CHAPTER 257

**ZION**

Harry's hands curled into fists at his sides, his gaze sharp and unyielding. 

“And if he thought he could just scare her—or worse—then he’s got another thing coming,” he growled, the words scraping out like steel. 

“Whoever this bastard is… he picked the wrong girl, and the wrong people to mess with. She’s one of us.”

Clark leaned forward, a slow, dangerous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—one that never quite reached his eyes.

“Damn right she is,” he said, voice low and edged. 

“And anyone who touches what’s ours…” 

He cracked his knuckles deliberately, the sound sharp in the tense room. 

“…doesn’t get to walk away breathing.”

Ro's eyes flicked to mine, dark and steady. 

"We find him. And when we do, he won't just regret tonight. He'll regret ever walking near her."

Clark let out a sharp, humourless laugh, the kind that carried more bite than warmth.

“Out of every person in this damn city, he decides to go after her.” His eyes flicked to Winter, then back to the group, a dangerous glint beneath the sarcasm.

“He didn’t just pick the wrong girl—he basically walked into a nest of wolves wearing a ‘bite me’ sign.”

His grin didn’t reach his eyes. 

“Yeah… this idiot’s not walking away next time.”

The room fell silent, heavy with shared anger, tension, and the unspoken promise that this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

My throat tightened. 

“I can’t fucking believe he waltzed into our home like it was nothing,” I growled, every word laced with venom.

“Like we were just waiting here for him to take his shot and walk out clean.”

My fingers brushed the back of my head, where the dull, pulsing throb still burned like a reminder.

“He thought he’d get away with it. But he didn’t count on me being right behind him.”

I let out a sharp breath, jaw locking. “I barely made it through the damn door before he blindsided me from behind.”

The memory flashed again-the hooded figure, the blow, the world spinning sideways. 

"I went after him.....even caught him..."

Ariel's eyes widened, voice sharp. 

"Did you get a look at him?"

I shook my head, frustration coiling in my chest. 

“No — his hood fell for a heartbeat, but the bastard smeared mud over his face before I could get a good look. Still— I got him.”

I flexed my injured arm, feeling the sting.

“And before he got away,” I added darkly, 

“I gave him something to remember me by.

I left a clean cut across his left arm. Deep enough to ruin him for a while. He’s bleeding out somewhere right now, and that arm won’t be swinging that limb for a good while.”

I let out a aharo breath.

"Someone with an injury like that's gonna stand out. We move fast, we can track him."

Clark's expression hardened, resolve settling over him like armour. 

"We tighten everything. Cameras. Patrols. Check the security logs, all of them. If he slipped through once, we find the crack."

The thudding in my arm syncing with the steady tick... tick... tick of the old clock. 

It wasn't just sound anymore. 

It felt like time was counting down to something bigger.

Harry's jaw locked, suspicion burning in his eyes. 

"Then we find him. He's got a fucking stab wound in his arm, courtesy of you. We start there. Hospitals, clinics, anywhere he could've gone to get patched up."

Claire nodded sharply. 

“But if I’d just gotten a look at his face,” I spat, the words scraping out of me like gravel, 

“We wouldn’t have to waste time chasing a fucking arm wound.”

My hand dragged through my hair, rough and restless. 

The burn of it sat heavy in my chest, an ugly knot of anger I couldn’t shake.

“I had him,” I hissed. 

“I fucking had him. And I let him slip through like a damn rookie...

I fucking had him—and then he slipped away like a ghost. A fucking car was waiting for him. He had a backup. He planned for this. Always had a damn escape ready.”

“Fuck… someone’s working with him,” Ro muttered.

The words hit like a gut punch, sharper than the throb in my arm.

“Yeah,” I bit out, voice low and tight. 

“Which means it’s not just one bastard we’re dealing with anymore.”

The thought twisted in my chest, sour and cold. Another enemy. Someone out there is pulling strings—or worse, standing too close for us to see.

“But fuck…” I exhaled sharply, eyes narrowing. 

“Who the hell is it?”

The room went quiet, thick with the weight of that single, dangerous question. My pulse hammered in my ears. 

My hands curled into fists, and I flexed them once, slowly. 

"If he thinks killing Ethan will get under Winter's skin, he's a fool with no sense of the game. Ethan wasn't your weak point - he never was - and whoever believed otherwise has badly misread the board. I'll find him first, peel apart every alliance he hides behind, and when I'm done there won't be anything left to avenge."

The room narrowed until it was nothing but the shape of that hooded silhouette in my head.  

My fingers clenched until the knuckles stood white.

He crossed a line. 

He came for her. 

He came for my girl.

"He picked the wrong target. The wrong girl. Now he's on my ledger."

"Next time," I said, each word measured, 

"I won't leave him with a scar to tell the tale." 

The sentence tasted like a promise. 

Not bravado - procedural. 

Precise. 

Final.

No theatrics. No needless cruelty. Just inevitability - a hunt begun, and a verdict already pronounced.

...

Heads tilted, listeners leaning into the plan that was already forming in my skull: camera sweeps, exit points, which patrols were light tonight, who always bragged in the wrong tavern. 

Anger is useful only when it becomes work. 

I began to lay the work out in my head - 

"Names. Alibis," I told the others without looking away from Winter. 

"Every camera in a five‑block radius. Pull logs, pull plates. Who was near the docks at midnight? Who has gaps in their story? We don't guess. We hunt." 

My voice had that low, even quality that makes people do things instead 

Winter's breath went small and sharp; she folded in on herself. I wanted to punch something-feel the impact, the proof I could still do damage to the people I loved. 

But the guy had planned it. 

Claire didn’t take her eyes off me. “Treat that cut like a lead, not just an injury,” she said, voice flat and businesslike. “Anyone with a fresh stab in their left forearm shows up somewhere — ER, urgent care, a private clinic. Or they hole up with a fixer to get it bandaged off the books. Either way, there’s a trail.”

I wanted to snarl that I’d had the bastard by the throat, wanted to thrash at the failure like it was a thing I could fix with my fists. Instead, I nodded. No face to pin it on meant we had to be smarter, not louder.

“Alright,” I said, cold and careful. 

“We run this two ways.” I set the plan out as I thought it: rapid, methodical. 

“Canvass every hospital and urgent care within a fifty‑mile radius tonight — ER logs, triage entries, any walk‑ins who insisted on privacy. Pull CCTV from the exits and parking lots. Talk to EMTs and night staff; they notice the odd things people pretend not to be. Post teams to known bandaging spots — tattoo shops, back‑alley clinics, even fixer houses. Someone with a slice like that will need supplies or stitches.”

Clark’s jaw tightened, approval in the slow set of his mouth

“I’ll patch together the camera sweeps and hit the networks. Harry, you and Ariel bleed the hospitals dry. Ro and Claire, you keep pressure on the streets — ask questions, intimidate where necessary.”

The room leaned in; the plan snapped into place. It wasn’t revenge. It was work. And work was how we caught ghosts.

Clark pulled out his phone and started making calls, his voice clipped and efficient. 

Claire listed off locations in a rapid stream-stitch clinics, pharmacies that might sell bandage supplies, even dental clinics with late-night openings where a disguised cut could be bandaged without question. 

Harry started on traffic cams-"He didn't get far in that car; there'll be cameras along the route," he said. Ro promised to check pawn shops and places where a knife could be sold, to see if anything suspicious had changed hands.

"Also," Ariel said softly, eyes bright with a sudden, practical light, 

"We need to talk to neighbours. Someone watched him move. Tire tracks, a disturbance-someone knows something and they didn't think it was worth calling because they figured it was just kids. Ask for doorbell cams. Front-door cams pick up cars. Garbage trucks pick up plates sometimes-anything."

I swallowed. Every step they listed was another way to narrow the space he could hide in. He'd been careful. We'd have to be more so.

Winter's hand found mine under the blanket at my knees and squeezed-small, trembly, grounding. She still looked at the floor, ashamed, like the world would fold if she met anyone's eyes. 

Ro leaned forward. 

"What about the blade? You kept it?"

"Wasn't thinking," I said. 

"The knife fell when I got hit. I think it slipped into the mud when he hit the ground. If anyone finds it-"

"If we find it," Claire echoed, 

"We'll get prints, DNA. If it had blood, labs could pull something. Call the forensics team. Get them here. Don't touch anything. Don't wash any of the sheets. We document." 

Her voice had that corporate hard edge, not cold but unbearably efficient. It helped.

William cut across the room like a blade, face hard as flint. He didn’t wait for questions.

“You do what you need,” he said, voice flat and lethal. 

“Pull every contact. I’ll call every property owner with cameras on the block myself.” He set the rhythm, every line a command. 

“Hospitals first — ERs, urgent cares, walk‑ins. Then CCTV: traffic cams, doorbells, shop feeds. Check rideshares, cab logs, pawn shops, and any place someone with a fresh forearm wound might show up. Tire tracks in the lane — someone with a truck or an old car leaves patterns. BOLO anyone turning up with a bandaged left arm.

“We’ll push it to the police patrols in this place for the next few nights. Temporary cameras on every entry.”

William set people to jobs with the economy of a man who knew how fast windows of opportunity closed. 

Then he looked at Winter — not like a commander, but like a father — and his voice rounded softer, fierce. 

“No one gets to hurt my daughter and walk away. Not on my watch.”

Winter nodded stiffly, biting her lip, both comforted and unsettled by the raw ferocity in his voice.

The plan came together in quick, cold fragments. It was small, but it was something: a path forward rather than the spiral that had been threatening to swallow me whole all night.

I looked at Winter. 

She was small, fragile in ways that made me furious at whoever had hurt us both tonight. I put my uninjured hand over hers and squeezed. 

"He got away," I said, and it tasted like ash. 

"But not for long."

She let out a breath that trembled with relief and terror both. 

"Promise me you'll be careful," she whispered.

I wanted to promise the moon. I wanted to promise I'd tear the world apart for her and stitch it back whole. I promised the thing I could keep: 

"I'll be smarter. I'll be here. We'll find him."