Chapter 794: Morning Ride (NEEDS FIXING)

The Reaper ripped through Lincoln Heights morning traffic like it was personally offended by the concept of gridlock.

One-fifty. Two hundred. Why not three? Physics is negotiable when you’re riding something that has the personality of a

sociopathic panther.

Ahead, Soo-Jin danced the Blade through lanes—that vicious,

origami-folded

murder machine someone clearly designed while high on spite and nano. All sharp planes and worse intentions. My Reaper was a battering ram with anger issues; hers was a scalpel that fucked at Mach speeds.

Precision assassination on twenty-inch rims.

She was faster by pedigree, slipping through gaps that hadn’t even decided to exist yet. Her AI played chess with traffic four moves ahead, tagging threats before they could finish blinking. The Blade’s skin shimmered—adaptive camo flirting with the scenery like it was deciding whether to eat it or just humiliate it.

My job? Bulldoze whatever survived her first pass so the real predator never had to dirty her skirts.

"Every time you ride this thing," Madison’s voice purred through the comms, half-lost under the engine’s polite scream, "I want to crawl inside it with you."

Grinned behind the visor. "You already are."

"You know what I mean." Her arms locked around my waist like she was trying to merge our ribcages. "This—this

unholy

velocity. I’d rather die in this seat than live in a Rolls again."

"Then die happy. We’ll make it quick."

The inertial shield hummed, parting air like Moses with a grudge and flicking road grit away like it owed us money. Traffic turned into a pathetic diorama; the Reaper’s AI treated it with the contempt usually reserved for expired coupons. A semi drifted without signaling—the system had already written its obituary two seconds earlier, vectored us through a gap narrower than most people’s moral compasses.

Soo-Jin stayed point, her Blade a black rumor nobody quite believed they’d seen. Commuters kept scrolling their phones, blissfully unaware a war crime on wheels had just used them as scenery. Cops at the intersections didn’t even lift their coffee lids. What were they going to do—write a ticket for exceeding the sound barrier?

HUD painted the world in helpful colors: pedestrians yellow (potential speed bumps), vehicles white slow-moving meat shields, Soo-Jin’s signature steady green ahead—always watching, always judging, never blinking.

"Threats?" I asked.

[None worth mentioning,]

the Reaper replied, sounding almost disappointed.

[Shadow Blade continues forward reconnaissance. Route obscenely clear. ETA: two minutes eighteen seconds and change.]

Not Shadow Blade. Just Blade. That thing had more personality than half the people I knew. It moved like it already knew how you were going to die and was mildly irritated you were taking so long to get there.

We carved into the residential stretch—joggers, strollers, dog-walkers who caught twin black blurs and probably blamed last night’s edibles. One guy dropped his coffee like he’d seen the devil’s Uber.

Mom’s mansion loomed ahead, the ridiculous fairy-tale house I’d bought her, so she’d have something pretty to look at while she pretended the world hadn’t tried to murder her son.

Smart gate recognized us before we even finished decelerating.

Soo-Jin hit the entrance first. Gate parted like it was apologizing; the Blade ghosted through without breaking stride, already running a perimeter sweep for imaginary snipers. Paranoia wasn’t a bug with her. It was the whole operating system.

We followed. The Reaper’s howl dropped to a smug purr as we rolled up the drive. Gate clanged shut behind us—soft magnetic kisses only our helmets caught.

Soo-Jin was off in one fluid motion, helmet under her arm, Blade idling like a sleeping assassin running last-minute murder fantasies.

I killed the Reaper near the steps. Felt Madison’s grip loosen—slow, like she was saying goodbye to a lover.

"I meant it," she murmured, private channel. "Every ride. Every single one. Even if it ends in fire."

"Then we’ll burn together.

Sounds romantic."

I flicked up my watch while she slid off.

"Peter Carter."

Mom’s voice cracked like a judge’s gavel. Hands planted on hips, stance wide enough to block the doorway and half the porch light. The mom-voice—the one that once made God Himself

reconsider smiting the firstborn.

"What in the actual hell are those death machines doing in my driveway?"

Soo-Jin’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like a predator deciding the prey was worth watching bleed a little longer.

I yanked off the helmet, let the grin spread slow and deliberate. Swung a leg over the Reaper’s black flank like I was dismounting a throne.

"Transportation," I said. "Very expensive. Very fast. Very illegal in at least seventeen states if you ask nicely."

"They look like something Michael Bay would fuck and then blow up for the third act." She stepped onto the porch barefoot, ignoring the morning bite in the air.

Still wearing those ridiculous blue pajama clouds Sarah had gifted soft in the

wrong

places, clinging in the right ones. Coffee mug gripped like a talisman against the universe.

Dark half-moons under her eyes despite the so-called "indefinite compassionate leave" the hospital had slapped on her file after the shooting. Corporate code for:

Your son took two in the chest; we’re not heartless enough to make you clock in tomorrow.

She’d been home ever since. Smiling that particular smile mothers only learn after they’ve watched their child’s blood pool on floor and realized love is not, in fact, bulletproof.

Madison slipped past me, already climbing the steps with that liquid prowl of hers.

"Mother.

You look less like death warmed over than yesterday."

"The sleep helped." Mom pulled her into a hug that mashed soft maternal curves against Madison’s sharper ones. My teenage lizard brain filed the geometry away for later review. "First full night since—"

She cut herself off. Throat worked.

"Since everything."

Since the dinner that ended in broken glass and arterial spray. Since the moment reality decided our little family tableau was too sentimental and needed redecorating in red. Since she’d watched her children flatten themselves behind the table while lead tore through the illusion that safety could be bought with mortgage payments and good intentions.

"That’s good," Madison murmured, holding the embrace a heartbeat too long. "Sleep is good."

Then Jasmine appeared behind Mom in the doorway, and every civilized thought I possessed flatlined.

Baby-blue crop top. Worse—or better—up close. Sleep-rumpled hair spilling over shoulders, eyes still heavy with whatever dreams she’d clawed her way out of. But the body? The body had never heard of decorum. Those full D-cups strained the thin cotton like they were personally offended by containment.

No bra. Of course, no bra.

The nipples

pressed

dark little accusations against the fabric, daring anyone to pretend they hadn’t noticed.

Her gaze locked on mine instantly. Held. Something ancient and filthy flickered behind the sleepy haze—memory of balcony shadows, of low-voiced questions under moonlight, of

show me

breathed like both sacrament and sin.

"Morning, nephew."

Honey poured over broken glass.

"Nice toys."

"Morning, Aunt Jas." I kept my tone even. Casual. As if I hadn’t spent the last few days memorizing the exact cadence of her breathing when she thought no one could hear it hitch. "Sleep well?"

"Eventually."

She stretched then—slow, deliberate, arms lifted high, spine curving in a way that should have been illegal before noon. The crop top rode up. Exposed a taut strip of golden stomach, the faint white scar from some long-ago appendectomy she’d once let me trace with a fingertip.

"Someone rolled in loud enough to wake the dead."

Madison snorted.

Soo-Jin’s eyebrow lifted exactly two millimeters—the equivalent of anyone else screaming

this is going to be entertaining.

Mom just sighed, the sound of a woman who’d already buried too many illusions and was too tired to pretend this one wasn’t next.