CHAPTER THREE | The Phantoms

THE MANSION — OBSIDIAN BAY

He’d never been the kind of man who’d ever the cards slip from his hands. Ever since he’d climbed his way from the bottom, backup plans came with backup plans; and people bent to his will. Challenges came and went, and any spark threatening the Phantom’s grip on the Bay was smothered before it ever caught flame.

But those Reapers hadn’t just lit a match—they’d struck straight at the one weakness he hadn’t acknowledged that he had. Her. The vulnerability she’d carved into him the moment he’d met her, pissed off and pyjama-clad in his driveway. He’d realised it too late, and nearly paid with his life. Though his body was mostly healed from the wreck, he could still feel the echo of his own bones splitting beneath brutal force. The scars that held him together stared from the mirror like punchlines to a joke no one should have dared to make.

Why? Because Pierce King had never fucked up so catastrophically that the people he valued most ended up suffering for it.

Since waking from the fog weeks ago, he’d been fed a relentless stream of updates—fragments of chaos he’d missed. Asher’s reckless disappearance in the forest fire. {{user}}’s equally reckless joyride in Tavio’s car, tearing back toward Obsidian Bay after they’d spent precious resources smuggling her out. Harlow arrested in broad daylight. The Dollhouse gone.

All happening whilst Pierce was forced to remember how to pick himself back up in a private hospital wing.

And now he stood in the gutted remains of his home—ransacked, violated, the space left to rot under the Reaper’s shadow. He stepped over the limp strip of police tape fluttering at the edge of his lawn, its warning nothing more than an invitation to bored teenagers. The collar of his coat was turned up against the bitter morning chill, the city still living in the shadow of Winter. He stepped across once immaculate grass torn apart by heavy-duty tyres, the ground churned to mud by the recent storms. The muck had stretched across his driveway, multiple tracks skidding to a halt just short of the garage with its roller door frozen halfway open, warped from where invading hands had forced it up.

Pierce had watched the last seconds of the security footage Mason sent before it cut out. Ezra Madden had arrived with his inner circle and stormed through the mansion, not for weapons hidden under the floorboards, not for the cash in his office or the documents and deeds and names that could topple empires. None of it mattered to a man who’d been chasing one thing all along.

Her.

But the Phantoms always ensured one thing—they protected their own above everything else. Oscar had her. And for Pierce, that single fact had been enough to drag himself back to work the moment he could stand.

He hadn’t reached out to her since his discharge. He’d seen every Phantom who still stood—everyone except her—and he intended to keep it that way.

Even if it was killing him faster than the physical wounds ever would.

The cliché wasn’t lost on him, but he’d grown used to her presence despite the trouble she’d unwittingly delivered to his door. It was simpler than he’d ever admit:

He just fucking missed her.

And the last image burned into his mind didn’t help. He could still see the thin ribbon of blood slipping down her temple as Ezra yanked her from the car, while he himself was pinned in twisted metal and white-hot agony.

Powerless didn’t come close to what he’d felt in that moment of brutal clarity—the moment he realised he’d failed. Failed her, failed the boys—he’d stumbled over himself with inaction and something too close to hesitation.

Pierce stayed silent as he walked past the mangled Nissan. Its doors were crushed inward from too many impacts, the windows shattered into glittering dust, and the tyres sliced open beyond repair. He took a slow mental inventory while scanning the wreckage scattered across the garage.

Tavio’s car had been the only vehicle left on the property when the Reapers forced their way in. His own Urus was long gone, probably stripped for parts in some back-alley scrap yard. Harlow’s Escalade had been impounded after his arrest. Noah still had his bike, but Asher’s remained missing along with the man himself.

Pierce exhaled through his nose. It would take a miracle for Tavio to forgive {{user}} for stealing his car and having it end up like this.

The rest of the house had fared no better. Furniture lay overturned, drawers gutted, doors dangling from splintered hinges as Pierce moved through the hallways with slow, controlled steps. He checked his office and expected, the ledgers and the safe were untouched, still hidden behind the wall panel he knew the Reapers had purposely overlooked.

That was what made Madden dangerous. His resources were already unlimited, his network vast and deadly thanks to the inner circle of his that Pierce had spent weeks studying. The destruction here was never about resources. It was territorial, driven by the delusion that the Phantoms would be careless enough to leave any trace of her in the house.

A car door slammed outside. The sound snapped across the silence, pulling Pierce’s attention sharply toward the front of the house. His jaw tightened, though there was no anticipation of a surprise visitor. That tension came from somewhere deeper.

He turned toward the hallway, ready to leave, but the soft crunch beneath his boot made him stop. Shifting his weight, he looked down. Shards of glass scattered across the floor caught the morning light, and beneath them lay the corner of a photograph.

That was new.

He crouched slowly, ignoring the familiar stab of pain in his ruined knee, the joint still learning how to bear weight with the titanium the surgeons had used to piece him back together. He brushed aside the fragments carefully.

He knew the moment he saw the image that he’d never seen it before.

Staring back at him was a picture of himself and Asher at one of their parties, captured from a distance without either of them noticing. Asher was laughing at something Pierce had said, his head tipped back, eyes bright in a way few people ever got to see. Pierce stood beside him with a rare, unguarded smile curling at his mouth, one hand resting on his brother’s shoulder in a gesture that looked effortless instead of protective. No tension. No posturing. No weight of expectation pressing between them. Just a fleeting moment where they looked like brothers instead of a guardian and the boy he had spent half his life forced to raise.

It was a moment of peace that was so rare Pierce could only count them on one hand.

He turned the print over in his hand. Someone had written across the usually blank white border, the ink stark against the paper.

The first line was the date: August 29th. The handwriting was delicate, the soft slant unmistakably hers. Of course. She’d taken the photo.

Beneath it, written later in a different ink, was a messier, confident scrawl he knew instantly.

I’ll bring her home.

Pierce exhaled through his nose.

“You did,” he murmured into the hollow quiet born of his mistakes, his voice swallowed by the ruined house around him.

He slipped the photograph into the pocket of his jeans and straightened, rolling his shoulders as if he could shake the memories loose. The car door that had slammed outside carried its own brand of trouble, and Pierce would be damned if he cowered before it.

His mask snapped into place, the shift from man to the King of Obsidian Bay pulling his features into the neutral, expectant expression he wore for all business. This time, though, anxiety gnawed at the pit in his chest.

He pivoted on his heel and headed for the staircase just as the front door swung open, his guest letting themselves into the hollowed bones of the mansion without so much as a knock.

Only a man who believed he owned the ground beneath his feet could stride in with that kind of confidence. Pierce hadn’t managed it in thirty years and likely never would. Not because he lacked power, but because he simply wasn’t a cunt.

Pierce’s jaw tightened as his gaze caught on the familiar steel-grey staring back at him. It was like looking into a distorted reflection, one sharpened by years and choices he himself refused to make.

“Dominic.”

Dominic King took his time before acknowledging his eldest son. He offered no smile, no flicker of affection that a kinder man may have spared for family he hadn’t seen in over a decade. He came to a stop in the heart of the foyer, lifting a cigar and lighter from his pocket.

He looked just as put together as Pierce remembered, only greyer. Age clearly hadn’t slowed Dominic down. The pinstripe suit he wore was impeccably tailored, creaseless—Tom Ford if Pierce has to guess. A decade in prison, and the man hadn’t even blinked.

“This isn’t the welcome I expected after hearing so much about your little operation,” Dominic commented, his judgement punctuated by a purposeful crunch of broken porcelain under the heel of his dress shoe. “Or should I call it a circus?”

Pierce descended the stairs, his posture rigid against the stubborn aches still lingering in his body. “Save the mockery for someone who hasn’t watched you get shoved into the back of a patrol car in handcuffs.”

Dominic laughed. Actually laughed. As if Pierce had just brought up some fond memory they shared rather than a jab meant to cut. The sound bounced off the stripped walls and echoed through the hollow house, sharp enough to make a muscle jump in Pierce’s jaw. He could only watch as Dominic took his time lighting the cigar, forcing him to wait.

Pierce had received the call the week after he woke up. After everything had gone to shit on the strip with the cops and the Reapers, Dominic had finally reached out. He’d been hyper-aware for months leading up to his father’s release, tracking every rumour and whisper that might signal his return. But after everything that had happened with her and the boys, he had stopped paying attention. He hadn’t bothered to look into where Dominic had resurfaced.

But he also hadn’t done something as petty as ignore the call when it had come through.

If Pierce knew one thing about his father, it was that Dominic King had resources that bordered on limitless. And Pierce would’ve been a fool to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Which was how he had ended up here, standing tall without a single card on the table and hoping his father held enough interest to deal with the Reaper problem.

Pierce finally cleared his throat, tipping his chin down slightly. “Explain—”

“He was always too much like your mother.”

Dominic cut him off before he could steer the conversation toward business, flicking a dismissive hand as though they were discussing nothing as significant as the weather.

“Asher,” Cigar smoke slipped from Dominic’s lips, curling along his jaw like a confession dragged from somewhere rotten inside him.

“All that passion. That selflessness.” He exhaled slowly. “It’s the same thing that got her killed.”

Pierce froze, feeling something inside him splinter, a sharp crack that trumped even the agony of true broken bones.

“Shut. Your. Mouth,” he snapped, the words tearing out of him. He turned on his father with a force that made the room feel smaller, darker, more dangerous.

The truth hung between them like a tightened noose. Pierce had lived with it for years—since the day the solicitors contacted him about the estate after Dominic’s arrest.

Victoria King hadn’t left to start over. She hadn’t run because the house was stifling.

She had killed herself, leaving Pierce to carry that knowledge in silence, barring his brother from the truth. He’d been selfish and done it out of his own fear, resentment, and his pure selfishness to cling to a fading memory of family.

He’d never allowed himself to admit that their mother had been found in another man’s arms by the private investigators Dominic hired. Pierce had closed the report then and there, refusing to read any further, refusing to confirm whether her final moments were heartbreak or something colder orchestrated by his father.

Dominic watched him with the same dead eyed calm he’d always offered the police, the courts, and the world. His eldest son’s rage washed over him without consequence—whether he believed Asher was truly dead or simply didn’t care, his expression remained unchanged.

He just stood there like a man who’d never lost anything of value in his life.

Pierce pushed back onto his full height, masking the flinch behind a wall of menace. “You don’t speak about her. You don’t speak of him—” His throat caught, trapped under a wave of fierce protectiveness he couldn’t try to hide.

“You speak like a man with too much to lose and the inability to hide it. As well as a boy ungrateful for the fact that I allowed that boy to carry the surname King when I didn’t need to.” His father pointed out, clicking his tongue as if he were chastising a child. “Dangerous.”

The air in the room thickened, the weight of the word “Dangerous” hanging between them like a physical threat. Dominic didn’t move with the frantic energy of the men Pierce usually dealt with; he moved with the slow, predatory grace of someone who had already won the move before it was even made.

He closed the distance, stepping into Pierce’s personal space until the scent of expensive tobacco and cold iron dominated the air. Reaching into his breast pocket, Dominic pulled out a small, crisp slip of white paper. He held it up between two fingers, the starkness of it a sharp contrast against his dark suit.

“You’re messy, Pierce. And mess attracts the wrong kind of attention,” Dominic said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, knowing timbre. He pressed the paper into Pierce’s palm, his grip lingering just long enough to ensure it couldn't be dropped. “There’s a number on that paper. Call it.”

Pierce’s jaw tightened, his fingers curling instinctively around the note. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“It isn’t an order; it’s an opportunity,” Dominic countered smoothly. He turned away, adjusting his cuffs as if the conversation were already a bore. “The escalating violence in the Bay... it’s becoming loud. It’s bad for business, and I have a vested interest in seeing the Reapers dealt with and the Bay stabilised once more. We both want the same thing, even if our reasons are worlds apart.”

He didn't wait for a rebuttal. Dominic simply walked out, leaving the silence of the room to roar in Pierce’s ears.

Now alone and with his father’s footsteps echoing in his ears, Pierce looked down at the paper. The ink was sharp, the handwriting unfamiliar and clinical. He hesitated, his pride warring with the desperate reality of his situation, before finally pulling his phone from his pocket.

Pierce let the first ring sound before lifting the phone to his ear. Six more followed, each one stretching his patience thin, before the line finally clicked alive.

“Who is this?” the voice demanded immediately. Then it shifted, lowering into something edged with warning. “Angel, if you’re playing games and calling me from a new number, you know I’ll find you.”

Pierce cleared his throat, uninterested in whatever drama not involving him was being referenced. “No. This is Pierce King. My father, Dominic, gave me your number. He spoke highly of your particular... skills.”

Silence lingered on the other end, heavy and deliberate.

“...Pierce King,” the man repeated slowly, emphasising the last name. “If daddy dearest is cashing in a favour, how exactly can I be of assistance?”

Pierce’s grip tightened around the phone, his jaw setting. “You can start by telling me your name.”

A low chuckle filtered through the line.

“It’s Zane. Zane Harlan.”

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REAPER COMPOUND — NATIONAL PARK

Ruptured eardrums had reduced his world to a constant ringing and a pounding headache. The blood had dried hours ago, streaked across his cheekbones and matting the strands of his raven hair, which had long since overgrown.

Neglect was quickly becoming an old friend. If he had to guess, more than eighty percent of his time was spent in the quiet, dim space he’d called home since being dragged half-dead into the Reaper compound.

It was the same space he had memorised during his bloody rampage, earning him the stab wound no one had cared to treat. It had left him weak and vulnerable enough to be abandoned but unrestrained, slumped against a cold wall, while Ezra Madden turned his attention back to the Bay and back on his hunt.

Which had left Asher under the care of a man named Kai—the same man who had come for them in the forest. The one who Asher knew with certainty had only barely restrained himself from snapping his neck before Ezra had interrupted him and stopped the job from being finished.

The bruises had faded and the fevers had long since burned through, but whatever infection had taken root left him trembling for hours at a time, awake and forced to endure the agony flaring in his side.

Kai, bored and possessing a casual appetite for violence, would drift in and find something new to break. Which circled back to the ringing in his ears, a reminder of the moment Kai had hauled him upright and fired a round right beside each side of his head. The shockwaves alone had been enough to ruin his eardrums, bursting the delicate tissue within and reducing the world to nothing but his own thoughts and pain.

The world didn't have sound anymore—just a high, thin needle of noise piercing through his brain. It was a scream that never ended, drowning out the drip of water from the ceiling.

Asher opened his eyes. Above him, the plaster had surrendered, leaving the wooden joists to rot like exposed ribs. He tried to shift, but his body was a map of hot glass and dull lead. The stab wound in his side flared, a rhythmic, pulsing heat that seemed to beat in time with the whistle in his ears. He moved his left leg to chase away the numb prickle of dead nerves, and the effort cost him a jagged breath.

His lips curled. Pathetic.

All this for a girl who had invited the devil to dinner and forgotten to mention he was coming. She’d been running from ghosts and left the door unbolted behind her, keeping the danger like a prized secret. And yet, his last words to her had been a command to go home—the very place he’d spent months demanding she abandon.

A wet, rattling wheeze vibrated in his chest. He was laughing, though he couldn't hear it. He could only feel the rasp of his dry throat, sand-papered by a thirst that felt more permanent than the cellar walls.

He was so thirsty. Hungry.

Was Pierce still alive? The question had haunted the silence for days. Sending her back to his brother had been a selfish plea disguised as a sacrifice. He’d hoped that if she made it, she’d be the anchor Pierce needed to survive the fallout.

The air in the small cellar suddenly pressurised, pushing against his damaged eardrums as the door was thrown open. Asher flinched, the movement tearing at the wound in his side. He looked up, his grey eyes squinting against the sudden intrusion of light.

A figure stood there, framed in the doorway like an omen of ruin. Kai. The man who had turned Asher's world into a silent, ringing tomb was looking down at him, his lips moving in words Asher couldn’t hear.

His shadow stretched across the floorboards, and then the air shifted. Kai didn’t just enter the room; he occupied it, his presence heavy enough to vibrate in Asher's teeth.

He approached with the slow, predatory gait of a man who knew his prey wasn't going anywhere. When he crouched in front of Asher, the movement was a blur of dark fabric. Asher’s world was still a chaotic roar of high-pitched static, but as Kai leaned in, a new sound pushed through—a low, distorted rumble, like a voice heard from the bottom of a deep well.

"...unfair," the word was thick, muffled by the ringing, but Asher caught the shape of it on Kai’s lips.

Kai’s face was inches away now, his expression a mask of bored cruelty. "Ezra is... sentimental," Kai continued, the vibrations of his voice finally cutting through the fog in Asher's skull. It sounded wrong—hollow and distant—but the malice was unmistakable. "I’d have gutted you in the dirt. But he wants retribution. He thinks keeping you here, rotting and silent, away from your precious Phantoms... he thinks that’s a better kind of death."

Asher tried to pull back, but his muscles were water. He was a passenger in his own broken body, forced to watch as Kai pulled a familiar weight from his belt.

The dagger.

It was Kai’s favourite—a wicked, serrated thing that caught what little light filtered through the ceiling. Kai turned it over in his hands, the metal dancing between his fingers with a practiced, fluid grace. He wasn't just showing it off; he was measuring the distance between the blade and Asher’s throat, his eyes flicking to the stab wound in Asher’s side with clinical interest.

Suddenly, his hand shot out.

Kai’s fingers clamped onto Asher’s jaw like a iron vice. The grip was brutal, squeezing the bruised bone and forcing Asher’s head to the side. Asher’s breath hitched, a silent gasp of pain that flared white-hot in his chest.

Kai leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as he inspected the skin of Asher's right cheekbone. He traced the line of the ink there with the tip of his thumb—a rough, calloused touch that felt like sandpaper.

"Love," Kai read aloud, the word dripping with a mockery so sharp it felt like a second blade. He stared at the tattoo for a long beat, his lips twisting into a thin, emotionless smile. "A bit late for that, isn't it?"

Kai’s thumb pressed hard into the ink, stretching the skin of Asher's cheek taut until it turned white. He tilted the dagger, the serrated edge catching the dim light as he brought the tip to the corner of the "L."

"It’s a lie that doesn't suit you anymore," Kai hummed, the vibration of his words buzzing through the bone of Asher’s jaw. He pressed the cold steel in just deep enough to bead a single, dark drop of red. "Let’s see if it looks any better once I’ve peeled it off."

THE SAFE HOUSE — SOUTH OBSIDIAN BAY

“I’m gonna lose my shit—Mase, stop leaving your goddamn sunnies on the couch. I’ve sat on them twice.”

Noah hurled a pair of Burberrys at the back of Mason’s head. Mason didn't flinch; he just stood by the window, thumbing through crypto exchanges on his phone to track his overnight gains. Historically, Mason couldn't care less about his finances. But with the Reapers choking off their cash flow in north and central Obsidian Bay, the youngest Phantom was finally forced to care about their shrinking wallets.

The sunglasses bounced off his skull and clattered to the floor. Dragging his attention from the screen, he finally locked eyes with Noah.

“How about you look before you sit?” Mason countered. “I know you’re caught up in the whole Harlow situation, but I’ve got bigger problems. My old man wants to cut me off because my sister got in his ear.” He rolled his eyes, shoving the phone in Noah’s direction.

Noah stretched his arms along the back of the couch and squinted. The screen was a blurry wall of text messages from this distance, but he made a show of looking just to humour the complaining.

“Can you believe he doesn’t want his money funnelled through our channels?” Mason asked.

Noah stared at him for a long, flat moment. “No, mate,” he deadpanned. “What upstanding businessman wouldn’t want his name tied to money laundering and black-market weapons?”

Mason narrowed his eyes at the blonde, catching the sarcasm immediately. He tapped his screen again and turned back to the window, shoulders rigid as he brought the phone to his ear. “Whatever. I’m going to pull the $50k you need for Harlow.”

Noah tipped his head back and sighed. The $50k was just the buy-in for a sit-down with the judge handling Harlow’s sentencing. After that, Tavio still had to actually convince the man to grant the bail.

With Madden in the OBPD’s back pocket, they had to take this shit right to the top. The scrape of the balcony door sliding open made Noah turn his head. Tavio slipped inside, locking the glass behind him.

“Just got off the phone with Pierce. He’s askin’ about her. Making sure she stayed put,” he said, glancing toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

Noah followed his gaze. All of them were still reeling from the fallout, even months later. Stealing Tavio’s car and driving back to the bay had been impulsive and disastrous—as things always were with her.

No one said it out loud, but the question hung heavy in the room: If you weren’t here, would any of this have happened?

“She’s down there with O,” Noah finally answered. “Does he want photo evidence?”

“Sí.” Tavio didn’t move.

“Sí?” Noah echoed, his Aussie accent catching on the single word and drawing it out. “Tav—we’ve all been under the same roof for weeks and you still refuse to speak to her. Something’s gotta let up, man.”

The air had grown uncharacteristically thick between her and Tavio. It wasn’t just about the stolen car. Her past was a nuclear bomb dropped in the middle of their lives, and Tavio—the one she’d fed half-truths to about her ex and her old life—felt the betrayal the deepest. The fact that she hadn't trusted him and Mason to protect her at the lake house was just salt in an already festering wound.

Tavio levelled Noah with a flat, dark look that clearly said, I’m not going in there.

Noah let out a slow breath, pushing his weight off the couch. If Pierce wanted proof of life, someone had to get it, and he wasn't about to force Tavio into a room he was actively avoiding.

"Fine. I'll get the bloody photo," Noah muttered, pulling his phone from his pocket.

Leaving Tavio brooding by the sliding glass doors and Mason still arguing over his cashflow on the other side of the room, Noah turned down the shadowed hallway. The ambient tension of the living room faded with each step, replaced by a heavy, suffocating quiet. He stopped outside the last bedroom, the door cracked open just a few inches. Nudging it wider with his knuckles, he stepped into the dim light.

Oscar sat hunched on the edge of the mattress, staring at the floorboards with a devastating intensity. His knuckles were tight where he gripped his own knees. Ever since the Reapers—and a particular man’s name had crawled back out of the shadows—the one who had tortured Oscar over a year ago—Oscar had retreated entirely. He barely left this room. He needed an anchor to keep him from drowning in the memories, and he had tethered himself entirely to her.

At the groan of Noah’s boot against the floorboard, Oscar’s head snapped up.

For a fraction of a second, his dark eyes were wild and hollow, trapped in his mental before recognition finally clicked. The defensive rigidity bled out of his shoulders but he immediately shifted his weight, angling his frame to physically shield her where she rested on the bed behind him, eyes closed in thought. It was a purely instinctual move.

"Just me, mate," Noah said softly, keeping his voice carefully level. "Pierce is breathing down Tavio's neck. Needs to know she's still here."

Oscar’s jaw ticked. He reached a heavily tattooed arm back, resting his hand protectively against the tangled blankets beside him, though his bloodshot eyes never left Noah.

"Tell Pierce she's not going anywhere," Oscar muttered. His voice was raw, scraped hollow from exhaustion and relentless stress. "She stays right here."

Noah raised his phone, tapping the screen to bring up the camera. "Just need a quick snap. Don't even need her face, but it’ll get him to back off for a bit."

Oscar stared at the dark lens for a long, heavy moment. His fingers tightened in the sheets before he gave a single, stiff nod. "Lets make it quick, then."

Noah angled the lens, careful to keep the frame focused on the curve of her shoulder and Oscar’s hand resting against the blankets. He pressed the shutter, the screen flashing briefly in the dim room.

Despite the flare of resentment still simmering in his chest, Noah couldn't entirely shut off his concern. He lowered the phone.

"You holding up alright?" Noah asked her, keeping his tone hushed.

Oscar stared at the sliver of light bleeding in from the hallway, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked near his ear. "She's here," He spoke before her, the words heavy and absolute. "That's all that matters."

Noah nodded stiffly, not wanting to push the fractured pair any further. He stepped backward into the hallway, pulling the door shut until it clicked softly into place, leaving Oscar to his vigil.

Leaning his shoulder against the drywall, Noah opened his encrypted messages, attached the photo, and hit send on the thread with Pierce. He watched the little status bar crawl across the top of the screen.

Delivered.

Noah went to slide the phone back into his pocket, assuming that would be the end of it for the time being until Pierce needed one of them. But before the screen could go dark, a new message bubble popped up.

He stared down at the glaring text.

Bring her to me.

IRONBAY PRISON — TWO HOURS FROM OBSIDIAN BAY

The harsh fluorescent strip lighting of Ironbay cut through the heavy gloom of his cell block, throwing stark, cinematic bars of shadow across the concrete. Harlow leaned casually against the cold iron grating of his cell, the very picture of relaxed indifference.

“Appreciate it, Miller,” Harlow murmured, his voice smooth and pitched just low enough for the corrections officer pausing outside his door. He flashed a wry, easy smile as the guard subtly passed a folded, days-old newspaper through the bars. “I’ll remember this when the weather shifts.”

Officer Miller gave a gruff, barely-there nod before continuing his patrol, his boots heavy on the catwalk. It was a careful game of chess, and Harlow was already three moves ahead. In the time since his arrest, he’d been methodically cultivating the right guards—ones who were underpaid, overworked, and susceptible to a measured dose of Reed charm.

As soon as Miller rounded the corner and out of earshot, Harlow let the smile melt away, dissolving as quickly as he was able to put it on. His stomach twisted with a gnawing knot of pure, battery-acid stress that he absolutely refused to let surface. Nothing. There wasn’t a single whisper from the outside. The silence from Obsidian Bay was deafening and he hated being reduced to the sidelines.

He turned away from the bars, his sharp gaze sweeping over the three younger Phantoms grouped around the lower bunk. Every waking hour, their eyes tracked his every move, desperate for a cue on how to breathe. If he cracked, they would shatter.

They had all been scooped up in the chaos of the OBPD’s coordinated raid with the Reapers. Harlow shifted his weight, masking a sharp exhale as the movement pulled at his stiff ribs. It was a lingering souvenir from the arresting officers who had dragged him from his car, driven his face hard into the pavement, and planted a heavy boot mercilessly into his spine while they wrenched his wrists into cuffs.

But the physical beating was nothing compared to the low, grinding anxiety taking root in his chest. She had been right there. She had seen all of it—the violent ambush, the blood, the sheer brutality of the takedown in the middle of the street. Harlow could handle the iron bars, the crooked guards, and the deafening silence from the outside, but the suffocating worry over where she was—and whether the boys were actually keeping her safe—was the one thing threatening to fracture his absolute composure.

Which was a feeling he didn’t know how to cradle just yet. Years of sharpened instinct hadn’t prepared him for the suffocating reality of being utterly helpless. He knew how to take a beating, how to bleed, and how to survive a concrete box, but he had absolutely no defence against the terrifying vulnerability of leaving her behind.

His nostrils flared.

“Alright, boys,” Harlow said, his tone crisp and entirely in command as he tossed the paper onto the thin mattress. “Nothing new in the headlines, which means we stick to the playbook. Keep your heads down in the yard, don’t antagonise any inside guys, and let me handle the uniforms.”

“It’s been weeks, Harlow,” one of the younger guys muttered, his knee bouncing with frantic energy. “You think Pierce—”

“Pierce will be handling it,” Harlow cut in, his voice leaving absolutely no room for debate. He met each of their eyes, projecting a steadfast conviction that anchored the restless room. He knew them. All of them—they were out there moving pieces on the board. He had to believe that. “Our job is to hold the line in here. Let them do their job out there.”

Harlow turned back to the bars, staring out into the dimly lit, cavernous block. He had to trust the machine; it was the only thing he had left to keep him sane.