J A X O N

"Tell me again," I said to the bronze-skinned girl sitting in our hideout. "Tell me again what she did."

Her dark eyes found mine. "Delphinium is at the ONNT headquarters. She went to destroy them from the inside, to find a way to bring someone named Hunt back."

I remained leaning casually against the wall, though my mind was spinning. Delphinium was gone again. But I had to remind myself that this time was different. This time, she'd been taken not as a prisoner but as an assassin.

We'd just returned from causing trouble in the north, though it appeared the ONNT had gotten what it wanted in the end. As soon as we came through the entrance, both the mysterious girl and Benton drew their weapons. They clearly knew each other, but that was a problem we'd deal with later.

"How is she planning to get out of there?" asked Riley, now sitting up but still clutching her fresh injury. "That place is as much of a fortress as Imperium's."

"I don't know," the girl admitted. "She said if she didn't make it out, to come for her. But she's been there for nearly two days and she's not back."

"I say we give her one more day," I suggested. "If she's not out of there by nightfall tomorrow, we'll go in and break her out again."

"Again?" The strange girl questioned, brows raised.

"We have a lot of enemies and that girl has a habit of getting captured by them," I told her, absentmindedly tinkering with the metal pieces of my arm. "Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not." I didn't want to think about that night in the Russian forest.

"What's the matter?" Kane asked his brother, who was still eyeing the girl with his switchblade drawn.

"Neve's an Imperium assassin," Benton said baldly, and I suddenly recognized her from the fight at the airport. "She's been working with Gigi."

"I've been hunting and killing our fellow Imperium assassins with her," Neve corrected, frowning. "Don't antagonize me after everything you did—after everything you put us through."

"What do you mean 'us'?" Arlo asked, gaze flat. "The last time I checked, Gigi was murderous and unstable."

"Gigi is...complicated. She's not who she was when you saw her last. She allowed herself to be captured to buy Delphinium and me time before they were both brought in."

"Delphinium must trust you if she told you how to get here," Riley said, dark eyes flicking to Benton, as he both knew Neve and could read her thoughts. Riley and Kane had been here the longest with Neve; I figured they'd become more familiar with her than the rest of us had.

"She must." Neve's stare on Benny didn't waver. "You know my mind. You know my intentions. They do not line up with our old master's."

Benton said nothing, just kept watching her and I knew he was reading her thoughts. "I know why you stay silent," Neve told him. "You can't say anything about me after everything you did."

"What did he do?" I asked, smiling when Benton glowered at me, his glare promising violence. I was unfazed.

"He forced us to steal...something from a government base—"

"In my defense," Benton broke in, "I had no idea what we were stealing either. None of us did."

Neve continued on as if she'd never been interrupted. "He led Gigi down her path of madness, manipulating her to do what he wanted, even after murdering her mother. He threatened me with death at every turn when he realized my true allegiance was not to Imperium. And when he got what he wanted from us, he left to bring Delphinium to our leader—but not before commanding me to convince Gigi to join Imperium too."

"What can I say?" Benton threw up his hands as if she'd been chiding him for a tiny mistake. "I suppose I'm bad to the bone."

"And you wonder why no one trusts you," I said, still smiling as Neve spilled all his bad deeds for us to hear.

He looked like he wanted to rip me apart, but all of us turned to the entrance as Jake stepped through, hands coated in blood. Riley and Kane said they hadn't seen him in the two days since Delphinium had been gone. And it was confirmed when Riley asked from the chair, "Where the hell have you been? And why do you look like you've been gutting people with your bare hands?"

"Because I have," he answered calmly. "Informants tend to be too tight-lipped if I don't." There was a pause as he assessed the situation in the room—and Neve's presence—with cold eyes. "What's going on here?"

"Delphinium's gone," Benton told him, seeming to get amusement from breaking the news to the crime lord. "Neve was just telling us how she and Gigi were captured and taken to Krasowski."

There was another pause and I remembered Jake's wrath when Delphinium had been taken to Orion. He had the same deathly quiet now and I knew I had to clarify. "She went willingly to find information and take Krasowski down." Glancing meaningfully at Benton, I added, "It's not the same as when Benton forced her into going with him to Orion."

"If she's not back by tomorrow night, we're breaking her out," Finn said softly, watching Jake's reaction.

"I don't care." Jake turned and began cleaning the blood off his hands.

Despite the fact that he probably was telling the truth—as Delphinium had gone willingly, everyone had the common sense not to provoke him. Well, everyone but Benton.

"You're not going after her?" he asked, smile growing.

"No." From his clipped tone, I knew Jake expected the conversation to be over.

Benton wasn't done, apparently finding great amusement in goading Jake. "We all know you get everything you want, Evans. So why haven't you gone after her?" It was clear he wasn't only talking about rescuing Delphinium anymore.

No one said anything.

Then Jake answered with lethal calm, "You clearly don't have any idea of what I want." And the conversation was over.