Page 68 of Break Me

Raven

The night doesn’t end when the guns go quiet.

It lingers. It hangs in the air like smoke you can’t see but still taste, sharp and bitter at the back of your throat. My ears are ringing. My ribs scream every time I draw a breath too deep. Blood, some mine, some not, has dried tacky along my knuckles.

Knox stands in the yard, staring at the wreckage like he’s trying to understand how close he came to losing everything tonight.

Bishop and Diesel move with purpose, clearing angles, continuing to monitor the perimeter, doing what we always do after violence—making sure it’s finished. Diesel says something low into his phone. Bishop lights a cigarette with hands that don’t shake.

I keep my eyes on Knox. But he doesn’t look at me. Not yet.

The house is still lit behind him, warm and ordinary, like nothing just tried to tear it apart. That’s what hits hardest. How normal it all looks now. How close Raven was to being inside when everything went down.

“She’s safe,” I say, partly for him, partly for myself.

Knox’s shoulders lock. He turns to face me, and the look on his face isn’t rage anymore. It’s worse. It’s the hollow kind of fear that settles in after the danger passes. When you finally understand how close you came.

“You should’ve told me. But again,” he says, jaw flexing, “you didn’t trust me.”

I don’t flinch. “I told you. There wasn’t time.”

The words sit between us, heavy and unmovable.

Bishop steps in closer, voice low, already shifting gears. “Ridgeback sent a message with this one. They weren’t subtle.”

Knox drags a hand down his face. Then he turns sharply to Bishop. “They came for my sister.”

The yard goes dead quiet.

Diesel stills. Bishop’s expression hardens into something lethal. No one asks for clarification. They don’t need it.

“That changes things,” Bishop says.

“It changes everything.”

Diesel clears his throat. “We need to assume Ridgeback thought this through. This wasn’t noise. This was leverage.”

“Which means they’ll try again,” Bishop adds.

Knox nods slowly, already ten steps ahead. “We don’t wait.”

He turns back to Bishop. “I want eyes on every Ridgeback hangout by sunrise. Routes, routines, weak spots. And I want names.”

Bishop dips his head. “Already moving.”

Knox exhales, then looks at me again. This time, the weight in his stare is different. “If anything had happened⁠—”

“It didn’t,” I cut in.

“You think this is over?”

“No,” I answer honestly. “But they won’t get another shot.”

He studies me for a long moment, like he’s seeing me for the first time since we were kids with nothing but borrowed tools and stupid dreams.

“You went behind my back,” he says.

“Yes.”