Stealing from dangerous men wasn't the hard part.

Convincing them you'd already lost—that took skill.

Nyra stayed still until the armored SUV vanished beyond the alley, its taillights swallowed by dawn haze and exhaust smoke. Only then did she move.

Fast.

Purpose first. Panic later.

Her palms still smelled like oil, blood, and Ghost's lingering presence. That irritated her more than it should have.

The garage felt wrong without them in it.

Too quiet.

Too normal.

Reed's blood marked the concrete beside the stool in drying streaks. One loose black thread from Ghost's glove remained caught on jagged metal beneath the lift.

Nyra stared at it for half a second too long.

Then she shoved a hand into her back pocket and pulled out the damaged tracker.

Not the obvious one.

Ghost had removed that himself before leaving. Large casing. Weak blinking light. Mounted where anyone curious would notice it.

Bait.

And Ghost had absolutely known she noticed.

But hidden deeper behind the damaged bracket sat a second device—smaller, older, nearly fused beneath leaking transmission fluid. Easy to miss unless you knew what dead electronics actually looked like.

Nyra did.

Dead systems didn't twitch.

This one had.

The tracker rested in her palm now, greasy and cracked open along one side. Burn damage scarred the edges of the circuit board. One connector hung loose.

Ugly.

But alive.

Maybe.

"Please be worth this," she muttered.

Upstairs, engines roared back to life. Illegal racers flooding out before sunrise. Music vibrated through the ceiling again. Somewhere near the stairwell, a man laughed too hard, the kind of laugh people used after surviving proximity to violence.

Nyra ignored all of it.

She headed for the office.

The cramped room smelled like burnt coffee, solder, and sleep deprivation. A single desk lamp cast weak yellow light across stacks of unpaid invoices and scattered burner phones.

Maps covered the wall.

Names.

Routes.

Dock schedules.

Most of them led nowhere.

At the center sat Milo's photo.

Seventeen. Smirking. One eyebrow split from some forgotten fight. Looking exactly like a boy who thought consequences were optional.

Nyra's chest tightened instantly.

She looked away first.

Too much grief softened people.

Soft people died.

She dropped into the chair, set the tracker beneath the magnifying lamp, and reached for her tools.

"Alright," she said quietly. "Talk."

The casing peeled apart easier than expected.

Cheap shell.

Expensive internals.

Nyra frowned immediately.

Not cartel equipment.

Not street tech either.

Military-grade architecture buried beneath modified civilian housing. Compact build. Encrypted micro-routing chip. Whoever designed this had money, training, and access to restricted systems.

A bad combination.

Milo's last message surfaced hard in her memory.

Don't trust contractors.

Then static.

Then the insignia.

Then silence for two years.

Nyra swallowed and soldered the loose contact back into place.

The tracker sparked violently.

She jerked backward.

"Jesus—"

Smoke curled upward.

Then the tiny green indicator blinked once before dying again.

Nyra narrowed her eyes.

"No. Don't start drama now."

She cleaned corrosion from the connector and adjusted the voltage manually.

Another spark.

This time the light held.

A soft ping came from her laptop.

Nyra froze.

The old screen flickered alive beside her.

Data spilled across it in fragmented bursts.

Coordinates.

Partial route logs.

Dead timestamps.

Corrupted memory blocks.

Most of it was garbage.

Los Angeles.

Port routes.

Wilmington.

East Vernon.

Warehouse districts.

Dead drops.

Then one file finally opened clearly.

Nyra stopped breathing.

HOLLOW SUN CONTRACTING

The words sat cold against the screen.

Real.

Not rumor.

Not half-erased speculation from drunks in underground race pits.

A real name.

Her chair scraped backward hard enough to hit the filing cabinet.

Nyra crossed to the corkboard automatically and pinned a fresh note beneath Milo's photo.

HOLLOW SUN.

The black marker nearly tore through the paper.

Good.

Some names deserved pressure.

Her phone vibrated suddenly.

Nyra flinched so hard she nearly dropped the marker.

Unknown Number.

A message appeared.

Stop.

That was it.

One word.

No greeting.

No threat.

Which somehow made it worse.

A second message arrived immediately after.

You have no idea what you took.

Cold spread slowly through Nyra's ribs.

She looked toward the garage.

Nothing moved.

No footsteps.

No engines.

Only shadows stretching longer beneath flickering fluorescent lights.

Her pulse climbed anyway.

The third message appeared.

But he does.

Nyra stared at the screen until her vision blurred slightly.

Then she barked out a laugh.

Short.

Sharp.

Not remotely amused.

"Yeah," she murmured. "That's becoming a pattern."

She should stop.

Delete the files.

Destroy the tracker.

Sleep for eight hours and make one emotionally healthy decision.

Instead she typed:

Tell Ghost if he wants his toy back, he can come ask nicely.

Send.

Three seconds passed.

Then her phone buzzed again.

He let you take it.

Nyra's stomach dropped.

Not took.

Let.

She read the sentence twice.

Three times.

The room suddenly felt smaller.

Ghost knew.

Of course he knew.

Men like him noticed everything.

The realization should have terrified her.

Instead something hotter crawled beneath her skin.

Annoyance.

Because somewhere between the garage and now, Ghost had apparently decided he could manipulate her investigation like it belonged to him too.

Absolutely not.

Nyra grabbed the tracker again and stared at the damaged board.

"You smug psycho," she whispered.

Three miles away, the BLACK VEIL SUV cut through early morning traffic like the city owed it space.

Elias drove one-handed, steady and calm despite the axle threatening violence beneath the vehicle.

Reed rested in the backseat with fresh stitches beneath black gauze, pale but awake. Nik sat beside the rear door cleaning his rifle with mechanical precision.

Lucas lounged across half the middle row like this was somehow a vacation.

Kane sat in the passenger-side rear seat watching his phone with growing dread.

Ghost remained silent up front.

Always silent after missions.

Usually that silence meant strategy.

Tonight it meant Nyra Quinn.

Kane hated that immediately.

His phone buzzed.

He checked the message.

Then slowly looked up at Ghost.

"She activated it."

Ghost didn't turn.

"I know."

Lucas grinned from the back. "Oh, this is deeply entertaining."

"No," Kane snapped instantly. "This is how disasters start."

Lucas leaned forward between the seats. "Counterpoint: disasters are fun."

"Not when Ghost is involved."

That earned him a glance in the rearview mirror from Elias.

Reed opened one eye lazily. "Kane's right."

Lucas clutched his chest dramatically. "Wow. Near-death experiences really do change people."

Reed ignored him.

Kane looked back toward Ghost. "She found Hollow Sun."

That finally shifted something.

Not visibly.

Most people would miss it.

But Kane had worked beside Ghost for six years. He knew the microscopic signs.

The slight tightening in Ghost's jaw.

The subtle pause before breathing.

Attention sharpening like a blade leaving its sheath.

"She won't stop now," Kane said quietly.

"No," Ghost answered.

One word.

Certain.

Lucas tilted his head. "Question. Why exactly is the emotionally unstable mechanic still alive?"

"Lucas," Kane warned.

"What? I'm asking professionally."

Ghost stared out the windshield, watching Los Angeles wake beneath bruised morning light.

People crossing streets.

Coffee vendors opening carts.

Traffic building.

An entire city pretending monsters only existed in movies.

"She's looking for someone," Ghost said.

Kane frowned. "Lots of people do."

Ghost's grey eyes reflected faintly in the passenger window.

"She looks like she'd burn the city down before quitting."

Silence settled briefly inside the SUV.

Even Lucas stopped joking.

Because Ghost sounded—

interested.

That was new.

And new things around Ghost tended to become catastrophic.

Kane rubbed both hands down his face.

Not Ghost angry.

Not Ghost violent.

He understood those versions.

But Ghost curious?

Ghost watching a woman?

Ghost deliberately leaving doors open for her to walk through?

That felt worse somehow.

Kane exhaled slowly.

"We are unbelievably screwed."

Ghost stayed silent.

Kane suddenly missed when their problems involved gunfire.