75. Knox
SEVENTY-FIVE
KNOX
“Your leave is over,” Odin says. “Effective immediately. We have the investigation under control, and I’m confident the authorities won’t be linking the warehouse fire or any of the missing persons cases to anyone here.”
“Thank you,” Eli says, our combined relief rolling around the room.
“Moving on.” Odin’s gaze moves across the six of us and settles on Fury. “Miss Adams, I’ve been hearing good things about your performance.”
Fury doesn’t flinch. She sits on the couch next to Holden and meets Odin’s gaze like she’s been doing it her whole life. “From whom?”
“From everyone in this room.” Odin gestures at the five of us—me standing where I can see both doors, Holden to her left with the folders, Eli and Micah side by side on the couch with their shoulders almost touching, Milo already fidgeting with a pen he found in the cushions.
The back room at Unholy Desires is as it always is on Tuesday mornings. No members, no music, no performance.
Odin’s finally back in town and called a meeting, so we’re here.
He opens a leather folio and slides out a document, setting it on the glossy black coffee table. It’s not a target dossier like I was expecting. It’s a contract. The same kind each of the Hangmen has seen only once before.
“What’s this?” Fury picks it up. Her eyes stop about a third of the way down and go wide. “There’s a salary?”
“There is.”
“Wait. You pay people for this?”
“I compensate professionals for professional work.” Odin leans back. “You didn’t think this was a volunteer operation?”
“I—” She looks at Holden. At Eli. At me. We all look back with varying degrees of amusement. “You’ve all been getting paid this whole time?”
“Since day one,” Milo says. “How did you think I could afford all that surveillance equipment on a hardware store clerk salary?”
“I thought you stole it!”
“Some of it, yes. But the good stuff costs money, kitten. I mean, tarps are tax-deductible, right boss?”
“With receipts,” Odin agrees.
Fury looks back at the contract. She blinks twice, flips the page like she’s checking for a decimal error, and sets it down very carefully.
“That’s—” She swallows. “That’s more than I make in a year at the diner. No, it’s more than I’d make in three years.”
“It should be,” Odin says. “The work is harder. The hours are worse. And the retirement plan is nonexistent, for obvious reasons.” A ghost of a smile touches his lips.
“The contract also includes membership to the club. Full access, no fees. I find it helps to have a place where the people who do this work can decompress safely. Blow off steam without civilian complications.”
He leans back in his seat, watching Fury pore over the contract. “I should add that there are some conditions with the membership—regular STD panels, same as all our members. Nonnegotiable.”
“We test every month,” Micah says. “Club policy, but also common sense for a sex club.”
“It’s a point of pride,” I add. “Lilith likes her club cleaner than a hospital ward.”
Fury lifts her chin. “So you want me on contract?”
Odin doesn’t nod or smile. He regards her with his flat, weighing gaze—less predator, more judge. “You’ve been doing the job. Consider this an upgrade from intern to permanent position. You’ll get a bump in title and compensation. You’re overdue.”
“But you didn’t—” she bites off whatever she was going to say.
Odin shakes his head. “What I want is secondary to the safety of those under me. I don’t make these decisions lightly, Sage. There’s a process to ensure your safety, and theirs.”
She glances at the page again. I see the exact moment she bites down on whatever instinct says to play humble, and instead says quietly, “I accept.”
“Sign then,” Odin says, pulling a fountain pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and handing it to her.
She signs.
“Welcome to the Hangmen.” He extends his hand. She takes it. One shake—firm, brief, the handshake of equals.
Milo starts a slow clap. Eli shoots him a look. Milo claps louder. Micah joins in because Micah can never resist Milo’s momentum, and then Holden is shaking his head, but the corner of his mouth is up, and I—
I don’t clap. I’m not a clapper.
But I catch Fury’s eye across the room, and the smile she gives me has me lifting my chin toward her.
She apparently interprets that as my version of applause, because she beams at me.
Odin lets the moment breathe before speaking. “Now. While I have all six of you here—I want to discuss capacity.”
This is new.
“You’ve been operating as a single unit, five operators, one target at a time. That works. It’s safe. But the static material Fenrir preserved before the failsafe wiped the devices makes one thing clear: the local yard wasn’t isolated.”
“How big are we talking?” Eli asks, crossing his arms.
“Bigger than we thought. The accounts we identified were part of a regional cell. What survived points to thousands more operating through the same structure. The live routes are gone, but the wider Kennel isn’t.
After Milo’s . . . invitation, the local cell went quiet.
We have no way of knowing exactly what’s going on until they start up again and we follow the noise.
” Odin pauses, then shakes his head. “In the meantime, my existing referral backlog is growing. I have names stacking up faster than my teams can process them, and every week a name sits on that list is another week someone is being hurt.”
The room stills. I can feel the shift—from celebration to calculation.
“With six of you,” Odin continues, “there’s an opportunity to split into two teams of three. Work through the list faster. Two operations running parallel instead of sequential.” He looks at Eli. “You’d coordinate both. Assign based on skill set and target profile.”
“Two teams,” Eli says slowly. He’s already running scenarios—I can see it in the way his eyes unfocus, his brain sorting personnel like chess pieces. “That would double our throughput.”
“It would also double our exposure,” I point out, because someone needs to.
“Which is why I’m raising it here, not issuing a directive.
” Odin spreads his hands. “Think about it. Discuss it. Bring me a proposal at next Tuesday’s meeting with team compositions and operational protocols.
No rush. But the list isn’t getting shorter.
And once the Kennel pops up again, there’ll be even more. ”
Fury speaks up. “Who decides the teams?”
“Eli proposes. I approve,” Odin says. “But input from the team matters. You’ll work better with people you trust in the field.”
She nods. I watch her brain working. She’s thinking about pairings. Strengths. Who complements who. She’s been a Hangman for ninety seconds and she’s already optimizing.
“We’ll discuss further next week.” Odin closes the folio. “Anything else?”
“The threat against Sage,” Holden says, opening his own folder. “Has your team learned anything more?”
Odin gives a long, exhaling nod, as if Holden’s question was a chess move he anticipated. “Nothing has moved in six weeks. No messages from Brock’s number. No local profiles have resurfaced. Nobody has made another approach.”
“Say it’s not the number that goes quiet,” Holden cuts in. “Say it’s him. A new phone, a new name, a face-to-face. What’s monitoring that?”
“Nothing,” Odin says, without apology. “Nothing can.”
“Can you confirm Stephen was one of the dead men?” Eli asks.
“No. We still can’t identify every man or connect each one to a Kennel handle.
” Odin looks at Fury. “My assessment is that the immediate threat has receded. We can’t guarantee it’s vanished.
Ease the restrictions, but keep some form of surveillance going.
” He looks at me. “Knox. Can you handle that?”
“She has a tracker embedded inside her choker,” I say, nodding to where Fury is sitting with the cameo around her neck. “I say we keep it active until we’re certain. Baseline precaution.”
“Agreed,” Odin says.
“That’s reasonable,” Fury says, reaching up and lightly touching it. “I’ve worn it so long now, I think I’d feel strange without it.” Her eyes drift to Eli’s and I see the flash of heat in them. I imagine he’s doing the same as me right now—imagining her the one night she wasn’t wearing it.
She looked so fucking gorgeous with that collar around her neck.
I shift my weight where I stand by the door and drag my attention back to the room before it settles too long on what that collar looks like on her when she’s disobedient.
Milo twirls the pen between his fingers. “Can we put that in writing so Sage stops calling Knox weirdly paternal when he checks the battery status?”
“I do not look paternal.”
Fury turns in her chair to look at me, gray eyes bright. “You do. Very disappointed-dad energy.”
I cross my arms. “It’s surveillance 101.”
“It’s part of his love language,” Micah says softly, and I glance at him. He’s smiling into his sleeve like he’s aware he’s pushing my limits.
Fury’s mouth curves. “Good to know.”
“Seems the matter is closed.” Odin stands, buttoning his jacket. “Congratulations, Miss Adams. Try not to stab anyone without authorization.”
“No promises,” Fury says sweetly.
Odin almost smiles. Then he’s gone—first out, as always.
The rest of us linger. Micah goes behind the bar and starts pouring. Whiskey. Neat. He passes the drinks around.
Holden lifts his glass. “To the newest official Hangman.”
“To Sage,” Micah says.
“To Kitten,” Milo says. “Officially the scariest waitress in America.”
“To Fury,” I say.
Eli doesn’t toast. He leans over and kisses her, slow and deliberate. When he pulls back, he says, “Welcome aboard, little savage.”
Fury lifts her glass. Her eyes are bright. Fierce. Odin didn’t say gone. He said receded.
“To the Hangmen,” she says. “All of us.”
We drink.