Jonas’s fingerhovered over the comms key. Everything in his body had gone taut, a wire pulled tight enough to sing. On the screen, Clara’s face was a pale mask, her jaw set, eyes hard as flint; behind her, Oliver’s shoulders were a coiled thing, his smile gone feral. Sutton was on his feet, red and roaring, hands balled into fists. Penelope sat stunned, a hand pressed to her mouth, nails white as lace.
“Watchdog,”Bás’s voice was a low engine through the earpiece.“When you say.”
Jonas found his voice, flat and quiet. “Now.”
It was a word and a world. He hit the button, and the team moved.
The house translated into lines of movement on his console: Reaper along the south wing, Titan and Hurricane on the flank, Bishop sweeping the study entrance. The van idled a block away with engines hot. He could see every footprint in thermal, every dark shape that didn’t belong.
On the feed, Oliver began to wave the gun he’d pulled out like a grotesque conductor, wild-eyed and dangerous. He barked something, words lost under the rise of panic, but Jonas could read the intent in the angle of his wrist, the way his mouth formed the syllables. He was playing for fear, testing how far he could push it.
“Keep him talking. Keep him loud,” Jonas whispered into Clara’s ear. He didn’t expect a reply. Her lips moved; she forced a smile that was a lie. “Good. Stall him. Don’t provoke.”
Oliver’s voice cut through the room, sharp. “You’re all fools. You think you can hide everything? You think I won’t take what I want?”He laughed then, a sound that didn’t reach his eyes.“I can make it simple.”
Sutton strode forward, trying to look in control.“Enough, Oliver.”He put a hand on the desk as if steadying himself, but from his angle, Watchdog could see he was reaching forsomething—a gun.“We negotiated terms, this is about stability, about—”
“Terms?”Oliver screamed, the gun flashing.“You made my terms. You signed. You promised, and now I’m taking.”His arm swung faster; the muzzle tipped toward Sutton’s chest. The shot cracked like a thunderclap. On the feed, Sutton’s body jerked, the desk pushing against him as if the furniture tried to catch what the air could not. He folded forward with a soft, awful sound, the gun he held falling from his fingertips under the desk.
Jonas’s brain went dangerously blank for a second, then slammed into clarity. The tone of the room shifted from theatrical menace to pure, ugly panic. Penelope’s hand flew from her face, landing on her husband’s shoulder. Her cry was a raw animal noise; Clara’s eyes went wide, unbelieving.
“Go!” Jonas yelled through the earpiece. “Now! Move!”
Oliver’s hand slashed for Clara’s throat before she could react. It was a precise, brutal grab, fingers finding purchase. He dragged her to her feet with a motion that was more possessive than necessary, more violent than intentional. She fought, knees buckling, eyes flaring with the kind of animal fury that comes when a person decides they will not be broken without the other paying for it.
Clara kicked out and down.
Jonas saw it in a microsecond: the second Clara made contact with his knee, Oliver’s body jerking, the shock and pain in his face. He heard the grunt; saw the rage bloom at the seam of Oliver’s cheeks. The team was through the door a heartbeat later, Bishop and Lotus, Reaper and Titan, barrelling into the study like a wave.
Oliver spun, weapon rising. For a breath, the room was a madness of motion: running boots, scuffed leather, the metallic glint of a pistol. Someone shouted. Jonas’s mouth was dry; hisfingers hammering keys to lock exits and bring cameras to bear on every angle.
Then the shot came, another crack that cut the air in half. It was close, too close. On the feed, Oliver’s head snapped back, and he slumped as if the centre had been knocked from under him.
Time hiccupped. Jonas’s peripheral monitors showed movement: Bishop tackling a man to the floor, Lotus pinning a second. Reaper’s face was a mask of fury. Titan and Hurricane moved to secure the doorway.
For a scarcely believable second, Jonas thought he’d misread the picture, until the camera pivoted fractionally and showed Penelope Sutton on her feet, shaking, a pistol clutched in both hands. Her dress was a pale pink, damp at the hem, and her face was a ruin of shock and determination. She stood like someone who’d done the only thing she believed she could.
Jonas’s throat closed. He listened instead to Duchess’s voice, precise and controlled.“Medic, now. Savannah, now.”She didn’t call an ambulance; she called a name the team respected.“Secure the weapon. Lock the doors. We hold this as evidence.”
Savannah Decker was on the feed within moments, calm and efficient. Savannah’s presence was itself an instruction. She moved with the authority of someone who’d seen worse and knew how to fix it. Her agreeing to be on standby had been the thing that soothed him enough to allow this to go down.
Not able to bear being a witness a second longer, he jumped from the van, which was parked at the back of the Sutton estate out of sight, and ran until his lungs burned. He had to be with her, and even a moment with his eyes off her was unbearable. Surveying the room as he burst through the chaos, he saw Savannah tending to Sutton. Her hands were skilled, steady, as she checked Sutton for signs of life, applied pressure where needed, barking terse, clinical orders that steadied the chaos.“Stay back,” she told Penelope, softer than Jonas would’ve expected. “You did what you had to. Sit down. Breathe.”
He didn’t care about anything else, only Clara. His gaze found her, and he sank to his knees in front of her, ignoring the others. Lotus helped her, steady hands, sure and practical. Clara’s face was white and wet with tears that weren’t only for herself now but for her mother, who was kneeling over her husband, while Savannah worked in a small space with brutal focus.
“You’re with me,” Jonas said, the words a hard thing he held like a weapon. He bent and pressed his mouth to the corner of her mouth in a fierce, quick kiss. “You’re with me.”
She clung to him, body shaking, nails pressing into his shirt. Around them, the team moved as if this violence had been rehearsed a thousand times, checking pulses, securing the scene, cataloguing access points, taking silent, precise photographs of evidence under the careful eye of Duchess. Reaper cuffed the fallen men at the room’s periphery, and Bishop quietly began gathering the documents and drives he could safely handle while leaving the rest to the Eidolon team that would assume the rest of Sutton’s plate.
There would be questions later about legalities and the lines they crossed; for now, the team absorbed the wreckage in a way only they could, methodical, efficient, merciful. Jonas felt the hard bloom of rage rise, old and dangerous, but he tamped it down; the immediate thing was Clara’s breath against his chest.
Savannah’s voice was low as she worked. “He’s stable for now. Transporting privately. Eidolon will handle custody and the bigger,” she made a small gesture that said more than words, “cleanup. We patch him up and get the evidence chain clean.” Her presence was a seal: what happened here stayed with them and would be dealt with how they decided.
Jonas pressed his forehead to Clara’s temple, feeling the rapid flutter beneath her skin. “Breathe with me,” he whispered. “Slow.”
She followed, the tremor in her hands easing a fraction. Outside, the van engines idled; inside, the house smelled of wet wool and iron and fear. The team’s quiet orders stitched control back across the room.
Reaper’s voice was a low growl as he reported over a shoulder, “South wing cleared. Two men from South Africa were subdued.”
