Page 57 of The Scout

No, I loved it.

I was going to make a career out of it. We all were.

Because we came from nothing. We fought for everything. And we were good.

Better than good.

Marcus had been a Marine Raider. Methodical, relentless, able to get inside an enemy’s head and dismantle him from the inside out. He had the kind of tactical mind that saw patterns where others saw chaos, and he never walked into a fight without knowing how it would end.

Charlie was Delta Force. Quiet. Lethal. The kind of operator who could move through the dark without a sound and put a bullet between a man’s eyes before he even knew death was coming.

Silas. Noah. Atlas. They had all served in different units, different branches, but the blood ran the same. We had been forged in fire. Sharpened by war. And then?—

Our father died.

Not in combat. Not in an accident. Not in any way that made sense.

He was just gone.

And the man we had all looked up to, the one who had shaped us, hardened us, made us, hadn’t just left behind a legacy?—

He had left behind billions.

Money we didn’t even know he had. Money that wasn’t supposed to exist.

And the worst part?

There were no answers. No investigation. No justice.

Just silence.

So we made a pact.

We walked away from the military, from the lives we had sworn to, and we built something new.

Dominion Defense Corporation.

A private military empire. A fortress. A kingdom of war, built by seven sons who had spent their lives training for the battlefield.

Officially, we were hired guns. We took high-risk contracts, provided security for governments, corporations, people with deep enough pockets to afford us. But underneath all of that?—

Our real mission had never changed.

We were hunting the men responsible for our father’s death.

And we wouldn’t stop until we found them.

I had made enemies.We all had. Warlords, gangsters, arms dealers, international syndicates who had every reason to want us dead. When you operated in the world’s most dangerous places, you pissed off dangerous people.

But this—this felt different.

Will had been on his way to keep an eye on the Russians before he disappeared. Maybe it was them. Maybe they’d decided to make a move. But if that was true, why send a fucking text message to Isabel? Why play games when a bullet was more their style?

I didn’t know.

And I fucking hated not knowing.

The questions followed me as I slid into my car, gripping the wheel tight as I tore out of Dominion Hall, pushing the Bentley hard. The city blurred past instreaks of light and shadow, my thoughts a mess of anger, worry, and the relentless need to see her.

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