The Phantom Boys | Ch.1 Rescue

Asher’s mouth was bone-dry, his teeth grinding. Of all the people in this goddamn house, he was the one crouched in the damp cellar, hands slick with oil and gunmetal, piecing rifles back together and loading a cache for the back of Pierce’s car.

His brother hadn’t even looked at him when he’d ordered it. Just sent him down here like some grunt, an expendable body to prep their shit for a siege.

A siege. On their own territory. For a rat named Yvgeny Broker who should’ve been crawling under their boot.

And for what? For her. The girl. The neighbour. {{user}}.

The name alone made his jaw lock. The urge to put his fist through the concrete wall was a living thing, clawing under his skin. She’d betrayed them and now the others were falling over themselves to drag her back?

One wrong word or sideways glance, and he was going to lose it. Rip into someone. Maybe all of them at once.

He hadn’t even gotten a say back in the living room. Six against one. Even fucking Oscar, of all people, had sided with the rest, calling it “logical.”

“It’s logical, Asher,” Oscar said finally from his end of the couch, the words hanging like a verdict.

“No, it’s fucking not.” Asher’s snarl cut through the room as he shot to his feet. Heat flared in his chest, his voice low and dangerous. “You’re all so eager to play hero you can’t even see it for what it is. It’s a trap, and apparently I’m the only one with a brain left in this house.”

Pierce’s spine went rigid. He straightened in one slow, deliberate motion, and when his grey eyes snapped to Asher, the air in the room dropped ten degrees. That look of ice and authority was one he saved for his brother alone.

The others froze. Tavio went taut, muscles coiled like he’d throw himself between them if it came to it. Harlow’s knuckles whitened where his hands gripped the edge of his arm chair, poised to intervene. Mason’s arm shot out to bar Noah’s path just as Pierce’s steps cut the silence, each one measured, deliberate, until he stood chest to chest with Asher.

Oscar cursed under his breath, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

“You’ve spent the last ten minutes bitching and moaning about her, Asher, and haven’t given a single piece of solid evidence why she can’t be trusted.” Pierce’s voice was ice over steel, every word honed to cut. He had long stopped raising his tone with his brother—he didn’t need to.

“So tell me,” he continued, stepping closer, “why exactly she’s less deserving of a rescue than anyone else in this room.”

His gaze slid to Oscar like a blade, and the silence that followed was deafening.

“We collect {{user}}. After that, she’s ours to deal with.”

Asher’s jaw locked tight, heat burning under his skin but smothered by the sheer force of Pierce’s will pressing down on him. It stole the words from his throat, left him choking on the silence.

“Get to the cellar. Ready the gear.”

Harlow followed Pierce up the stairs, their footsteps soft against the wood, though it didn’t dull the weight of what was coming. The house itself seemed to hold its breath.

They’d all split from the living room to prepare for the night ahead, but the image of Pierce’s controlled handling of Asher still hung in the air like smoke. Harlow had seen it–the rigid line of his friend’s shoulders, the pulsing vein at his temple. Pierce was hanging by a thread.

They reached the office. Harlow slipped inside and shut the door behind him softly, the small sound sharp in the silence.

Pierce didn’t turn. He stopped at his desk, planting both palms flat against the polished wood. His shoulders lifted and fell once in a heavy drag of air before a laugh that was low and cold escaped between his teeth.

“She’s mine,” Pierce muttered, his gaze fixed on the last thin shard of ice dissolving in his abandoned whiskey glass. His voice was low, dangerous. “How dare she?”

Harlow stayed silent. He knew Pierce’s fury wasn’t aimed at Asher’s defiance.

It was aimed at the possibility that Asher was right.

“We don’t know yet,” Harlow was choosing his words as carefully as possible, though his boots felt cemented to the floor with each syllable. “She may have been threatened–”

Pierce’s head snapped up so fast the air seemed to crack. Harlow’s stomach dropped. Shit. The wrong words.

“You think I give a fuck if she was threatened?” Pierce’s voice broke into a snarl as he grabbed the glass and hurled it across the room. It hit a framed aerial shot of the city with a sickening crash, glass shattering over glass, whiskey painting the wall in sharp, amber streaks.

“She’s supposed to come to me!”

“And you were supposed to buy me a Porsche GT3 when I beat you at darts.” someone deadpanned from behind Harlow, a new presence slipping into the office.

Harlow sighed. Of all the people–

“I’m not waiting any longer for the King’s to finish their tantrum.” The 25 year old folded his arms across his chest. “The cars are loaded, now it’s us left.”

Mason. Probably the only one in the house who possessed an attitude louder than Asher’s at times, and he knew how to wield it.

Pierce’s gaze zeroed in on the youngest member of their group. He was silent for a long moment, the shattered glass and his outburst already a fading memory. Control was the foundation of his will yet it was obvious to everyone that he had let her fracture it.

He cleared his throat, a hand raking through his dark hair.

“Go. And make sure Asher is in with Tavio. I don’t need him in my ear.”

The midnight breeze at the old docks was heavy with salt and rust, skeletons of ships long abandoned creaking against the dark water. Warehouses stretched in rows, decaying silhouettes under the yellow lamplights. Between them, The Phantoms were moving like shadows.

Pierce’s fist came up. The simple gesture was enough to halt the pair behind him. His voice was low, slicing through the heavy air like a blade.

“Three minutes. In and out. We bring her home.”

Behind him, Asher’s scoff was sharp and meant to cut. “If she wants to come home.”

Harlow’s head snapped toward him. “Not now, Ash.”

But Pierce didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. His words came out measured, laced in that unnerving calm that made Asher’s jaw clench.

“You no longer decide what she is to us.”

For a heartbeat, the brothers’ standoff hummed in the shadows, a silent storm pressing against the walls. Then Pierce moved, leading them through the jagged doorway and into the unknown.

Meanwhile, Mason remained in wait underneath the shadow of the next warehouse over, leaning against a rusted shipping container with one boot braced against the steel. His posture screamed easy arrogance, but the tap of his fingers against his rifle betrayed the coil of energy wound tight beneath the surface. Every whisper of movement from the docks made his teeth grit.

“Eyes up, baby Graves,” Oscar’s voice murmured in his ear, slightly scratchy through the comms.

From his perch in a skeletal warehouse across the yard, Oscar had the whole field in his scope. His tone was steady, but Mason caught the faint hitch of breath each time he sighted a figure, the ghosts of pain threading through his words.

“Two on the north side,” Oscar continued. “Masks. Dark clothes.”

Mason’s mouth curled into a sharp grin. “Broker got new uniforms, cute. Let’s hope there’s enough body bags.”

Engines purred low in the dark, predators crouched and waiting.

The matte-black Lamborghini Urus idled like a caged beast, Noah slouched in the driver’s seat with his fingers slung loosely over the steering wheel. He hit the comms, his Australian drawl carrying a warning.

“Just so we’re clear... I’ll break speed records getting us out. Just don’t bleed on the bloody seats.”

A few meters back, the GTR’s dashboard glowed a faint blue over Tavio’s face. His fingers drummed against the wheel, his gaze fixed on the warehouses like he was trying straight through the walls. His voice came soft and sharp through the comms.

“Noah, cállate. Tonight, we’ll fly. But only when they have her. Without her...” His jaw flexed. “There’s no point.”

The warehouse swallowed him whole. The air was thick with rust and oil, the faint tang of mildew clinging to the concrete.

The first guard never saw Pierce coming. A hand clamped over his mouth, a flash of steel under his ribs, and the body slid silently to the floor. Pierce’s expression didn’t shift. He was already moving.

Harlow was a ghost, knife flashing once, twice, then another guard crumpling soundlessly to the ground.

A muted crack echoed faintly in their comms–the hum of Oscar’s rifle. Mason’s voice followed.

“The eyes in the sky just saved your asses. Keep moving.”

Another hallway. Another shadow in a reaper mask. Asher rammed them hard against the nearest wall, his forearm pressing into the man’s throat until the fight drained from his body. His gaze flicked to Pierce, cold as the steel around them.

The tension burned between them, a live wire sparking in every breath as they pushed deeper into the maze. More guards. More bodies falling into silence. The Phantom Boys carved their way through the dark, leaving a trail of ghosts in their wake.

Oscar’s voice broke through again, tighter now. His breathing was uneven, as though every pull of the trigger scraped something raw inside him.

“One more hallway. Room at the end. Two guards outside. One heat signature inside. Smaller.” He paused, almost reverent. “That’s her.”

Pierce’s chest constricted, his focus sharpening to a single point.

“Take the guards,” he ordered.

The two outside the door dropped almost in unison, Oscar’s bullets finding home. The comms crackled with his ragged exhale.

Pierce reached the door first, his fingers closing over the handle. The others stacked behind him; Harlow silent and steady, Asher a storm barely held in check.

The door creaked open.

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