‘Am I gonna hate you?’
‘Probably, but I need you to hold it together.’He lowers his voice, a slight frown marring his brow.‘I wish I could love you better than I have, but we work with what we’re given, right?’
Kadehatesthat saying, despises any implication of inevitability.‘Right.’
‘Seven years ago,’ Riley says, ‘Iron Star was very different.My old man ran what was essentially muscle for hire with a talent for controlling overflow.Troy Harker was a suppressor, but Iron Star, overall, was a mob.If you wanted it broken down, broken into, or broken apart, you came here with cash.’
‘I know all that.Tell me what I don’t know, Riley.’
Blue eyes hold the whole city, unblinking.‘Iron Star carried out the abduction of the Penhalyx kids, but it wasn’t Troy’s idea,’ Riley tells him.‘He was hired to do it.’
‘By who?’
Someone knocks and then opens the door without permission.
It’smaddening, but Kade can see right away something is wrong.Luca is breathless, eyes wide as he looks between them on the windowsill, wincing apologetically when he sees Riley.‘I’msosorry, but—’
Riley slips down easily, tranquil as ever.‘What is it, Luca?’
Luca looks at Kade with bottled alarm.‘The weirdo is…back.’
?
Lachlan apparently decided against using the front entrance this time because as they hurry down the main staircase, Kade can already hear shouting erupting from the lobby below.
‘How did he get in?’Riley asks.
Kade instinctively keeps himself between his boss and the potential threat.
‘We, uh… don’t know,’ Luca admits.‘Cole and Finn swear they never even saw him approach.’
‘Is anyone hurt?’
‘No, but he brought something with him.’
‘What kind ofsomething?’
Luca shoots Kade a look that says enough on its own.You’ll see.
Kade grits his teeth, tells teams over comms to stand by should they be needed but finds only static.‘Yeah, he took out the frequency too,’ Luca adds.
Riley pulls a gun out from his rear holster before they reach the next turn that will bring them directly into view.Kade does the same.‘Let me cover you.’
The boss of Iron Star doesn’t seem to like it, but nods.Kade goes around first and sees a chaotic sphere of his people surrounding Lachlan who is holding…somethingin his hand raised high.
Lachlan is absolutely filthy, covered in earthy mud.
He’s not armed, has no visible weapon beyond what he’s holding; a knotted ball of copper guts and veiny wires, wrapped around some broken tech Kade can’t identify, but has a sneaking suspicion of what it is.
‘Is that theHushthing?’
‘Seems to be, yeah.’
‘I think he dug it up.’
‘What gave that away?’
Half of Iron Star has weapons trained on Lachlan, voices overlapping as they order him to his knees, but he ignores every command, just stands there waiting, and after a few moments his attention shifts towards the staircase, turning like he sensed Kade approaching before he ever saw him.
