THE WILD CAT

Chapter 27

Riley’s pov

This wasn’t happening. Not now. Not after everything I’d clawed my way through to get free.

My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my teeth. The coffee shop smelled like burnt espresso and terror—people whimpering under tables, glass crunching under Armani’s boots, the metallic tang of gunpowder hanging thick in the air. I pressed my back harder against the counter edge until the metal dug into my spine, grounding me. Anything to keep from collapsing.

They were real. All three of them. Lucas behind me, Theo blocking the hallway to the back exit, Armani standing in the middle of the wreckage like he was posing for a photograph titled Reclamation.

I forced my voice steady. “Who are you people?”

The lie tasted like ash.

Lucas let out a low, disappointed chuckle—the same sound he used to make when I tried to bite through the zip ties back in the beginning. He stepped closer. I felt the heat of him at my back before his arms tried to cage me in a hug from behind.

“Hey, kitten,” he murmured against my ear, voice velvet and venom. “I missed you.”

I twisted violently, ducking under his arm and putting two stumbling steps between us. My apron strings caught on the espresso machine handle; I yanked them free so hard the fabric ripped.

“I said—who the hell are you?”

Armani’s head tilted. His frown was theatrical, almost hurt. “Pretending you don’t know us won’t solve anything, kitten. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

A woman near the front—mid-thirties, blonde ponytail, still clutching her laptop bag—tried to army-crawl toward the shattered door. Armani didn’t even look at her. He just shifted his Glock a fraction and fired once.

The shot cracked like lightning. Her scream turned wet; blood bloomed dark across the back of her jeans. She collapsed, clutching her thigh, sobbing.

The room convulsed with fresh panic—more screams, someone vomiting behind the pastry case—but I didn’t flinch. I’d seen worse. I’d watched Armani paint walls red while humming show tunes. I’d learned early that flinching only made him want to do it again.

He swung the barrel lazily toward the bleeding woman.

“Stay still, b***h,” he said conversationally, “or next one’s between the eyes. And trust me—I don’t miss.”

Silence swallowed the room except for her ragged breathing.

Theo stepped forward then, slow, measured, hands raised like he was approaching a spooked animal. His eyes—those identical storm-gray eyes all three of them shared—were softer than the others’. Almost pleading.

“Why did you leave without letting us know you were alive?” His voice cracked just enough to sound genuine. “If the mission leader hadn’t told us you’d already slipped the blast radius, we would’ve thought you were dead. We grieved you, Riley.”

My stomach lurched.

The leader survived?

I’d rigged that warehouse myself—every charge placement memorized from the blueprints they’d forced me to study. I’d waited until the timers hit critical, then sprinted for the service tunnel while the triplets were still clearing the upper levels. The explosion had been biblical—orange sky, raining glass, concrete folding like paper. I’d wanted them to believe the four of us were gone. Clean break. No loose ends.

But the leader—cold-eyed, scar-lipped Marta—had made it out?

I swallowed bile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Armani barked a laugh and shoved Theo aside hard enough that Theo’s shoulder hit a table. Coffee cups shattered.

“Enough games.” Armani closed the distance in two strides. His free hand clamped around my wrist like a manacle. “You’re going to be punished for making us hunt you for months, kitten. Months of dead leads, fake sightings, sleepless nights wondering if some rival crew had you in a basement somewhere.”

He yanked me forward until our faces were inches apart. His breath smelled like mint gum and gun oil.

“Let. Go. Of. Me.” I kept my voice flat. “I don’t know who you are.”

His grip tightened until bone ground against bone. “You’re a terrible liar when you’re scared.”

Lucas moved in from my left, slower, more deliberate. He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek with the back of his knuckles—gentle, almost tender. “We’re not angry that you ran, kitten. Not really. We’re angry you didn’t trust us enough to tell us you were leaving.”

Theo circled to my right, boxing me in completely now. Three identical faces, three different kinds of danger.

“You think we wouldn’t have let you go if you asked?” Theo asked quietly. “After everything?”

I almost laughed—bitter, broken. “Let me go? You branded your initials into my hip the first week. You chained me to hotel beds. You called it love when Armani carved tally marks on my thigh for every time I tried to escape. You don’t let things go. You collect them.”

Silence stretched, ugly and thick.

Armani’s thumb stroked over the pulse point in my wrist—slow, possessive. “You were our wild cat. You still are. Running doesn’t change ownership.”

I jerked my arm, trying to break free. He didn’t budge.

“I’m not yours,” I hissed. “I never was.”

Lucas leaned in until his lips brushed my temple. “You say that like it’s a choice.”

Behind us, the bleeding woman whimpered again. Armani glanced over his shoulder, irritated, then back at me.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You come quietly—right now—and I won’t paint this place any redder. One more scream, though…” He lifted the gun, aimed it casually at a teenage barista cowering behind the register. “And I start picking targets at random.”

My mouth went dry.

Theo’s hand settled on my shoulder—light, almost comforting. “We just want our girl back, Riley. That’s all.”

I looked between them. Lucas’s eyes were soft, expectant. Theo’s were pained, like I’d personally wounded him. Armani’s were glittering with something close to glee.

And I realized the terrible math of the moment: if I fought here, people died. If I went with them, I died—maybe not my body, but whatever was left of the person I’d rebuilt over the last months. The girl who smiled at customers, who overslept and laughed with Lina, who’d started to believe the nightmares were finally over.

My uncle’s face flashed behind my eyes—graying beard, kind smile, the only family I had left who didn’t want to own me. He was waiting in a safe house three states away. He’d told me to disappear. To live small. To never look back.

I’d almost made it.

Almost.

Armani’s thumb pressed harder into my wrist. “Clock’s ticking, kitten.”

I closed my eyes for one heartbeat. Two.

Then I opened them.

“Fine,” I whispered.

Theo exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for months.

Lucas smiled—small, relieved.

Armani’s grin turned victorious. He released my wrist but immediately hooked two fingers through my belt loop instead, tugging me against his side like I was a prize he’d won at a carnival.

“Good choice,” he murmured.

He raised his voice. “Everyone stay down. We’re leaving. Anyone follows, anyone calls the cops before we’re gone…” He waved the gun lazily. “Well. You’ve seen what happens.”

Lucas fell in on my other side, hand resting at the small of my back—gentle pressure that reminded me exactly how fast he could pin me if I tried to bolt.

Theo walked backward, covering our retreat, eyes scanning every trembling body on the floor.

We stepped over broken glass and spilled coffee. Past the woman still clutching her bleeding leg. Past Lina, who was staring at me with wide, horrified eyes—like she was seeing a stranger wearing my face.

I wanted to mouth I’m sorry. I wanted to scream run. But Armani’s fingers were iron in my belt loop, and the gun was still warm in his other hand.

We pushed through what was left of the front door.

Cold February air hit my face. Snow dusted the sidewalk in dirty patches. A blacked-out Escalade idled at the curb—same model they’d used to transport me the first time.

Lucas opened the back door.

“After you, kitten.”

I looked back once—at the shattered coffee shop, at the lives I’d just condemned to trauma so I could keep breathing.

Then I climbed inside.

The door slammed shut behind me.

Armani slid in on my right. Lucas on my left. Theo took the driver’s seat.

The engine purred to life.

As we pulled away, Armani leaned close, lips brushing my ear.

“Welcome home, wild cat.”

I stared straight ahead, watching the coffee shop shrink in the side mirror until it disappeared.

Inside my chest something cracked—quiet, final.

I’d escaped once.

They’d never let it happen again.