Chapter 21
twenty-one
The salt-laden wind slapped Vivi’s face as she and Dom rounded the corner of the abandoned warehouse.
Her dress shoes clicked against cracked concrete, the sound swallowed by the crash of waves against the nearby shore.
In her ear, the comms unit buzzed softly with Griffin’s voice: “Thermal showing six targets inside.”
Six targets. She didn’t like that phrase.
What if one of those figures was Sabin, and they mistook him for a target?
“Remember,” Davey’s voice came through the earpiece, “the moment they verify the contents, Daphne starts the hack. Fifteen minutes until systems go down.”
Dom’s hand found hers in the darkness, squeezing once before letting go. The brief contact steadied her, though she’d never admit it. The titanium case containing their fake Lazarus Protocol hung from his other hand, swinging slightly with each step.
“Ready?” he asked, voice low enough that only she could hear.
No. She wasn’t ready to face Malcolm Raines again. Wasn’t ready to see what they’d done to her brother. But she nodded anyway, because ready or not, Sabin needed her.
The warehouse loomed ahead, a hulking shadow against the moonlit sky.
Rusted metal supports jutted from crumbling concrete walls like the ribcage of some long-dead beast. Most of the windows had shattered years ago, leaving jagged teeth of glass in rotting frames.
The place reeked of neglect and salt and old fish.
At the main entrance, a single bulb cast sickly yellow light across the threshold. Moths fluttered around it in frantic orbits, casting erratic shadows on the ground. Vivi’s skin crawled. The setup was too perfect, too isolated, too easy to monitor and control.
“I don’t like this,” she murmured.
“We knew it would be a trap,” Dom replied quietly. “Just not what kind.”
They stepped through the doorway into a cavernous space.
Their footsteps echoed off bare concrete walls and the high, exposed ceiling.
Industrial lights hung on chains, creating pools of harsh brightness separated by deep shadow.
The air inside was stagnant, tainted with rust and mildew and something metallic that might have been blood.
Vivi’s senses sharpened to painful clarity. Every sound amplified—Dom’s breathing beside her, the distant drip of water somewhere in the darkness, the whisper of fabric as she moved. Her pulse throbbed in her ears.
“Straight ahead, main floor,” Griffin’s voice guided them through the comms.
They moved past abandoned machinery, massive hooks hanging from overhead tracks, remnants of whatever fish processing had once happened here. The building had died a slow death. Vivi wondered if they would too.
The central area opened before them, flooded with light from portable industrial lamps.
Four figures waited in a loose semi-circle — three in tactical gear with assault rifles held casually across their chests, and at their center, Malcolm Raines. Another man stood slightly apart, no weapon visible, dressed as if he were running a security consultation rather than an ambush.
Dom went rigid beside her. One sharp inhale, barely audible.
Cade Wilde.
Even from twenty feet away, Raines radiated controlled menace. His silver hair caught the harsh light, his posture military-perfect, his tailored black shirt and tactical pants a stark contrast to the decay around him. His smile, when he saw them approach, didn’t reach his eyes.
But it wasn’t Raines that made Vivi’s step falter. It was the sixth person, standing slightly behind him.
Sabin.
Her brother wore black tactical pants and a fitted gray t-shirt.
His usually tousled blond hair was clipped short in a military style.
His hands hung at his sides, fingers relaxed, stance balanced.
But everything about him was wrong. His shoulders sat too square, his chin too level, his expression too vacant.
It was Sabin’s body occupied by someone—something—else.
“Sabin!” The word tore from her throat before she could stop it.
She surged forward instinctively, and Dom’s hand clamped around her arm, his fingers digging in with bruising force. She could feel the tension radiating through his grip, but she couldn’t look away from her brother, who hadn’t reacted to her voice at all. Hadn’t even blinked.
“Steady,” Dom whispered. “Something’s wrong.”
Raines’s smile widened as they approached, revealing teeth too white and straight to be natural. “Ms. Cavalier. Mr. Wilde. So prompt.” His voice carried in the empty space, precise and measured. “I appreciate punctuality in my operatives.”
Dom’s hand remained on her arm, both restraint and support. “We’re not your operatives, Raines.”
“No?” Raines tilted his head. “Yet here you are, following my instructions to the letter. Carrying what I asked for.” His eyes flicked to the case in Dom’s hand, then back to Vivi’s face. “With the proper motivation, people are remarkably... cooperative.”
Sabin still hadn’t moved. Hadn’t shown any recognition.
He stood with unnatural stillness, eyes fixed on some distant point.
Not scanning for threats. Not looking for escape routes.
Not shifting his weight or adjusting his stance or doing any of the thousand small things a person naturally does when standing in place.
Vivi’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t Sabin.
“The Protocol?” Raines prompted, holding out his hand.
“First, proof of life,” Dom replied. His voice stayed steady, but Vivi felt the coiled tension in him. “We agreed.”
“You’re looking at him.” Raines gestured casually toward Sabin. “Alive and well. Better than ever, in fact.”
“Sabin,” Vivi called again, softer this time.
No response. Not even a flicker of recognition.
“Your brother has undergone some adjustments,” Raines said, as if discussing a minor software update. “He’s been... repurposed.”
The word sent ice through Vivi’s veins. Repurposed. Like he was a thing to be reused.
“The case,” Raines said again, voice hardening.
Dom stepped forward, putting himself partially between Raines and Vivi. “We want to talk to him. Verify he’s alright.”
“You’re not in a position to make demands.” Raines snapped his fingers, and the armed guards shifted, weapons lifting slightly. “But I’m a reasonable man. Sabin, greet your sister.”
Sabin’s head turned until his eyes met hers. The familiar blue was flat, lifeless. “Hello, Vivianna.” His voice was his own, but the cadence was wrong. The Cajun lilt completely erased.
“Sabin.” She took a step toward him, but Dom held her back. “Are you okay?”
“I am functional.”
Functional. Not okay. Not fine. Functional.
Oh God. What had they done to him?
Dom slid the case forward, placing it on a crate between them and Raines. “The Lazarus Protocol. Complete and intact.”
Raines nodded, and Cade stepped forward. He opened the case without looking at either of them, running a scanner over the cylinders. He’d always been good at this — at stripping a situation down to its functional parts and ignoring everything else. Apparently, that extended to his own family.
“Cade.” Dom’s voice was flat, but underneath, she heard the barely controlled fury.
Cade didn’t look up from the scanner. “Dom.”
“That’s all you’ve got.”
“What do you want me to say? It’s done. It’s been done.” Cade finally lifted his gaze to them.
Vivi expected to find the robotic sheen that was now in Sabin’s eyes, but there was nothing like that. He wasn’t under Praetorian control. He was here by choice.
Her hand found Dom’s wrist and squeezed a warning. His pulse was running too fast under her fingers.
Would the fake pass inspection? Daphne had promised it would, but if Raines had better equipment than they anticipated...
Cade held the scanner up, showing Raines the readout. “Preliminary verification checks out.”
“Excellent.” Raines took the case from Cade. “Well done, Ms. Cavalier, Mr. Wilde. You’ve completed your mission admirably. Now, as promised, your brother returned safe and sound.”
He stepped aside, giving them a clear path to Sabin. But the gesture felt like a trap, and the smile on Raines’s face confirmed it.
Still, she couldn’t walk away. Not when Sabin was standing right there.
“Sabin?” she tried again, taking a tentative step forward. “It’s me. It’s Vivi.”
Up close, the wrongness of her brother was even more apparent—no fidgeting, no half-smile, no spark of mischief in his eyes.
The scar above his eyebrow from a botched job in Madrid was still there, but the man who’d laughed about it afterward, who’d clinked glasses with her in celebration despite the blood still seeping through his bandage, was gone.
She reached out, her fingertips hovering an inch from his arm, afraid to touch him. Afraid he might feel like a stranger.
“What did they do to you?” She finally touched him, her hand closing around his wrist. His skin was warm, his pulse steady, but he didn’t react to her touch at all.
“We improved him,” Raines said, circling them like a shark scenting blood. “Dr. Cook’s conditioning program is quite remarkable.”
Dom moved closer, positioning himself where he could see both Raines and the guards. “You brainwashed him.”
“Such an imprecise term.” Raines waved a dismissive hand. “We gave him purpose. Clarity. Freedom from conflicted loyalties.” He paused beside Sabin and placed a hand on his shoulder. “He believes he’s always served Praetorian. Don’t you, Sabin?”
“I serve Praetorian,” Sabin confirmed without inflection.
No. This wasn’t her brother. This wasn’t the man who’d protected her since they were children, who’d gone to prison rather than let her take the fall, who’d spend his whole life keeping her safe. This was a shell with his face, programmed to parrot loyalty to people who had tortured him.
“The conditioning takes about a week,” Raines continued, his tone clinically detached.
“First, we strip away the subject’s existing identity—their memories, their allegiances, their emotional connections.
Then we rebuild them according to our specifications.
” His eyes glittered with unsettling pride.
“Your brother was quite resistant. Impressive, really. Most break in half the time.”
Vivi’s stomach churned. That was why Raines had given them a week to infiltrate Villa Pandora.
He needed the time to break her brother down, erase who he was, and replace him with this hollow puppet.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to launch herself at Raines and tear out his throat with her bare hands.
Instead, she kept her voice level, kept her fingers wrapped around Sabin’s wrist.
“You’re lying,” she said. “This isn’t real. It can’t be permanent.”
“Can’t it?” Raines raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps a demonstration is in order.”
The overhead lights flickered suddenly, the harsh industrial bulbs dimming then brightening again. Vivi’s heart jumped. Daphne’s hack was starting. Ten minutes, maybe less, until the systems crashed completely.
Raines frowned at the lights, then reached behind him and pulled out a sleek black handgun. He examined it almost casually, checking the magazine before holding it out to Sabin, grip first.
“Demonstrate your loyalty,” he said. “Kill your sister.”
A cold wave of fear washed through Vivi. This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Sabin took the weapon without hesitation. He’d never been a fan of guns, but he held it now like a professional as he turned and pointed it directly at her chest. The barrel looked impossibly large from this angle, a dark eye staring her down.
“Sabin,” she whispered. “It’s me. It’s Vivi.”
Dom moved to step between them, but she held out her hand, stopping him. This was her brother. Her responsibility. If there was any chance the real Sabin was still in there, she had to reach him.
“Stay back,” she murmured. “Please.”
She kept her gaze locked on Sabin’s, searching for any flicker of recognition, any hint that her brother was still there beneath whatever Praetorian had done to him. His eyes remained flat, empty, but his hand—the one holding the gun—trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Fire,” Raines commanded.
Sabin’s finger moved to the trigger.
“Remember the Lost Little Sister con?” Vivi said quickly, letting her natural Cajun accent thicken, the way it always did when they were alone together.
The way it had when they were kids, running wild through the French Quarter.
“Bourbon Street. Your first real score. I was crying on the sidewalk, pretending I was lost, and you picked pockets while people tried to calm me down. Three hundred dollars that night.”
His eye twitched. The gun wavered a fraction of an inch.
“What are you waiting for?” Raines snapped. “Fire!”
“Remember the icon?” Vivi continued, taking a slow step forward, bringing herself closer to the barrel of the gun as she fumbled it from her pocket and held it out.
“The one you stole in Istanbul? You said some things shouldn’t be locked away in an asshole’s private collection.
You never kept anything from our scores, but you kept this.
” She pressed it into his free hand. “You said it looked like mom.”
The lights flickered again, longer this time. One of the guards glanced nervously at the ceiling.
“Shoot her now,” Raines ordered, his composure cracking.
Sabin’s gun hand trembled, and there was a flash of the real him before the blankness took over again. He was still in there, struggling to come back.
“Shoot. Her.” Raines ground the words out.
“You don’t belong to them,” Vivi said, her voice breaking. “You’re Jean-Sabin Cavalier. My brother. The best thief in New Orleans. The man who went to prison for me.” She reached up and laid her hand over his on the gun. “The man who would never, ever hurt me.”
His finger loosened on the trigger.
The overhead lights went out completely, plunging the warehouse into darkness. Emergency lights kicked on a moment later, bathing everything in eerie red. In her earpiece, Davey’s voice crackled: “Systems down. Move now.”
Sabin’s arm tensed under her touch. He raised the gun higher, his eyes blank again as they locked on hers.
And he fired.