40. Sage
FORTY
SAGE
Brock:
Do you think about me, pet? I think about you. Every time I wrap my hand around my cock.
[Delete]
[Block]
Nobody points me toward the bar this time.
It’s barely eight on Saturday morning, and Unholy Desires is still wearing the remains of Friday night. The room smells like leather polish, expensive perfume, and whatever the cleaners use to wipe sins off mahogany.
Knox walks me past the velvet stanchions that usually dictate who gets to exist in this space and who gets turned away. My worn boots make hardly a sound on the hardwood, but in the cavernous quiet of the empty club, every footfall feels deliberate. I’m not here to hide today.
I’m walking into the war room.
Behind the massive main bar, Micah is still in last night’s black button-up, sleeves shoved to the elbow, wiping down the taps like he has all the time in the world.
“Morning, baby girl,” he says as soon as he sees me. His voice is a low, warm rumble that wraps around me. “Knox.” Both men nod at each other cordially.
I stop on the other side of the bar. “Have you been here all night?”
He grins. “I have. It was quite the party last night.” His eyes move to Knox. “You almost got called in.”
Knox just grunts in response, a low sound vibrating in his chest that means he’d have been perfectly happy to break some heads if needed.
Before Micah can elaborate on whatever chaos went down, the heavy front doors groan open again.
I turn as the rest of them walk in. Holden leads the pack, his posture rigid, his bright blue eyes already sweeping the room.
Eli is right behind him, lean and coiled tight, his autumn eyes locking onto me before the door even swings shut.
And bringing up the rear is Milo, balancing a cardboard tray of coffees and wearing sunglasses the size of dessert plates despite the indoor gloom.
“I’m running on two hours of sleep, three Red Bulls, and the sheer power of my own unbridled genius,” Milo announces to the room, kicking the door shut with his heel.
He sets the drink tray down on a nearby cocktail table.
“Also, whoever decided to schedule a war council before nine a.m. on a Saturday is officially off my Christmas list. Holden, I’m looking at you. ”
“I didn’t schedule it,” Holden says, his voice clipped. He stops beside me, his hand briefly brushing the small of my back. “Odin did.”
“Yeah, I know.” Milo grins and pulls a giant coffee from the holder. “I’m just looking at you, Holden. Odin’s never been on my Christmas list. I’d have no idea what to get him.”
Eli crosses the floor and stops right in front of me.
He looks exhausted, the faint scar on his jaw standing out in the dim light, but the chaotic energy he usually wrestles with feels entirely focused now.
He doesn’t say a word. He just lifts a hand and brushes his thumb along the side of my neck, right over the edge of my choker.
I lean into it for a fraction of a second.
“Everyone’s here,” Micah says, tossing his bar towel over his shoulder. “Let’s head back. The room is prepped.”
Knox has one hand wrapped around my waist. Micah helps Milo carry the coffee for everyone. Eli reaches the door first and opens it.
Milo leans close to my ear. “Do you want me to carry you across the threshold? Because I will. I’ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid.”
“It’s a meeting,” Holden says. “Not a wedding.”
“Both involve binding contracts and the possibility of public humiliation.”
“Move, Milo.”
He grins and steps back. “After you, kitten.”
Taking a steadying breath, I step through the door, and the first thing I notice is how ordinary it is.
I expected something darker. Stone walls. Bloodstains. A rack of weapons arranged by preferred method of execution.
Instead, there’s a large oval coffee table sitting in the middle of a curved couch. A screen takes up most of one wall. On one side there’s a smaller version of the main bar. On the other is another door.
Knox takes his place against the wall.
Of course he does.
Odin is already seated in the middle of the main couch, a tiny cup of espresso beside one hand. His suit is dark gray today, perfectly fitted, without a wrinkle anywhere. He looks like he’s here to discuss a hostile corporate takeover instead of an organized network of predators.
His strange gaze moves to me.
“Miss Adams.”
“Odin.”
One corner of Milo’s mouth twitches. Apparently, I’m supposed to be intimidated by the fact that no one knows his real name and he can make people disappear across multiple continents.
I’ve been abused, assaulted, strangled, stalked, and left hanging from a noose. And I survived it all.
A well-dressed man with a glass eye is going to have to work harder to get under my skin.
I take a seat on the couch opposite, and Micah hands me a coffee before sitting to my left. Eli sits on my right. Holden drops into the seat near Odin, while Milo pulls out his laptop and sits beside him.
Odin looks around the room. “Fenrir has established a stable mirror of the platform through Jake Petersen’s account. At present, The Kennel doesn’t know its security has been breached.”
Milo connects his laptop to the wall screen.
A black page appears with nothing but two blank fields and a small white outline of a dog collar beneath them.
Milo types something.
The screen changes.
Thirty-seven circles spread across a map of the city. Some are clustered close together. Others sit alone. Thin lines connect several of them, branching and crossing until it looks like someone dropped a handful of tangled wire over the city.
Milo clicks one of the circles. A username I don’t recognize. Beneath it is a list of dates, posts, and uploaded files.
My stomach twists.
“This is a copy of what the admins of the app can see,” he explains.
“The main app is a scorecard of sorts, with a leaderboard and discussion threads full of tips and tricks. Much like that dog training chat we found, it’s coded to look like they’re talking about animals.
But once you get past that and into the admin area, everything changes.
” He clicks on the username and a profile fills the screen.
“We’ve tied this username to Jake Petersen.
Ole Jakey-boy has made seven confirmed contributions over eight months.
” Milo’s voice has none of its usual bounce.
“Three written reports. Two photo sets. One video. One target profile.”
“Target profile?” I ask.
Milo’s fingers move over the keyboard.
A woman’s face fills the screen.
She looks about twenty-five. Maybe younger. She’s wearing an apron and standing behind the counter at a florist. The photograph has been taken through a window without her knowledge. Beneath it are her first name, workplace, neighborhood, and daily schedule.
There are notes about her boyfriend.
Her rent.
The nights she closes alone.
A score sits beside the word compliance.
I stare at it until the numbers blur.
“They rate them?”
“Everything is rated,” Milo says. “Appearance. Accessibility. Existing support structures. Financial pressure. Sexual boundaries. How they respond to threats. How likely they are to report.”
Micah leans forward, forearms on the table. “They’re documenting how to isolate them.”
“Among other things.”
Milo scrolls.
There are words I recognize individually, but together they make my skin crawl.
Training.
Correction.
Performance.
Reward.
Sharing.
“They talk about women like dogs,” I say.
“That appears to be the organizing theme,” Odin says. “The platform is divided into geographic yards. Each yard has its own operators, targets, and moderators. Access is invitation-only. A new member must be vouched for and provide evidence of participation before gaining full access.”
“So everyone on there has hurt someone?”
“Everyone with an active account has provided something the administrators consider proof,” Holden says.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He doesn’t flinch from it. “Yes, wildcat. Every one of them has hurt someone.”
I stare at the screen.
Knox said there were thirty-seven of them. That means that at this very moment, in this very city, thirty-seven men are sitting in their homes, drinking coffee, going to work, and coaching their kids’ teams while they trade women like instruction manuals.
Over my dead body.
“Which one do we take out first?”
Odin doesn’t blink. “None of them.”
The room goes very still.
I turn to him. “Excuse me?”
“No Kennel member is to be touched until we understand the structure of the network.”
A laugh slips out of me. Short and sharp. “You just showed us proof that thirty-seven men are hunting women for sport.”
“I showed you one geographic section of a network we believe extends well beyond this city.”
“Great. We’ll start with these thirty-seven and work outward.”
Milo raises his hand. “Seconded.”
“Milo,” Eli warns.
“No. Fuck that.” Milo sets his laptop aside and stands.
Energy snaps through his body, too much of it to contain in a couch.
“We know what they’re doing. We know Jake participates.
We know Tyler is connected to the invite chain—that he was pushing this shit on Amy before she dumped him.
I’ve said from the start that Tyler is a rotten apple who has spent years smearing his rot over every man stupid and hateful enough to stand near him. ”
He grabs his laptop again and types. The screen returns to the map then zooms in and enlarges.
Another username sits near the center. Lines run from it to Jake’s and several usernames that haven’t been identified yet.
“Jake didn’t find this platform by accident,” Milo continues.
“Tyler vouched for him. Tyler sent invitation links to two other devices. He’s in private chats explaining how to cut women off from money, friends, and family until they become”—his fingers hook in the air—“compliant. And when you look at his fucking posts, it’s obvious he was talking about Amy. ”
The words come out coated in acid.
Milo turns to Odin.
“If you click on Brock’s username, his last post is a fucking photo of Sage sitting at that party wearing the pink dress. And do you know who responded to his ‘possible new pet’ comment? SMAN69—who we’re pretty fucking sure is Stephen. These men are rapists with admin skills, and I want them dead.”
The last words are quiet.
Milo makes jokes about absolutely everything. But he isn’t smiling now.
“I agree,” I say. “The moment we know who they all are—they die.”
Knox’s head lifts slightly.
Holden rubs a hand over his mouth. Micah looks at the screen again, his face carved from something cold.
Odin remains still.
“This isn’t a vote on whether they deserve to die,” he says. “It is a decision about when killing them produces the greatest result.”
“The greatest result for who?” I ask. “Because every day we wait is another day they get to keep doing this.”
“I agree,” Eli says. “But we need to consider what happens if we start systematically taking out Kennel members.”
I turn on him.
He doesn’t look happy about taking Odin’s side. That doesn’t stop him.
“Right now, all we have is a bunch of usernames. We’ve only connected a handful of those to real people. We take them out, we never figure out the rest. We might never learn who the fuck Stephen is.”
“They’ll shut down the yard,” Holden adds. “Burn accounts, wipe devices, warn the other regions and move to another platform.”
“Still leaving us with a bunch of dead rapists,” I point out.
“And hundreds more we can no longer see,” Odin says.
That shuts me up for half a second.
I hate that half second.
Knox shifts against the wall. “We watch them.”
I look back at him.
His expression hasn’t changed, but I know him well enough now to recognize the tension held through his shoulders.
“You want to let them keep breathing?”
“For now.”
“They’re hurting women.”
“I know.”
“Then how can you stand there and say we wait?”
His eyes don’t move.
“Because waiting gets all of them.”
The certainty in his voice crawls beneath my anger and settles there.
I hate that he’s right.
I still want to stab something—make that thirty-seven somethings.
Micah leans forward, his elbows on his knees. “What happens to their targets while we build the network?”
Odin looks at him. “Fenrir will monitor platform traffic. Anything indicating an imminent assault will be passed to whichever team is available to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“Whichever team?” I ask, glancing around the room. “How many kill teams do you run?”
Odin’s mouth quirks at the side. “Far more than you’d think.”