Chapter 115: Lines in the War Room

Ricky

The clinic hums beneath us—machines, vents, the steady beep that means Liam’s still fighting. Up here, in the war room, it’s just wood, paper, tension, and too many eyes.

Big table. Bigger map. Red pins stabbed into places that used to be nothing but names to me—ports, warehouses, border crossings. Now They’re targets. Arteries we’re going to sever to bleed Killian dry.

Amara stands at the head of the table like she’s always belonged there. Hair pulled back in a messy knot, Liam’s hoodie swallowing her frame, bruises still blooming under her skin. She looks wrecked and stubborn and terrifyingly calm for someone who almost died in a wedding dress yesterday.

Clause leans against the far wall. Thomas sits to my right, elbows on the table, eyes shadowed. Reggy is across from him, fingers twitching like he’s still typing even without a keyboard. Lee stands behind Phoebe’s chair, one hand braced on the back of it—protective in a way he probably doesn’t realize is obvious.

Me? I’m clicking a marker cap open and shut like a bomb timer.

Amara taps a point on the map—one of the choke points on Killian’s property blueprint.

“This is where he thinks he’s safe,” she says quietly. “The tightest lock. The place he’s always controlled hardest.”

Her finger rests on that spot.

And just like that, the room goes quiet.

Because I’m not seeing the map anymore.

I’m back there.

The blast door slams shut with a metal shriek that cracks through my skull.

Liam dives under it a millisecond before it seals, and then—

he’s gone.

“Shit—Ricky!” Clause shouts somewhere behind me, but the gunfire swallows his voice.

No time. No space. No cover.

Killian’s men pour through the garden like a tide of knives. Stone chips explode near my feet. I shove two of Liam’s guys behind pillars and fire a burst that drops a man trying to flank us.

Clause barrels past me, takes down another with two brutal shots. “Form a line! Don’t let them breach!”

I grab a kid—barely twenty—by the collar. “On me! Watch the left!”

His hands shake. His breathing’s a mess. Doesn’t matter. We move.

A bullet grazes my shoulder. Another whistles past my ear. The fountain explodes in a shower of marble.

We push back.

They push harder.

The air tastes like blood and dust. Someone screams behind me—cut off too fast.

The gate is a wall between worlds, sealing Liam inside with hell, leaving us outside with everything trying to kill us.

Clause’s voice tears through the chaos: “Hold them here!”

I drop behind a broken planter, switch mags, pop up, and fire—

One down.

Two down.

Three—

Then a shadow leaps over the destroyed fountain.

Timber cracks. Stone explodes. A man slams into me and I hit the ground hard—fighting blind, rolling, twisting—

A fist crashes into my jaw. I feel the crack. Taste blood.

I slam my elbow into his throat. He chokes. I shove him back and fire point-blank—

And another wave comes.

It’s endless.

I hear Clause yell my name—

And then—

“Ricky?”

Her voice cuts through everything.

The garden dissolves. The bullets fade. My heartbeat stops trying to punch out of my ribs.

Amara is watching me. Thomas too. Clause, Reggy, Lee, Phoebe—they’re all staring.

I drag in a breath.

I set the marker down.

“I’m good,” I mutter. It’s a lie. No one calls me on it.

Amara lifts her chin slightly before speaking again.

“We start by hitting what hurts most,” she says, voice steady. “His money. His ports. His shipments. You dry him out. You starve his people. Desperate men make mistakes.”

Clause snorts softly. “He’ll come for blood.”

“He always does,” she answers. “But this time, we won’t be reacting. We’ll be steering him.”

Thomas leans forward. “Cutting the cash works. But that’s just the start.”

Reggy nods, pushing his glasses up. “I can hit his offshore accounts, freeze the fronts, bury the transfers. Turn everything he’s built into quicksand.”

Lee folds his arms. “It’ll piss him off.”

“That’s the point,” Amara says.

Clause levels her with a stare. “You talk like you know every step he’ll take.”

Her eyes flicker—past, pain, four years of hell trapped behind blue irises. “I dated him for four years,” she says quietly. “I know exactly how he thinks.”

Silence settles thick as smoke.

I exhale through my teeth. “Fine. We do it your way. But if he gets close to Liam again—if he so much as breathes in his direction—I’m ending this fast.”

“Deal,” she says instantly.

Then Thomas straightens, clearing his throat, voice deeper, rougher.

“You’re all angry she left him breathing,” he says. “I was too. But before any of you judge her choice…”

His eyes darken.

Haunted.

Hollow.

“You’re going to hear what he really did to us.”

The room freezes.

His past rises in his expression like a storm.

And we’re left waiting in the thick, silent second before he opens his mouth and drags us all into the dark with him.

But it’s there.

Burning quietly