Page 175 of BounBound By Scars

Everyone stilled.

He took a deep breath. “Last night, I found something buried in a dark node. A hit list.”

Sebastian tensed. “Go on.”

“Seven targets,” Zane continued. “Each one… you. Squad Six. The men—Logan, Zarek, Kabir, Dylan—five million each. Open kill orders.”

I closed my eyes.

“And the women?” Leora asked, her voice tight.

Zane swallowed. “Twenty million. For detainment. You. Kaylan. Amelia.”

“Detainment?” Kaylan asked. “What the fuck—why not just kill us?”

“They didn’t want you dead,” Zarek muttered grimly. “They probably wanted touseyou.”

Leora pressed her hand to her belly. “Jesus…”

Zane nodded. “I traced the digital scrubbing pattern. The entire list was wiped—fully erased. Not archived. I barely found it before it was gone. But the deletion signature… was recent.”

“Where?” Logan asked, his voice low.

“Arlington, Virginia,” Zane said.

Silence.

He did it.

Kabir.

“He’s alive,” Logan whispered.

I exhaled slowly. A shudder ran through my body.

Alive.

But what the hell did he go through to keepusalive?

“Why didn’t he contact us?” Logan asked. “Why let us believe he—?”

“BecauseDylan shot him,” Kaylan snapped.

The room went cold.

Logan didn’t argue. Just looked away.

“Maybe he didn’t think we deserved to know,” Leora said quietly.

“Maybe,” I murmured. “Or maybe… he’s still out there, bleeding, trying to fix everything while we sit here questioning his loyalty.”

Zane sat down finally. “He was playing Romano.”

“Yeah…” Sebastian hummed.

I didn’t speak again.

There was nothing left to say.

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