The Green-Eyed Warrior (The Monroe Brothers #2)

Chapter 1

THE PHOTO

DESTINY

I have always been the calm one.

So, when the compound alarm went off and gunfire cracked through the air, I didn’t run. I made sure all twelve Omegas were secured.

The alarm had a specific pitch that spiked the senses and made you move instantly. I was already moving before the first shot landed, crossing the room in eight steps and shielding the two youngest as I checked the windows.

No breach on the east side. The glass held.

Smoke rose from the north yard, and muzzle flashes cut through the trees—multiple shooters, spread out. Not random. Planned. Somebody had mapped this out and picked their moment.

“Against the wall,” I said. “Move.”

No one argued. I positioned them along the interior wall Darius had shown me months ago—no windows, no weak points, the safest place in the room if things went bad.

The rogue hit the east window hard enough to crack it.

I stepped in front of the smallest Omega and stayed still as he struck again. Movement draws attention. Stillness doesn’t. The crack spread, thin lines splintering through the reinforced glass.

On the third hit, I moved.

He came through the window off-balance, one boot catching on the frame as shattered glass rained across the floor.

I was already moving, grabbing my blade.

The gun stayed holstered. Too loud. Too slow.

My first strike crashed into his throat before he could fully regain his footing. The second hit even harder. I felt the cartilage give beneath my hand.

His eyes widened, and glass cracked beneath his weight as his body hit the floor.

Three seconds. Maybe four.

Long enough for him to realize he wasn't getting back up.

Behind me, twelve Omegas went silent.

I kicked the glass clear, checked the lock, and only stepped away.

The corridor was empty. The attack was pushing north, toward the main compound—away from me.

That meant the message on my phone, the photo, the address, and those four words weren’t part of the attack.

It was using it.

Someone had timed this. Someone smart enough to comprehend that chaos makes people move fast and stop thinking clearly. Smart enough to know I would act before talking myself out of it.

They weren’t wrong.

I knew exactly what I was walking into. And I went to the weapons room anyway.

The door closed behind me with a soft click. Everything here had a place. Darius didn’t believe in clutter—he said clutter got people killed. Clean lines, clean systems. Everything was where your hand expected it to be before your brain caught up.

Darius started training me as soon as I was strong enough to pass conditioning. By month three, I was already teaching other Omegas close combat. By month six, I was one of the top warriors trained to use blades.

I entered the code. The cabinet opened. My blades were right where I left them. Of course they were.

I quickly strapped everything on without hesitation—extra Glock magazines on my left, a silver blade in my right boot. It took about thirty seconds, maybe less.

I paused for a moment.

The sounds of the fight carried faintly through the walls—distant gunfire, shouting, and something heavier beneath it. The kind of sound that told you the warriors were handling business.

I rested my hands against the table and took one steady breath.

And I thought about Ty.

How good his hands felt when he found me in the dark, as if he always knew where I was. The smile he reserved only for me. The way he moved around me that morning in the kitchen, making eggs as if the world wasn’t always one bad decision away from falling apart.

I closed my eyes briefly.

He was somewhere on this compound, moving toward the fight—because that’s who he is. I had told him:

I would find him.

That promise settled heavily in my chest because I wasn’t going to him.

Sage’s voice crossed my mind—steady, unshaken. Some things are not negotiable. She meant power, control, and choice, not recklessness. I understood it then and now, yet I still moved.

The text put the location fifty-three miles northeast. On the back roads, I could make it in three hours. Less if I pushed.

My phone shook slightly in my hand, not because of the chair, the room, or even the fact that someone had my mother bound in a stone room fifty-three miles away.

It was the bruise. The specific, dark circle already blooming beneath her left cheekbone — most people would have looked right past it, dismissed it as part of the violence, and moved on. I couldn't move on.

I knew the shape. I had spent weeks after my rescue healing from the exact mark on my upper cheek. I zoomed in. The image blurred, then sharpened, and there it was. A circle. A raised edge. A wolf's head worked into heavy metal.

Redmon's ring.

The memory didn't come gradually. Warehouse.

Concrete. Blood was already in my mouth before I grasped what was happening.

Sage was shouting at me to run. I pushed her behind the crates forcefully and stepped out, Redmon smiled.

I never recalled his face, only the ring—a heavy, ugly silver wolf's head.

The impact of his fists. The sensation of his boot breaking my ribs.

Then, Darius's voice was somewhere above me before my world went black.

For months, the memory cut off there, right at the ring, as if my mind had decided I didn't need the rest. I'd accepted the gap and kept moving because standing still costs more than moving forward.

Now I know. I knew the mark on my mother's face. I knew who put it there. Redmon thought he'd broken something permanent. He thought whatever he'd cracked open in me was still bleeding. It wasn't. He was about to find out exactly what kind of Omega survives.

My fingers tightened around the phone, and I pushed off the table—no more thinking.

The exit opened into the forest behind the compound. The air hits different out there—cooler, cleaner, honest.

The trees closed in as I moved, fast, but not recklessly. There’s a difference. My body settled into it easily, breath finding a rhythm, steps landing cleanly, my mind moving ahead rather than chasing.

Running isn’t panic; it’s controlled when you do it right.

I didn’t look back. I didn’t check my phone again. I didn’t second-guess my decision. Because if I slowed down long enough to think about it, I might hesitate.

So, I ran.

I didn't make it ten yards before two of them came out of the tree line at an angle, moving fast, cutting off the path northeast. Not a flanking move but a seal. They were trying to surround me.

That wasn't going to happen.

I dropped low before the first one reached me, let his momentum carry him past, and drove my blade into his side as he passed.

Clean. The second adjusted — smarter than he looked — and came in with a knife already drawn.

I felt the cold before I decided to use it.

That's how Isdisa's gift works. Not a thought. A response.

Ice moved up my forearm and across my knuckles in a half-second skin, dense enough to take impact. He slashed. I blocked with my left and drove my right elbow into his jaw. He went sideways. I followed him down, pressing ice against his throat until he stopped moving.

I was already standing before he hit the ground.

Three more at the perimeter.

These weren't scouts. The attack on the compound was noisy, and I was the target.

Good. They wanted me contained, not dead. I can work with that. I moved toward them rather than away.

The one on the left was the biggest, and big ones always expect you to go right. I went left. He overcorrected, and I was already past him, driving an ice shard into the back of his knee as I passed. He went down hard. I didn't stop to watch.

The middle one grabbed my collar. A strong grip. I let him have it for half a second, long enough for him to feel certain, then dropped my weight, spun inward, and cracked the heel of my palm into his nose. Twice. The grip broke.

The third one hesitated—terrible mistake.

I touched the water on the ground. It instantly turned to ice. I pushed it up through the ground, thin and fast, locking his feet where he stood. He looked down. I was already moving.

By the time I hit the tree line, the sounds of the fight were behind me and fading.

I didn't look back.

***

TYRELL

East corridor, clear.

I came in through the service entrance with Reeve and Moss on my six, all of us moving fast and quiet, the way Gammas move when control matters more than speed.

Reeves had taken two silver grazes crossing the yard and was still moving as if it didn’t matter. You don’t stop for grazes. You push through and deal with it later. Stopping in a firefight for anything short of structural failure is how you become the reason someone else doesn’t make it.

Smoke hung heavier in the corridor than outside—thicker, dirtier. They’d set something on fire on the south side—an accelerant burn. Loud, fast, meant to create pressure, not damage.

Not random but controlled.

Which meant someone was thinking.

“Movement?” I asked.

“Negative,” Moss said.

Reeves checked left, then shook his head. “Clear.”

Everything was holding up except the feeling settling in my chest.

I slowed slightly—not enough to break formation, enough to listen through the noise. Gunfire still carried from the north yard, but it was structured and controlled—no breakdown in command.

So why didn’t it feel right?

There was broken glass and blood near the east window. A rogue. She handled it. Of course, she had.

“She’s not here,” I said.

Moss frowned. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

It didn’t make sense. Destiny doesn’t move without reason. Not in the middle of an attack. Not without locking everything down first.

Which meant if she left—

There was a reason.

And if there was a reason—

It wasn’t small.

Twelve faces turned toward me.

No green eyes. No dark curls. No stillness that feels like a blade that hasn't been drawn yet.

She wasn't there.

"She left." The small woman near the back kept her voice steady. "Right after she locked us in, she got a message."

Something moved through me. Kai surfaced — not panicking, but fully present, paying attention to everything.

"How long ago?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe twelve. Is she safe?" the woman asked.

I looked at her. Looked at the blood by the window. Thought about the fact that she'd locked these twelve women in and handled a rogue during the process, without apparently considering either of those things worth mentioning in the text she didn't send me.

"I'm going to find her," I said.

I took the stairs two at a time, came around the east corner, and nearly ran into Carter.

He was bleeding from his left shoulder. It was a real hit, not a graze, though the way he moved told me nothing vital. He had the rogue pinned against the wall, one forearm across the man's throat. Carter had a look I recognized. It was the look he got when someone had pushed him past his limit.

Two more rogues circling.

"Just handling some trash, brother," he said.

"I see."

I came in on the left one.

The fight wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t supposed to be.

The rogue had size on me, and he knew it—he led with his body, the way big men do when size has always been enough.

I let him come. Water doesn’t fight force with force.

It finds the angle, the point where a thing’s weight works against itself.

He grabbed my collar. I slipped inside his grip.

Three seconds later, I was behind him, his neck snapped, and it was over.

Carter finished his. The third one turned to run and got exactly six feet before Darius came through the treeline and ended the situation with the quiet efficiency of a man who prefers to observe but is genuinely terrifying when observation proves insufficient.

He landed. Looked at me.

"Go," he said.

"The perimeter”

"Is contained. The push is collapsing. They lost coordination when the east entry team went down.

Reeve and Moss have this. Carter and I have this.

" He paused. "Marcus is already in the safe room, went straight to Sage after the breach.

Mama Mara has her. Gran is there." Another pause, then he looked me in the eye.

"Your mate is heading off this compound, Tyrell.”

Flat. Direct. No softening.

"I know," I said.

"Then stop standing here."

I called her before I reached the tree line—half a ring. Cut short. Voicemail.

We hadn't fully bonded yet.

I was ready, she was holding. It was a careful conversation between Destiny and me, focused on honesty and patience. I hadn’t forced anything because her timeline was hers.

Standing at the edge of the forest, uncertain of her location or how much of a lead she had, I understood the unfinished bond in a new light. Without it, I had only her footprints.

I crossed into the tree line and stopped long enough to lock in. Without the full bond, I had her scent and her footsteps.

My jaw tightened.

She hadn’t panicked. She had chosen this. She was heading northwest toward the creek bed, away from the battle, toward something she'd decided I couldn't know about because she'd decided I'd try to stop her.

She was right.

Kai wasn't pacing or acting frantic; he just existed, standing firmly in my chest like water that has found its crack, with patient certainty.

She's alive, he said. She's moving. She's choosing.

I know, I told him.

She's about to do something that terrifies you.

I know.

Good. Let's go get her.

I went into the forest.