze. It disappeared into the wall beside the steel door.
If she couldn't open the lock, maybe she could open the wall.
Another body hit the floor. Peak had taken down a second operator.
He moved with controlled aggression, using the enemy's own cover against them.
He wasn't military—she was certain of that now.
But someone had trained him well, very well.
One operator flanked left, and Peak anticipated it before the man cleared the shelving.
Two shots and the operator was down. Now, one remained.
Maeve ignored the fight. She spotted a red emergency disconnect box mounted beside the conduit.
It was locked, and she huffed out her breath.
Everything was locked. She picked up a fallen operator's combat knife and jammed it into the latch.
One twist and the cheap lock snapped. The metal door swung open, and inside, she found a heavy industrial breaker with three switches.
One was labeled: PRIMARY LOCKING SYSTEM.
Her pulse quickened because whoever installed this place had built redundancy. She threw the breaker, and nothing happened. "Come on." She flipped it again, and still nothing. Then she noticed the handwritten label beneath it was RESET REQUIRED. Of course, because nothing was ever easy.
"Maeve!" Peak shouted. She looked over her shoulder. The last operator had disappeared. He wasn’t dead, just gone.
Peak was scanning the chamber with the captured rifle. "Where'd he go?" she asked.
"I don't know!" he admitted. She hated those words, but Peak seemed to hate them more.
The room fell unnaturally silent. There were no footsteps, no voices, and no movement.
Maeve's pulse hammered. "Peak.”
His eyes swept every corner. "I know."
"He isn't gone,” she said.
"No, he's hunting us," Peak said as he slowly backed toward her without taking his eyes off the darkness. "You almost got the door?"
"Almost,” she said. A metallic clang echoed somewhere above them, and they both looked up at the catwalk she hadn’t noticed before. It was hidden in the darkness near the ceiling. The last operator had climbed into the overhead maintenance walkway.
Peak cursed. "Stay behind cover,” he ordered, but it was too late.
The operator opened fire from above, and concrete exploded around them.
Maeve dove behind the electrical cabinet and Peak rolled behind a stack of crates.
The operator had elevation and cover, and from the way that he was stalking them, he had patience.
He wasn't spraying bullets over them. He was hitting them with one precise shot at a time.
Maeve looked at the breaker panel again and then up to the catwalk again. The power conduit ran directly beneath it, and an idea formed—a dangerous one. She shouted across the chamber. "Peak!"
"What?" he asked.
"Shoot the conduit!" He looked where she pointed and seemed to immediately understand.
"You sure?" he asked.
"No, but do it anyway!" she ordered. Peak switched to semi-automatic, fired one shot, and missed.
After the second shot, the conduit sparked, and the third shot made the metal pipe rupture.
Thousands of volts arced across the exposed wiring, racing along the damaged conduit toward the catwalk.
The operator barely had time to react as electricity exploded across the steel grating beneath his boots.
He cried out as the current threw him backward.
His rifle clattered over the railing before he followed it, crashing fifteen feet onto the concrete below.
Peak remained behind cover for several seconds—watching and waiting. He finally stood and looked over at her. "You okay?"
Maeve nodded. "I think so." He walked over to the fallen operator and carefully kicked the rifle away before checking for a pulse.
“He’s alive, but pretty beat up,” Peak said.
He removed the man's helmet, and Maeve stepped closer.
The man was in his forties, had close-cropped gray hair, and had a military bearing even while unconscious.
It wasn't his face that caught her attention.
It was the tattoo behind his right ear. A black serpent coiled around a dagger.
Her breath caught. "Oh, God."
Peak looked up immediately. "What’s wrong?"
She pointed at the tattoo with a trembling finger. "I've seen that before."
"Where?" he asked.
She swallowed hard. "On the man who took Wren."
Peak's expression turned to stone. "You sure?"
"I'll never forget his face." She crouched beside the unconscious operator, her voice barely above a whisper. "His name—” She closed her eyes, reaching back through eighteen months of nightmares. “His name is Mercer."
Peak frowned. "You know him?"
"I know what he is." She looked up, fear and fury warring in her eyes. "He's not an Iron Serpent."
Peak felt the ground shift beneath everything he thought he understood. "Then who the hell is he?"
Maeve's answer came in a whisper that chilled the underground chamber more than the damp air ever could. "He's the man they send when they need someone to disappear forever."
Just saying Mercer’s name made bile rise in Maeve's throat.
For eighteen months she'd tried to forget his face, but she never could.
Even now, kneeling beside his unconscious body, every scar, every line, every strand of silver threaded through his dark hair came rushing back like it had happened yesterday.
Peak crouched beside her. "You know him." It wasn't a question.
Maeve swallowed hard. "I wish I didn't." She couldn't stop staring at the serpent tattoo behind his ear. She'd seen it once before, the night her world ended.
"It was raining,” she whispered.
Peak looked at her. "What?"
"The night Wren disappeared." Her voice sounded distant, even to herself.
"It was raining that night. I traced her phone after she stopped answering, and I found her car behind the concert venue.
" She closed her eyes. "It was pouring by that point.
" Peak remained silent. He seemed to instinctively know she needed to tell him her story. It wasn’t for him, but for herself.
"The driver's door was open to her car, and the headlights were still on.
I thought she'd gone looking for me." She laughed bitterly.
"I kept yelling her name." Her fingers trembled as she remembered.
"No one answered." Peak watched her carefully.
She'd been composed from the moment he'd met her, but now she knew that she looked like someone reliving a nightmare.
"I heard footsteps." She looked at Mercer's unconscious face. "I thought it was Wren, but it wasn't." Her breathing became uneven. "He walked out of the alley carrying her backpack." Peak's jaw tightened. "He smiled like it was just another Tuesday." The words came out barely above a whisper.
"What'd he say?" Peak asked quietly. Maeve could still hear his voice—calm, polite, and professional, like they were discussing the weather.
"He told me—” She squeezed her eyes shut.
"That smart women should know when to stop asking questions.
" She felt anger burn low in her chest from just the memory, but she continued anyway.
"I tried to run past him, but I only made it three steps.
" She touched the scar hidden beneath her hairline.
"He hit me, and the last thing I saw was Wren's backpack lying in a puddle. " Her voice cracked.
Silence filled the underground chamber. Even the dripping water seemed to stop. Peak looked at Mercer differently now. Before, he'd been an enemy combatant, but now, he was the man who'd stolen eighteen months of someone's life.
Maeve took a shaky breath. "When I woke up, I was in the hospital. The police said someone found me unconscious. There were no witnesses, no fingerprints, and no surveillance videos.”
Peak frowned. "They found nothing?" he asked.
She laughed without humor. "Mercer cleans up after himself."
Peak studied the unconscious man. "Not this time."
Maeve looked at him. "What do you mean by that?” she asked.
"He made mistakes this time,” Peak said.
She shook her head. "No, he wanted us to find him."
Peak nodded slowly. "I think you're right." Mercer hadn't worn a mask, and he didn’t hide the tattoo. He'd walked into the Grave Prowler’s territory with professionals instead of bikers. He wanted to be seen and wanted Maeve to recognize him, and that realization made her skin crawl.
Mercer's eyelids fluttered, and Maeve instinctively reached for the fallen rifle. Peak was faster. He pressed the gun’s barrel against Mercer's forehead.
"Don't fucking move,” Peak growled. Mercer's eyes slowly opened, and for one brief second, he seemed confused.
Then recognition hit as his gaze shifted from Peak to Maeve, and he smiled.
It was the exact same smile she'd seen eighteen months ago—cold, patient, and completely without remorse.
"Miss Carter,” Mercer breathed. His voice was smooth despite the blood running down the side of his face. "I was wondering how long it'd take you to go to the Grave Prowlers."
Maeve felt every muscle in her body tighten. "You remember me."
Mercer chuckled. "I remember all my unfinished business."
Peak stepped closer. "You're done talking."
Mercer's eyes never left Maeve. "I see you've made friends."
"I've made an alliance,” she said. The words surprised even Maeve. Peak glanced sideways at her. She hadn't meant to say it, not consciously, but after everything the Grave Prowlers had risked for her, the word had come naturally.
Mercer noticed, and his smile widened. "That's unfortunate."
Peak shoved the barrel harder against his forehead. "You got one chance to tell me who you're working for."
Mercer looked at him for the first time. "You must be Peak." Peak didn't react. "The hacker who was too good for the government."
Maeve's heart skipped a beat, and she looked at Peak. "You told me you turned them down."
"I did,” he said.
Mercer laughed softly as his gaze returned to Peak. “I’m not talking about the government trying to recruit you, Peak. They've been watching you for years." Peak's expression didn't change, but inside Maeve, every alarm bell she possessed began ringing.
"Who’s been watching him?" she asked.
Mercer ignored the question. "You've been on their list since you were twenty-two."
Maeve looked between them. "What list?"
Mercer smiled again. "The kind you never want your name on."
Peak's voice dropped dangerously low. “This is none of her business,” he growled.
"Answer the question,” Maeve shouted.
Mercer leaned his head back against the concrete. "You still don't understand, do you, Maeve?"
"What don’t I understand?" she asked.
"This is bigger than just you and your sister.
" The underground chamber fell silent, and Maeve felt her stomach knot. Mercer looked directly into Peak’s eyes.
"They attacked your clubhouse tonight because they finally found you.
" For the first time since they met, Peak didn't seem to know what to say.
Maeve saw uncertainty cross his face. Whatever Mercer had just revealed had changed everything.