Page 142 of Vows of Ruin

The map glows pale blue in the dark. Two warehouses. Two possibilities. Two chances to be wrong. I step closer. My pulse slows. Focus sharpens. Everything else goes silent. I look at the two structures on the screen. I point to the left one without hesitation. “He’s here.”

Max glances at me. “Sparrow… how do you know?”

Wrecker shifts beside me, arms crossed. “We should split up and hit both. Cover more ground.”

“No.” The word blasts out of my mouth, sharper than gunfire. Everyone turns. “It’s this one,” I say again, tapping the left building. “This is where he is.”

Torque frowns. “Wren—”

Max steps closer. “How can you be sure?”

I swallow once, hard. “Because I know that building,” I say quietly. “My father owned it. It was part of the Ashford holdings when I was a kid. Sebastian would use that.”

A ripple of understanding passes through the group. Elias nods first. Then Margot. Then Torque. Then Riot.

Wrecker blows out a long breath. “Okay… yeah. That tracks.”

Max lifts his chin, looking at all of us. “Then we stick together,” he says, voice commanding. “We go in as one unit. Stay on comms. No one breaks formation. No one plays the hero.”

His eyes sweep over each of them before landing on me. “We kill anything that gets in our way.” He pauses for a moment. “And we bring our brother home.”

The Serpents answer in unison, low and lethal, “Always.”

We fan out toward the warehouse, moving like shadows, silent, deliberate, every step a blade’s edge of restraint. Max raises two fingers, and the Serpents tighten formation, aligning on either side of him. Riot moves ahead, scanning for movement. Torque covers our rear.

I’m running point. I don’t breathe normally anymore, I breathe with purpose, every inhale a countdown, every exhale a vow. We slip through a side door half-buried in rust. Max shoulders it open quietly. Inside, stale air hits us, metallic, cold, faintly sweet, like chemicals and rot. No one talks.

This building is a maze, twisting hallways, rusted stairs, catwalks that vanish into shadow. The same maze Liam walked into alone. Max taps my shoulder twice. And motions, slow, quiet. Watch everything.

I nod, even if my blood is screaming to run. Riot holds up a fist, movement ahead. We freeze. Two guards turn a corner, laughing about something. They don’t laugh for long. Torque sweeps silently behind the first, arm locking around his throat before the man even realizes he’s dying. Riot slips a blade between the ribs of the second, a clean, surgical insertion.

Not a sound. Bodies lowered gently to the floor. Riot wipes the knife on his pants and nods. We move on. We take out four more the same way, quiet, controlled, no alarms tripped. But the deeper we push into the warehouse, the more wrong it feels.

The more… curated. Like someone built this place to be walked through. Like someone wants us here. We follow a hallway that turns sharply right, then right again. Then opens into a room that makes my heart stop.

It’s a perfect replica of a living room. Not ours. Not his. Mine. Not exact, but close enough that I feel sick. The dusty pink rug. The crooked-framed picture on the wall. The lamp with the chipped base. It’s my childhood living room.

“Fuck,” Riot breathes. Max stiffens beside me. Wrecker mutters what sounds like a prayer in Italian.

I swallow bile. Sebastian is playing with us. Bread crumbs of memory. Pieces of a life I don’t even remember fully. Pieces Liam never should have walked through alone. Max squeezes my shoulder. “Stay focused, Sparrow.” He whispers. I nod, but I’m shaking.

We exit the room and continue down the corridor. Another turn. Another whisper of movement. Another guard is silently taken to the floor. Then a door. Partially open. A faint glow spilling out. My heart begins to hammer so hard I can taste metal.

I know this light. This color. Max and Riot flank me instantly, like they feel it too. I step closer. The air changes, colder, sharper. My breath feels wrong in my lungs. We breach the doorway and everything inside my chest tightens.

It’s my childhood bedroom. Or some sick twisted recreation of it. Small bed. Stuffed animals on the shelf. The wallpaper with faint lavender vines. I feel my knees almost give out. And in the center of the room, tied to a cross-like structure, head slumped, blood running in streaks down his chest, some of it dried.

Liam.

My voice breaks before I can stop it. “Liam—”

I take two steps forward and Riot tackles me around the waist. We crash to the ground, breath knocked out of me. “What the—RIOT—GET OFF—” I shove at him, wild, furious, feral.

He grips my arms, holding me tight. “You were about to hit it!” he hisses, pointing ahead.

That is when I see it. A tripwire. Thin as a hair. Stretched low across the floor, inches from where my foot had been. My blood goes cold. Max is already beside us, hauling me to my feet as Riot scrambles up.

“Okay,” I breathe, chest heaving. “Okay. I’ll watch where I step.”