Page 80 of Claimed By the Damned

He picks me up easily, cradling me against his chest, not caring about being covered in their releases, and carries me towards the en-suite bathroom. I rest my head against his shoulder as he steps into the large shower, turning on the warm water. He washes me gently, reverently, from head to toe, his touch worshipping, adoring. Safe.Held. Loved.

Chapter 24: Hunting Monsters

Ethan

Tension makes the air in the war room feel like sludge. Bastian stands at the head of the table, arms crossed, his jaw granite—that look he gets when his mind's already five moves down the board. Ryker paces, energy thrumming off him like a live wire. His knife flicks, theshink, shink, shinkof his knife slicing through the sounds of the monitors.

Me? I’m right where I belong—in front of my screens, my fingers hovering over the keys, itching to rip Kolya’s world apart. My heart’s steady, but something feels different about this. Raw.

I glance toward the hallway. Lila's in Bastian’s room, tucked under his covers, safe for now. He insisted she rest there, away from the chaos, somewhere secure. She had argued, of course, Lila never goes down without a fight, but exhaustion had won out in the end.

“We need to stop playing defense,” Bastian says, his voice even, controlled. "Kolya's made his moves. Now, we make ours. Ethan, what do you have?"

The weight of the moment presses down as I flex my fingers. "Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have his world cracked open. But we need a plan for when I do. This can’t be reckless, Kolya’s too smart for that."

A nod from Bastian, his expression unreadable. "We exploit his weaknesses. We hit where it hurts, make him scramble, take away his control piece by piece. Ryker, prep for a physical strike. We’ll need firepower ready when we move. No half-measures. Ethan, dig deep—finances, shipments, bribes, hidden assets. Everything. If he has a single crack in his armor, we find it and break him open. Clean. Efficient. Devastating."

Ryker flips his knife, the motion almost lazy. "Finally. About damn time we took the fight to him." He’s practically vibratingwith anticipation, like a predator waiting for the cage door to open.

Bastian shoots Ryker a look, sharp and full of unspoken warning. "We do this my way. Smart. We don’t give him a chance to react until it’s too late. This isn't a street fight, Ryker. This is war. And wars are won by strategy, not impulse."

Ryker scoffs, flipping the knife again. "I know exactly what war is, Bas.I was a prisoner of one, remember?"

Something flickers across Bas's face, pain quickly masked. I know exactly why.It was his call that had gotten Ryker captured.

Ryker smirks, clapping Bastian on the shoulder. "Water under the bridge, Bas. Mostly."

He lets the words hang for a second before his grin widens, unbothered. "But let’s not forget the best part of this, violence. That’s the fun part."

I smirk, my focus already shifting back to the screen. "Let me get us the intel first. Then you can have your fun."

Ryker chuckles, twirling the knife between his fingers. “Just don’t take too long. I’ve got an itch to put Kolya in the ground.”

Bastian exhales, rubbing his temple. “You’ll get your chance. But we do this the right way. No mistakes. We can’t afford to lose you, Lila, or anyone.”

I settle into my chair, the worn leather conforming to my shape, becoming an extension of my focus. My fingers fly across the keyboard, weaving through Kolya’s digital defenses. He thinks his network is a fortress? Amateur hour. He’s so fucking wrong.

Firewalls crumble; encryption protocols shatter like brittle glass, cleanly bypassed. Backdoors yawn open at my command, ghosts of code flickering across the monitors as I slip past his watchdogs. Layers of security peel back under my assault.

Lines of code bleed across the dark screens. Data streams past, I navigate by instinct honed over years of this shit. Financialrecords, offshore accounts bleeding through shell corporations, routing logs for illegal shipments, the surface stuff. All so predictable.

Easy pickings, but not what we need. I'm hunting for the rot beneath the foundations. Cross-referencing transactions, access times, personnel logs... looking for the pressure point.

And then I find it. An anomaly. Too deliberate to be accidental. Financial transfers flagged—large sums moving into an account belonging to someone onourpayroll, coinciding with system glitches around the time of the attack. I follow the outflow, almost immediately after the deposit, smaller but significant payments shoot out from that same account to known online betting sites and high-risk, off-books lenders Grim keeps tabs on.

Debts suddenly cleared, serious, off-the-books markers, the kind that get legs broken, not just credit scores dinged. A bitter taste fills my mouth.It's always something stupid. Money. Fear. Desperation makes people break so damn easily. Makes them forget loyalty, forget everything…The familiar ache twists in my gut, the shadow of my brother falling over the screen.My own brother, finding his way into the darkness because he thought there was no other choice, because I wasn’t there to stop him.

The parallel is a punch to the gut, a fresh wave of that old guilt and frustration. This isn't about him now, not directly, but the echo of that pain, that betrayal of self, makes this discovery sharper, more personal. For a second, the thought of having to navigate that kind of broken loyalty again, even indirectly, makes me want to walk away from the screen. But Lila needs us. Functionality has to win. A digital trail leading somewhere that was never intended for anyone to see. Shit.One of ours. I sideline the file for a moment, marking it priority, my gut tightening into a cold knot.

Ignoring the ice forming in my veins for now, I push deeper into Kolya's main network, beyond the personal accounts, looking for operational weaknesses. Financial records, offshore accounts bleeding through shell corporations, routing logs for illegal shipments, this is where we can cripple him. And there it is. Another thread.

Adrenaline surges, a low electric hum mixed with cold dread, but my voice comes out steady. “Got it. Found two vulnerabilities.” Jackpot.

“First, one of his top lieutenants, someone in Kolya’s inner circle, has been skimming off the top. Big money. Looks like Kolya doesn’t even know yet.”

Bastian steps forward, scanning the screen displaying the lieutenant's data. “That’s our in. We can turn him against Kolya or leak just enough to make Kolya suspicious. Either way, it sows chaos.”

“And the second vulnerability?” Bastian asks, his gaze sharp, sensing there’s more.

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