“What’s the point of all this then?” I ask, jerking my head toward the woman dying on the table. He must see that I’ve finally caught on, because his shoulders slightly relax. Do these assholes have a death pact or some shit?
“Transformation.” He’s sick. A damn lot sicker than I am.
“That’s a fancy way to say murder and mutilation.”
“Vanity is one of the oldest currencies in the world.”
“Bullshit.”
“Is it?” Cameron asks. “People kill for power. They kill for money. They kill for love. But they’ll become someone else entirely for the chance to be seen differently.” His eyes drift toward the operating table. Toward the woman. The face being built into something new.
“A new face won’t fix what’s underneath,” I murmur.
“No,” he agrees. “But it opens doors that would’veremained locked.” Access. Opportunity. Infiltration. The ability to become someone nobody would question. To walk through a door that would’ve otherwise stayed shut. To get close. His bloodied smile grows.
“You’d be amazed what people are willing to sacrifice for a second chance.” His gaze locks onto mine. “And even more amazed by what they’ll sacrifice for revenge.” Blood simmers beneath my skin. Because if what he’s implying is true… “La beauté ouvre les portes. Le pouvoir les garde ouvertes. La vengeance est ce qui les franchit.” The French leaves his mouth and I almost roll my fucking eyes.
“Danny! Oh Fuck! No!” Billy’s voice tears through the room, and a sharp crack follows. My head snaps around and time stutters as I see Danny on his knees. One hand is braced against the concrete, the other clamped over his chest. Blood pours through his fingers in thick, dark pools spreading across the floor beneath him. Billy lunges forward, catching him before Danny’s face smashes into the floor.
“Stay with me, brother.” Billy’s voice comes out rough and panicked, and Danny lets out a strangled laugh.
“I got ‘em,” Danny mutters through clenched teeth, and my pulse slams against my ribs. I spin back around to Cameron, his smile wider now, and I don’t let him say another word before I shoot the fucker right between the eyes. His body crumples to theconcrete with a dull thud, his blood fanning across the floor beneath him. The room falls silent around me, save for Danny’s strained breathing.
“No.” I cross the room in three long strides, dropping to one knee beside him. Blood continues to seep between his fingers, thick and warm, soaking through the fabric of his henley. Billy wraps Danny’s discarded leather jacket around another wound, holding pressure on it to stop the bleeding, while I survey his body for further damage. “Move your hand.”
“I’d rather n-not.”
“Danny.”
He lets out a pained breath before peeling his hand away from the gash. The slice carved straight through his shirt and into his chest. Blood continues to seep through the fabric, sluggish but steady, its edges jagged as though whoever the bastard was who’d hurt him had taken his sweet time inflicting as much damage as he could.
“Fuck. We’ve gotta get him to Katia!”
“It l-looks worse than it is,” Danny grunts through gritted teeth.
“You’re losing enough blood to prove otherwise.”
He tries to shrug, only to hiss when pain tears through him. Billy presses harder against the wound at his side.
“What the fuck were you thinking, man?” Billy barks, his voice edged with panic despitehis best efforts to keep it together. Danny lets out a strained laugh that quickly turns into a grimace.
“They were hiding in the back c-corners. They were waiting for u-us to leave. T-they didn’t e-even try to save the d-doctor,” Danny stammers, his voice catching on the last word. Billy shakes his head, while I remain quiet, scanning the room one last time. I was so caught up trying to get information out of that sick bastard that I didn’t care what was happening around me. I had fucking tunnel vision. An error I will not make twice. I’m so close to finding Seraphine that I lost all sense of my fucking training, and now, Danny’s hurt. Ezekiel drilled one thing into me from the moment he came on board. Never lose sight of where you are. Not only would he have my ass if anything happened to one of his men, but if my sister knew that Danny was hurt because I got carried away chasing fucking ghosts, she’d kill me herself.
***
By the time we get Danny onto the operating table, Katia has already taken over. She doesn’t acknowledge Billy or me. Doesn’t ask what happened. Doesn’t waste a second on the blood coating the floor beneath our boots. Her gloved hands move with practicedprecision as she cuts through what’s left of Danny’s shirt, exposing the destruction beneath.
I should be watching. I should be cataloguing every instrument she reaches for, every stitch she places and every order she barks around the room. Instead, all I can see is the blood. Danny’s blood. I’ve spent my entire life working alone. Alone is cleaner. Safer. People become liabilities the second you start giving a shit about whether they make it home. Titan taught me that long before he taught me how to pull a trigger. Be the weapon. Complete the job. Walk away.
Friends weren’t part of the equation. Neither were brothers. But somewhere between the missions, the late nights cleaning blood from our knuckles, and the endless hours watching each other’s backs, Danny had become exactly that. By choice. A choice I never realized I’d made until I watched him hit the floor back in the tunnel. The feeling settles heavy in the pit of my stomach, unfamiliar enough that I almost don’t recognize it.
Fear.
Not for myself.
For him.
If Danny dies…the thought never reaches the end. It doesn’t have to. I’ve seen enough bodies to know how this story ends when people lose too much blood.
