Chapter 46
"What do you want?"
My voice came out flat on purpose—no heat, no interest, no invitation.
Allie stood in the doorway like she'd always belonged there. Like she hadn't just done something that should've been impossible: tracked down a Cani-B operation in the middle of a hunt. In a city where names got you killed faster than bullets did.
Older. Cleaner. Smiling like this was a casual drop-in.
My uncle's ex.
The kind of problem that didn't need a gun to ruin your night.
"Omar is asking for you guys to calm down," she said, tilting her head like she was trying to see the girl she remembered inside me. "He even came to me bearing enough gifts."
Her smile widened—sweet on the outside, sharp underneath. I caught the spark behind her eyes. Not surprise. Not concern.
Calculation.
"What do you want, Allie?" I didn't bother standing. I didn't offer her a chair. "Or do I need to tell my mom that my uncle's annoying ex is coming around again."
"All right, Ivy. Don't be like that." She didn't flinch at the name. Used it like an old nickname and an old key. "I just want you to tell your boyfriend Grim to slow do—"
"Nope."
One word. Clean cut.
"The only reason I even let you into my office is so you don't steal information by just watching my screens," I said, keeping my hands visible and my posture lazy, like I wasn't already counting exits. "We aren't close. We aren't friendly. We aren't making deals."
I looked down and reached for my laptop as if I'd already dismissed her.
"You can leave now."
I'd almost clicked the lid shut when she spoke again—soft, casual, like she was reminding me about a dentist appointment.
"Here I thought you'd want to know your uncle is back and running around."
My fingers froze.
I didn't react the way she wanted. I didn't let my face change. I didn't ask which uncle.
I just lifted my eyes and locked them onto hers.
Allie's smile didn't move, but her gaze sharpened.
I closed the laptop slowly, the sound too loud in the small room.
"You can leave," I said, voice still calm, still measured. "Thank you for the notice. We'll handle this as the Johns family."
A pause.
"Please leave my office now."
I could feel the urge to push—to test her, to see how far she'd go, to find out if this was bluff or bait.
But I couldn't afford that.
Not because I was scared of her.
Because escalation had costs. And here, the cost was a signal flare.
If I made this personal, if I made this loud, I risked revealing our position to local gangs in the area we were hunting—gangs that were already sniffing around cult money like dogs around blood.
This spot wasn't safe anymore.
Not because she'd threatened me.
Because she'd been here.
Allie stepped back like she'd done me a favor. Like she'd dropped a gift on my desk instead of a grenade.
"Tell Grim," she said, tone light. "And Ivy… be careful. People are watching."
Then she turned and walked out like she owned the hallway.
The second she was gone, the air felt dirty.
I sat there for one more beat, eyes on the door, hearing the city through the walls.
Then I reached for my phone.
Family meeting.
And a relocation.
Immediately.
—
"This bitch! Come on, Teresa!"
My voice cracked in the middle, ugly with rage, before my hand even finished the motion.
The phone left my fingers and slammed into the wall hard enough to make the plaster pop. It bounced once—dead screen flashing—then clattered to the floor.
Teresa startled like she'd been shot.
"What's wrong?" she asked, half a step behind me as I paced, then stumbled trying to match my speed. "Crystal—what happened?"
I didn't answer right away. My mind was already sprinting.
Unknown number.
One message.
And inside it—more damage than most people could do with a week of surveillance.
It was Allie.
It had to be.
She'd located my target.
And the way she'd said it—like she wasn't guessing, like she wasn't fishing—meant she didn't just stumble onto a rumor.
She was in my system.
First breach.
Second breach: she knew who I was hunting without any notes or reports being made physically or digitally. No paper trail. No files. No whispered orders.
Which meant she hadn't found the target.
She'd found me.
She'd been watching my teams. And if she was watching my teams, she'd been watching my routes, my habits, my rhythms.
She'd been watching from a distance long enough to understand the pattern.
I stopped so suddenly Teresa nearly ran into me. I caught her hand before she could fall.
"A bitch who should've been stuck in that god-forsaken sea," I hissed.
Teresa's eyes widened. She knew that phrase. Everyone who mattered knew what it meant when someone said the Sea like that.
"But now it's been revealed she's been back and active," I continued, voice dropping lower, sharper. "Which means my darling old ex was still being an idiot, still trying to be a nice guy. He let that bitch out and didn't tell any of us."
Teresa swallowed. "Who—"
"We need to go talk to the Giver before she does," I cut in.
That part was the real emergency.
Because Allie didn't send that message just to scare me.
She sent it to move pieces.
To force reactions.
To see who ran where when the board got kicked.
The Giver wouldn't fall to Sophie's name being used. He wasn't weak like that.
But he also wasn't kind.
He didn't do "civil."
If Allie reached him first, she could frame the story in a way that turned an already-bad situation into a massacre.
"Better to stop this shit show before it starts," I muttered, more to myself than Teresa.
My thoughts snapped back to the image that had been attached—burned into my mind like a brand.
Allie, smiling.
A man beside her with his back to the camera.
White hair.
That angle was deliberate. That kind of picture wasn't proof to outsiders.
It was proof to us.
It said: I'm close enough to take photos again.
It said: He's back.
It said: You're late.
I yanked my hand free and moved, already reaching for a spare device, already pulling up secure lines.
"Teresa," I said, voice steady again. "You're with me."
She nodded fast. "Where are we going?"
"To intercept a conversation that should never happen," I answered.
And in my head, I could already hear Allie's smile.
—
"Ghost, I have an issue."
Smoke curled out of my mouth as I leaned against the railing and watched the fight ring below. Men circled like predators. Money changed hands with every breath. The watchers already knew the endings—most of them always did.
I didn't come here for the violence.
I came here because it was the kind of place you could talk without the wrong people pretending not to listen.
"Anything for my favorite student," Ghost said, voice calm, warm in the way only experienced monsters could manage. "What do you need, Ivy?"
I didn't bother with greetings.
"Allie is poking her nose into places again," I said. "I need more muscle here with me. If she shows up to another location, we can't afford to move to a third."
I turned slightly, letting my gaze slide to the door behind me without making it obvious.
"So how soon can you get back to America?"
A short pause. Not hesitation. Calculation.
"I can be back by tonight," Ghost said. "Pause all operations. Pull Tasey and Grim back."
I exhaled smoke, watching a man get dropped to his knees in the ring.
"There's no telling if she's already sold the information to local mayors," Ghost continued. "And if the mayors have it, the cults will have it."
That was the part that made me feel sick. All those hours. All those reports. The work it took to map cult corridors without tipping them off.
One leak could erase weeks.
I rubbed my forehead, thumb pressing into the bridge of my nose.
"Already done," I said. "Tasey and Grim are pulled back. Huginn is passing off command to you while he goes to look for Allie."
Ghost went quiet for a heartbeat.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
"Huginn decided to deal with it himself," Ghost said, and it wasn't a question.
"Yeah," I replied. "He did."
The fighters below crashed together again. The crowd roared. Someone laughed too loud, too empty.
I lowered the cigarette and watched the ring like it could tell me how this ended.
"All right," Ghost finally said. "Hold position. Keep your people tight. Don't chase shadows."
"I wasn't planning to," I said.
"Good," Ghost replied. "Because if Allie's moving openly, she wants you to chase."
I ended the call and slipped the phone away.
Huginn hunting.
Ghost returning.
Operations paused.
Now all that was left was the waiting—the part that always felt like standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering if the ground would still be there when you stepped.
I looked down at the ring one last time.
Then I turned away.
Targets could wait.
Allie couldn't.
—
Venzula.
In the middle of active tensions globally, the city had learned how to breathe like it was holding its lungs in—slow, careful, pretending that if it stayed quiet enough, the world would pass over it.
It didn't.
"Mom, look! It's so beautiful!"
I lifted my eyes from the journal in my lap and followed the direction my son's finger was pointing.
At first my brain refused to label what it was seeing. The sky didn't tear like that. Not in daylight. Not over a street where children played and vendors argued and life pretended it was normal.
But there it was.
A sky-blue Tear hanging above the road like a piece of the heavens had been unstitched and left open.
It shimmered softly—pretty in a way that made people forget the stories.
Adults gathered first, cautious and curious, but the children didn't have caution. They had wonder.
My son took off toward the crowd before I could catch him.
"Hey—wait!" I pushed up, heart tightening as I followed.
And then I heard it—voices, laughter, that strange human instinct to turn fear into celebration if the danger looked like art.
"WOW!!"
Kids stared with mouths open. Some adults filmed with shaking hands. People leaned into each other, smiling like they'd been gifted a miracle.
Someone dragged out folding chairs like this was a block party.
Some of the men brought out grills, the smell of charcoal rising into the warm air. Women appeared with drinks and plates, as if feeding the moment could make it harmless.
A community forming under a wound in the sky.
I reached my son and pulled him gently back to my side, keeping my gaze fixed upward.
The Tear glowed.
Beautiful.
Unnatural.
And the longer everyone stared, the more the street felt like it was holding its breath with us.
Like the city itself was waiting for something on the other side to notice we were watching.
I hugged my journal closer without realizing it.
Because I'd seen enough news to know the truth:
The world didn't give out miracles for free.
And nothing that beautiful ever opened without something stepping through.