Her fingers tightened the straps of her pack as she holstered her gun and began the climb to the top. She scaled quickly, her boots never slipping as she moved like a spider across a web.

  She paused halfway up, listening.

  Far above, the faint groan of industrial fans. Below, a sudden clatter—metal singing against metal. The ladder underneath her fingers began to vibrate and her breath stilled.

  The sound grew louder—a mechanical whine that scraped against her bones. The elevator was coming, fast and merciless as a guillotine. Shadera’s pulse quickened, a heady rush as she climbed at a rapid pace, forcing her limbs to go faster.

  Panic erupted in her chest. A rare spike of fear lancing through her stomach—not the controlled adrenaline of a kill, but the animal terror of being crushed like an insect.

  The shock of it made her legs pump harder.

  She gritted her teeth, forcing it down, forcing herself to remain steady.

  The elevator sped toward her, a bullet in a barrel. Shadera cursed as she scrambled to get above it. It was so close now, she could feel the air compressing in her lungs, could smell the oil on its massive gears.

  She hurled herself sideways into a tight space, barely squeezing inside the utility cavity as the car shot past her like a freight train, taking the guns strapped to her left thigh with it. The backdraft sucked at her legs, trying to drag her into the machinery’s hungry maw.

  Shadera wedged herself deeper into the tiny space, ribs compressed until each breath was a struggle. Metal groaned around her, the building’s skeleton protesting the weight. The noise was deafening, a scream that died in an instant as the elevator stayed its course upward.

  Shadera pressed herself against the cramped confines, heart a wild beast in her chest. She could feel every beat, rapid and alive, and a brief, feral grin spread across her lips as a sharp laugh shot from her throat.

  So, this is what fear feels like.

  When silence returned, she exhaled slowly and pulled herself back onto the shaft wall. Her hands shook—barely perceptible, but there. She clenched them into fists until the tremor stopped.

  The climb resumed. Higher now, toward the Heart’s poisoned core where Greyson Serel should have been sleeping, unaware that death was scaling the walls to find him.

  She reached the service hatch to the Heart’s underground garage and paused. She waited, pulse counting off the seconds. She’d memorized the guard rotations, the way the Heart’s enforcers walked their beats in lazy arcs. She listened for the telltale whir of a drone, the heavy tread of Veyra boots.

  Silence.

  She twisted the hatch and let it open a sliver. The light that bled through was blinding, bright and white. She pulled herself through, rolled flat onto her stomach, and pushed up from the concrete as her eyes adjusted.

  The garage was a cathedral of order—rows of Veyra patrol vehicles, each lined up with the precision of military graves. Every surface gleamed, even the air seemed filtered and too still. She kept low, weaving between the glossy hulls, her own reflection distorted in the platinum trim of the cars.

  She’d planned for this. Twenty-four steps from the shaft to the ground level vehicle exit, no less, no more. She took them in silence, feeling the cold seep into her bones with each measured advance.

  Halfway across, she froze.

  A sound—the sound of metal hitting concrete—echoed in the cavernous space.

  She ducked behind the nearest vehicle, silenced pistol up and ready, blood pounding so hard she thought she could hear it leaking from her pores.

  Someone was here. Someone not accounted for.

  She waited. The silence dragged on, punctuated only by the distant thrum of the city’s heart above. Shadera forced herself to breathe slow, to let the adrenaline burn off into something clean, something focused.

  She adjusted her grip on the gun, eyes fixed on the space between the vehicles as a shadow moved from an undercarriage.

  Shadera inched forward, every instinct on a hair trigger. Whoever this was, they weren’t supposed to be here either, or they would have come out to ask for her credentials.

  She moved closer, waiting for the next mistake, the next breath.

  A bead of sweat slipped from her temple, trailed along the ridge of her cheekbone, and vanished into her collar. The smell of ozone and motor oil filled her nose.

  Shadera retreated a half step, recalibrating her plan.

  She had not come here to kill a janitor or a ghost. The target was above, behind a thousand tons of armored glass and self-importance. So, she let the shadow be, for now. She didn’t have time to pick a fight with someone who wasn’t an active threat.

  With a final glance over her shoulder, she fell back against the wall and followed it up the ramp and out into the night, praying the Heart was still asleep.

  * * *

  GREYSON LAY FLAT ON his back, spine pressed to the cold concrete beneath a Veyra patrol vehicle’s underbelly. Above, the garage’s floodlights bled through the suspension’s lattice, painting the world in razor lines and motionless shadows.

  He ignored the filth, the puddles of old oil seeping through his uniform. Instead, he kept his focus on his work—tucking the black foil packets deep into the undercarriage. Each movement was a calculated betrayal—one slipup, and the Heart would devour him.

  The wrench in his hand twisted, tightening the last screw into the anti-scan mesh. That’s when the wrench slipped from his fingers, bounced off the steel crossbeam, and clanged onto the concrete next to his head.

  Greyson stopped breathing.

  He counted the seconds, every muscle in his body seized. In its wake, he heard footsteps—a slow, predatory rhythm—moving across the polished concrete. He cursed under his breath, pressing himself farther into the darkness beneath the car, and stilled.

  The boots that came into view were black, not regulation, but moved with the surety of someone skilled. Of someone military trained. The boots paused beside him, and every ounce of oxygen fled his body.

  For a few heartbeats total silence filled the garage, then the boots pivoted, vanishing behind another row of cars.

  Greyson stayed put, refusing to trust luck. Sweat slicked his palms as he waited for the security alarm, for the snarl of patrol hounds, for the bullet through his skull.

  But nothing happened.

  He counted to ten. Then to thirty. Then to one hundred and twenty before he rolled out from under the car. Somewhere in the near distance, he heard the hiss of an elevator, the pressurized pop of a security door. He knew the routine. Every cycle, the Veyra sent down a two-man team to check for sabotage, then logged the vehicle’s weight and GPS telemetry before it left for patrol.

  He was behind schedule. He had maybe two minutes before the next rotation.

  Greyson checked the garage one last time, then dusted himself off, tugged his mask into alignment, and did his best to look like he belonged here at this hour.

  As he walked toward the exit, the boots flashed behind his eyes. He would need to reroute the next shipment, maybe even scrub the entire operation if he thought someone was catching on. It could have just been a coincidence, but it felt like too close of a call for comfort. The last thing he wanted was to be the cause of another purge, another round of executions in the plaza.

  He reached the personnel corridor, scanned his badge, and stepped through, forcing himself to slow down, to walk with the unhurried entitlement of a man who had nothing to fear. To anyone else, he shouldn’t have anything to fear. He was the President’s son, a high-ranking Veyra officer, the Heart’s Executioner—but he knew better.

  The echo of his boots in the corridor reverberated against his nerves, but he kept his movements tight and his eyes forward. The hallway was two hundred feet of white marble tile, illuminated by overhead LEDs that made every flaw in his appearance feel like a confession. Greyson counted his steps, every one bringing him closer to the safety of his own home.

  He nearly collided with the first Veyra officer at the intersection outside the security hub. The man was tall, shoulders squared, the helmet a gleaming reflection of the Heart’s iconography, blackened polycarbonate, incised with the city’s blood red crest. He was flanked by another, shorter and broader, hands folded behind his back.

  They didn’t need to ask for his identification, Greyson’s mask told everyone exactly who he was.

  The guards straightened at his presence.

  He recognized the taller one by gait alone.

  Captain Mikel.

  “Evening, sir,” Mikel said, voice a breath away from insolence as his head cocked.

  Greyson nodded once, quick, then sidestepped, forcing Mikel to give ground in the corridor. A lesson in primacy, for anyone watching. He caught the faintest flex of the captain’s fist before Mikel composed himself.

  “Unusual hour, sir. All units are on lockdown per protocol. Is there—” The hesitation was a hairline crack in the performance. “—a concern?”

  Greyson’s mouth felt vacuum-sealed behind his mask. He let the pause hang just long enough to make Mikel unsure if he would be reprimanded or ignored.

  “Are you worried I found something concerning?” he asked, adjusting his stance to something more predatory.

  The captain studied him a fraction too long. Already, Greyson could see him filing away these details, the reshuffling of his loyalty in some private ledger. He wondered if this was how his father amassed such control—a million such moments, each turning the gears of paranoia.

  “No. We will carry on,” Mikel answered, dipping his head.

  Both guards peeled away, a twinned ripple as Greyson strode the rest of the way to the elevator without incident. Stepping inside, he keyed in his floor as the glass scanned his biometrics, and let his breath out in a slow, controlled hiss.

  His apartment was a cave of order. Every surface wiped sterile, every angle constructed for maximum concealment. He closed the door, checked the manual deadbolt—an antique flourish, but one he trusted more than the building’s system—and stripped out of his mask. He set it on the stand and looked at it, half expecting it to move with a life of its own.

  He strode into the large open kitchen, all white marble surfaces and black cupboards, and snatched the bottle of gin from the corner. He did not bother with a glass, just brought the neck to his mouth and drank.

  The heat of it burned away the adrenaline of what he’d just accomplished for the tenth time, numbing the edges where his fury and hate festered in the dark. He took another swig, then set the bottle down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Methodically, he unbuttoned his shirt, peeling the black fabric away from his skin and folding it into a neat square. His hands fell to the marble countertop, fingers splaying across the surface, palms pressing deep into its chill.

  Slowly, he let that fury, that loathing, seep to the surface as he thought about the Vow ceremony in eighteen hours, thought about the executions scheduled in the morning, thought about how his father had not lifted a single fucking finger to find Brooker’s killer.

  All of the Heart’s Executioners were given a mark, a tattoo that signified their role. Brooker had a heart tattooed over his left pectoral with a bullet tearing through it. For being someone who caused so much pain, Brooker did not have a high threshold for it. So his tattoo was small, something he did not have to sit long for.

  Greyson, on the other hand, enjoyed pain. Enjoyed the feeling of his flesh splitting, of his body being pushed to the limits. It was something he could control, how he reacted to the pain, how he let it affect him.

  Pain reminded him he was still alive.

  His mark spanned the entirety of his back, from shoulders to waist. A skull tattooed entirely with solid black ink, the only skin showing through was in the gaps between the hollow eyes, nose, and teeth. It was fitting for Greyson, since he was sure he was dead inside anyway.

  That mark rippled across his back as his muscles flexed against the rage.

  Greyson needed control, and right now, his father had all of it.

  He lifted a hand from the countertop, pushing back the strands of midnight hair that had fallen over his brow, then wrapped his fist around the neck of the bottle. He dragged the glass across the marble, letting the sound echo in the hollow cavern of his glass house before he lifted it to his lips and took another pull.

  He walked into the living room, toward the one-way glass that looked over his balcony, over all of New Found Haven, and watched as a million tiny fires and the haze of neon sparkled from the Boundary. Sometimes, he’d wished that he’d been born there.

  At least he’d be free from his father.

  He imagined the conversation they’d have tomorrow. His father’s voice with its diamond-hard edges, the unspoken warning that if Greyson failed to follow through with the Vow, to marry Moraine, he could be replaced too.

  He leaned forward, forehead pressed against the glass, and thought of Callum’s words.

  ‘Balance does not exist in New Found Haven.’

  If there was no balance, no way to make any of this right, then what the fuck was he doing? His entire world felt like it was spinning and he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t control it.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Greyson shook his head, trying to clear the noise, the mess that his world had become. The clock on the wall edged past two a.m., each tick a reminder of what he had to do—show strength, show loyalty, show the Heart that he wasn’t the weak son.

  His eyes drifted to the intercom panel built into the side table next to his sectional, the small display that linked to the private quarters of his butler, of every housekeeper that worked for him. He strode over and reached for it, finger hovering over the button connected to his butler’s apartment on the floor below.

  If he couldn’t stop the spiraling, couldn’t stop the Vow, maybe he could at least take one last piece of what he wanted before it was too late.

  He pressed the button, letting the connection buzz to life.

  “Chapman,” he said, voice cracking through the speaker.

  The answer came back within seconds. “Yes, sir. Do you need something?”

  “Call Maya, see if she is available. If she is, please go retrieve her and let her up.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that now.”

  Greyson swallowed. “Thank you. And sorry about the hour.”

  “Not a problem, sir,” Chapman responded, and the line went quiet.

  The silence after the intercom disconnected was loud enough to fill Greyson’s entire apartment. He drained the last of the gin, set the bottle on the glass coffee table, and moved toward the bedroom. Each step was measured, deliberate—walking the line between control and collapse.

  His bedroom was spartan luxury. A massive bed with black sheets, walls the color of fresh snow, a single painting of a storm-racked sea. No personal effects, no photographs. Nothing that could be used against him.

  He stripped completely, never letting the remainder of his clothes hit the floor as he tossed them into the laundry hamper. The cold air raised goosebumps across his skin as he stepped into the adjoining bathroom. The mirror reflected a stranger—a man twisted into something haunted. Scars like white lightning littered across his chest where Veyra training had gone too far, where examples had been made of him by his father growing up.

  He looked away from his own face, glad the world would never see it.

  The shower came on automatically as he stepped onto the tile, steam billowing as he moved beneath the scalding spray. He let it burn away the garage filth, the sweat of fear, scrubbing until his skin was raw.

  When he emerged, he didn’t bother with a towel, just let the water evaporate from his heated flesh as he walked back into the bedroom.

  The intercom buzzed and he walked over to his nightstand where another control box was embedded into the surface, and opened the channel.

  “Sir.” Chapman’s voice filtered through. “Maya is here.”

  Greyson’s pulse quickened. “Send her up.”

  From the drawer in the table he pulled out another mask. He kept them all over the apartment so one was always in reach.

  He slipped the mask over his face, the familiar weight settling against his skin like armor. Even here, even in this moment of anticipated release, he could not exist without the barrier between himself and the world. The obsidian surface caught the dim light of the city from the floor-to-ceiling window. He didn’t bother to close the curtains.

  The soft chime of the elevator announced her arrival. Greyson stood motionless in the center of his bedroom, hands clasped behind his back, watching the door while staying completely still. He heard Chapman’s footsteps in the hallway, the low murmur of voices, then the quiet retreat of his butler’s presence.

  Maya entered without knocking.

  She moved with the grace of someone who understood her role perfectly—neither servile nor defiant, but something carefully calibrated between the two. Her dark hair was pulled back severely, exposing the elegant line of her throat. She wore a simple black dress that hugged her curves without ostentation, but still expensive enough to not look out of place inside this tower.

  Maya lived between worlds like Greyson did, and she understood to a degree how it felt to be pulled between the rings. She was from the Cardinal, but worked for Callum at his club. She was not considered elite because she didn’t live within the Heart’s boundaries, but her ability to keep secrets made her sought after by men of the Heart.

  Greyson was one of her secrets.

  She paused just inside the threshold, her eyes finding his masked face. No words passed between them. There was no need for conversation, no pretense of intimacy beyond the physical. This was transaction elevated to art form.

  Without breaking eye contact, she reached behind her neck, pulled her hair from the elastic holding it back, and unzipped the dress in one smooth motion. The fabric whispered to the floor, pooling at her feet like spilled ink. Beneath, she wore nothing—her body pale and unmarked, untouched by the violence that scarred most from the outer rings.