Kane's eyebrows jumped.

The masked man went very still.

The kind of stillness that meant she'd hit something she hadn't meant to touch.

For half a second, the garage disappeared around them. The bass near the back office. The blood. The guns. The men pretending they weren't watching.

Nyra cleared her throat and looked away first, because self-preservation occasionally clocked in for part-time work.

"Anyway," she said briskly, "I'll go fix your death machine."

The masked man didn't move.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The reaction around them was immediate and deeply weird.

Kane went still.

Reed stopped pressing his hand to his wound for one stupid second before pain reminded him.

Even the criminals near the back seemed to understand that something abnormal had happened.

Nyra smiled slowly.

"Nyra Quinn."

"And you're buying me a new floor if your death machine leaks on it again."

Kane made a sound under his breath.

It might have been a prayer.

The masked man looked from the wrench to her face.

Then, finally, he gave a single nod.

"Fix it."

Nyra clicked her tongue. "I don't take orders from you, just prepare the money."

Reed, still bleeding, murmured, "I may actually be hallucinating."

Nyra walked past Ghost toward the SUV, forcing herself not to react to the way every person in the room tracked the movement. She grabbed a rolling toolbox and kicked it open with the toe of one boot.

"Reed," she said, pointing without turning around, "sit on that stool before you fall over and make this a whole thing."

Reed looked toward Ghost.

Nyra caught the movement.

Of course.

Nobody breathed without permission around here.

Ghost gave the smallest nod.

Reed sat.

Nyra rolled her eyes. "Healthy."

Kane's mouth tightened. "You always comment on everything?"

"Only when men make it easy."

That almost-laugh came again. Not from the criminals this time. From one of Ghost's men, a dark-haired guy near the SUV with too-pretty eyes and silver rings on two fingers.

Kane shot him a look.

Lucas lifted both hands innocently.

Nyra grabbed the first-aid kit from the wall and dragged a stool over to Reed with her boot.

"Shirt up."

Reed hesitated.

Nyra looked at him flatly. "You are actively bleeding in a room full of men carrying rifles, and this is where modesty finds you?"

Lucas laughed under his breath.

"I like her," he said.

"No one asked you, Lucas," Kane snapped.

Lucas smiled wider.

Nyra cut through Reed's tactical shirt before he could complain again.

The wound underneath was ugly but manageable. Deep slice along the ribs, probably from a blade. Not a bullet. Not fatal, unless all of them continued being dramatic instead of useful.

"You have an actual medic?" she asked.

"Mateo's handling cleanup," Kane said.

Nyra glanced up. "Cleanup?"

Kane looked at her.

She looked back.

"Right," she said. "Definitely not body disposal. My mistake."

Reed hissed when she poured disinfectant over the wound.

"Fuck."

"Yeah, yeah. Elegant assassin, tiny burn."

"I got stabbed."

"Lightly."

Lucas made another pleased sound.

Ghost remained near the SUV, silent as a loaded gun. Nyra could feel him watching. Not hovering. Not interfering. Just observing with that unnerving focus, like she was another damaged machine and he was trying to understand which part of her made noise.

She threaded the needle.

The room watched her hands.

Nyra hated how familiar that felt.

Men waiting for her to fix something impossible. Cars. Wounds. Debts. Consequences.

She had been sixteen the first time her uncle slapped a bottle of whiskey and fishing line onto a workbench and told her to hold some racer's leg still unless she wanted him to bleed out.

She had held it.

The man lived.

Her hands had stopped shaking after the third time.

Reed sucked in a sharp breath as the needle pierced skin.

"Try not to pass out," Nyra said. "I don't like catching men over six feet. Bad for my back."

Reed's jaw clenched. "You talk too much."

"So I've been told by many mediocre men."

Kane looked like he was seconds away from aging ten years.

Ghost's gaze didn't move.

Nyra tied off the first stitch, then the second, quick and neat. "You military?"

Kane said, "Something like that."

"That eans yes, but illegal?"

No one corrected her.

Interesting.

She finished the last stitch and pressed clean gauze into place.

"There. You'll live. Unfortunately for everyone forced to listen to you say unsettling things in a pretty voice."

Reed looked down at the work, surprised despite himself.

"You're good."

"I know."

Ghost finally moved.

Only a step, but the room felt it.

Nyra stood and turned toward the SUV before she could do something embarrassing, like stare back.

"Now," she said, grabbing a flashlight, "let's see how badly you abused my future invoice."

She slid beneath the SUV on the creeper, the world narrowing to hot metal, torn lines, and dripping fluid. The damage was bad. Worse than she'd thought from the sound alone. The rear axle needed real work, not a miracle. The transmission line could be patched long enough to get them out before sunrise.

Maybe.

If the vehicle cooperated.

If the men didn't bleed on anything electrical.

If Ghost stopped standing so close.

His boots appeared beside the SUV.

Of course.

Nyra didn't look away from the broken line. "You always supervise women from a murder stance?"

"I supervise repairs to my vehicle."

"Your vehicle looks like it filed a complaint with HR."

Silence.

Then Lucas, somewhere above her, murmured, "Definitely keeping her."

Kane said, "We are not keeping the mechanic."

Nyra tightened a clamp. "Mechanic can hear you."

"She's aware," Lucas said cheerfully.

Ghost said nothing.

Nyra reached deeper into the undercarriage, fingers sliding around the torn casing. Her knuckles brushed against a secured black case mounted behind the rear panel.

A symbol caught the light from her flashlight.

A thin veil over a blade.

Her hand stopped.

The cold hit fast.

Not fear.

Recognition.

She had seen that insignia once before in a corrupted photo pulled from her brother's old phone. Three days before he disappeared. The photo had been blurry, half-eaten by static, but the symbol had burned itself into her memory.

A veil.

A blade.

Nyra's pulse kicked hard against her throat.

BLACK VEIL.

Above her, Ghost's voice cut through the metal and heat.

"You stopped moving."

Damn him.

Nyra forced her fingers to loosen. Forced her breath to stay even. Forced her mouth into the shape it used when everything inside her was going sideways.

She rolled halfway out from beneath the SUV.

Ghost stood over her, huge and unreadable, grey eyes fixed on her face.

"Problem?" he asked.

Nyra spun the wrench once between her fingers.

"Nah," she said. "Just realizing your little murder club has terrible branding."

Reed muttered, "Murder club?"

Lucas sounded delighted. "We should get shirts."

Kane said, "No."

Ghost didn't react to any of them.

He kept looking at her.

Nyra held his gaze and smiled wider than she felt.

Because if he knew she was lying, she needed him to wonder why.

And if BLACK VEIL had anything to do with her brother—

then the scariest man in the room had just become the most important one too.