Daggermouth by HM Wolfe

Here is a summary with spoilers for Daggermouth by HM Wolfe

New Found Haven is divided into three rings. The Heart contains the wealthy ruling class, Cardinal contains the working population, and the Boundary is the impoverished outer ring. The government, who is led by President Maximus Serel, maintains control through the Veyra, constant surveillance, public executions, masks, and strict laws governing movement and relationships between the rings. People are forbidden from revealing their faces (they must constantly wear the masks) outside tightly controlled circumstances, and relationships between people from different rings can result in execution. The system is built around the idea that mercy is weakness and obedience is necessary for survival.

Greyson Serel, President Maximus's son and the official executioner of New Found Haven, begins the story by publicly executing two people whose crime was loving across ring lines. Greyson kills the man but hesitates before killing the woman, forcing Captain Mikel to finish the execution. The hesitation is noticed by the Veyra, who in return tells his father. Greyson returns to his apartment and secretly retrieves medical supplies that he has been smuggling to the lower rings. Although he publicly represents the regime, he has been quietly helping people outside the Heart. His position is complicated further by the fact that his older brother, Brooker, is believed to have been killed by the Daggermouths. Greyson wants to know who killed him, but Maximus refuses to investigate.

In the Boundary, Shadera Kael, known as Shade, works as a Daggermouth assassin. Her parents were executed by Maximus twenty years earlier for falling in love across ring lines, leaving Shadera with a longstanding hatred of the Serel family. She receives a contract to assassinate Greyson, with enough money attached to it to provide significant aid to people in the Boundary. Shadera accepts. Before leaving, she spends the night with Jameson Vine, a man she has an established sexual relationship with (and for her that is what she sees him as, a friend with benefits). Jameson admits that his feelings for her have become deeper, but Shadera refuses to let herself become emotionally attached because she expects her mission to end with her death.

Shadera enters the Heart through its maintenance tunnels and narrowly survives several security hazards before reaching the area around Haven Tower. At one point she and Greyson are only feet apart in an underground garage without knowing each other's identities. Greyson is there secretly attaching contraband medical supplies to a Veyra vehicle. Later, Shadera watches Greyson perform another execution through a rifle scope. The execution reminds her of her parents' deaths and causes her to panic. Rather than shooting Greyson from a distance, she decides she wants to kill him face-to-face.

Shadera infiltrates the private ceremony where Greyson is supposed to complete a Vow with Moraine Daunt. She attacks him with a knife, and the two fight physically. Shadera manages to stab him before shooting him in the stomach. During the fight, Greyson removes his mask in front of Shadera and the people entering the room. Revealing his face in these circumstances is a capital offense, and Shadera has now become a direct witness to the president's son's unmasked identity. She is captured while Greyson is taken for medical treatment. During the medical treatment Maximus tells medical staff to keep their mouths shut about what happened, he can’t have the rumor go around that his son commited an offense. 

Elara, Greyson's mother, finds a legal loophole that can prevent Greyson from being executed for revealing his face. Under the Vow system, he can marry the person who witnessed his unmasking. Maximus therefore decides that Greyson and Shadera will marry publicly. The marriage also gives him a way to turn Shadera's failed assassination into political propaganda: the Daggermouth assassin who entered the Heart to kill the president's son will instead be displayed as the president's son's obedient wife. Maximus uses threats against both of their loved ones to guarantee their cooperation. He threatens to destroy the rebel clinic where Jameson works and threatens people close to Greyson as well. Neither Greyson nor Shadera has a genuine choice.

While Shadera is imprisoned, the other prisoners become aware that she attempted to kill the Executioner. One prisoner begins singing a forbidden anthem, and the other prisoners join in. The Veyra respond with violence, killing prisoners and creating a massacre inside the prison. Shadera is dragged away while fighting back. The incident becomes another indication that the regime's control is beginning to fail because even people with nothing left to lose are openly resisting. While Shadera doesn’t know this, on the outside her act has started a movement. 

Jameson soon finds out that Shadera was caught and failed her assisination attempt. He goes to the leader of the Daggermouths to speak his mind. They should not have given her that target knowing she would act in anger and that it would be personal for her. Jameson says that he is going to make a plan to get her out. They tell him they need to give the Daggermouths three days to figure things out and they will help him as well. 

Greyson and Shadera are moved into Greyson's apartment, which effectively becomes a monitored prison for both of them. The Veyra install numerous surveillance devices. Though Greyson knew this would be done and starts to de-bug his apartment. Shadera is shocked to know that he doesn’t turst his own father. They continue to distrust and antagonize one another, and their arguments repeatedly become physical. At the same time, their attraction becomes increasingly difficult for either of them to ignore. Shadera discovers that Greyson has a photograph of himself and Brooker, his brother that has died, without their masks, showing that the supposedly emotionless executioner has a private history and genuine attachment to his brother. She also begins noticing that Greyson does not behave like someone who completely believes in the system he serves. Eventually Greyson’s sister comes to visit the two of them. She is shocked to see that the two look like they have been sleeping together, the two have to confirm that they are not. The sister, Lira, tells just a bit of her story to Shadera; that she has been oppressed as a woman, and that Shadera needs to get over her original objective and figure out how to work with them. Lira then leaves, but tells the two that they are expected at a dinner with their father soon. Lira sends a beutiful dress and a new mask to Shadera for the event. Callum Thane, Greyson's best friend and the owner of an entertainment establishment in the Heart, becomes involved in helping them evade surveillance. Callum has his own connections to the underground resistance and is skilled with technology and information. He creates a surveillance loop that temporarily allows Greyson and Shadera to move without being watched. 

Before the dinner Greyson takes Shadera around the facility to see some of the upper level things. Greyson begins showing Shadera parts of his private life, including cooking for her and taking her through the Heart. During their tour, he shows her an agricultural facility overflowing with food while people in the other rings are starving. He tells her that he hates his father and that he remembers the names of every person he has executed.

At the Serel family dinner, Maximus openly threatens and humiliates the people around him. He attacks Lira and physically abuses Elara when she tries to intervene. Greyson attempts to defend his sister, and Maximus shoots Greyson in the shoulder. Greyson helps Lira escape while Maximus continues holding Elara under his control. The whole time Shadera is also there trying to help as well, and Greyson is trying to protect her. Shadera realzies that they now both have the same enemy. The incident destroys much of Greyson's remaining loyalty to his father. Especially because he finds out that his father has been absuing his own sister for years. 

Meanwhile, Callum's relationship with Lira Serel, Greyson's sister, develops alongside the main romance. After Lira is attacked by her father she goes to Callum for comfort. The two have unmasked around each other. Lira had once revealed her unmasked face to him because she loved him, something that could have put her in serious danger. They remain emotionally connected even though Lira initially refuses to trust him again. Lira eventually decides that simply surviving within the Serel family is no longer enough. She has secretly collected evidence of her father's corruption and begins communicating with members of the resistance through a secret number that the reader doesn’t know who she is talking to. She realizes that her position inside the Heart gives her access to information the rebels cannot obtain from the outside. 

At the same time, Elara is being physically and psychologically controlled by Maximus. Maximus enters a room that no one else knows about and his wife is haning on the wall, beated up and broken. He tortures her some more, and tells her she is a failure as a mother and that she should have learned her lesson by now. He eventually gets her back to a place where she can stand and asks healers to get her back to a new normal. Elara promises him that she will do her best to make sure she is obedient. Maximus also learns that his son may not have full surviliance anymore. He beleives that the Daggermouth has gotten into him, and now wants full security following them. 

Back at Greyson and Shadera’s home, they realize they have drones and new personal following them everywhere. But Greyson has a bigger problem, he needs to tell Shadera what is going to happen at their ceremony. He goes to tell her that after they are unmasked they are expected to consumate the marriage in front of a crowd. And then from then on she will be seen as his property, and basically have no rights. This is a hard pill for Shaders to swallow, so Greyson suggest that they go out and party for the night; one of the last few times they will be able to do so. 

Jameson, meanwhile, is revealed to be much more deeply involved in the rebellion than Shadera initially understood. He works with rebel factions in the Boundary and Cardinal and discovers evidence that the Heart is mapping structural weaknesses throughout the lower rings. The mapping is connected to a planned operation called the Culling. The rebels determine that the regime is preparing to destroy the Boundary and Cardinal rather than merely suppress them. Jameson begins organizing shelters and preparing a military response while also planning a mission into the Heart to retrieve Shadera.

Jameson and a group of Daggermouths eventually infiltrate the Heart disguised as Veyra officers. Their goal is to reach Shadera and get her out. Jameson succeeds in reaching her, but Greyson also arrives. Jameson and Greyson confront each other, with Jameson wanting to take Shadera back and Greyson insisting that leaving would put the Boundary and the rebel clinic at risk. Greyson reveals that he has secretly been the source of some of the medical supplies reaching Jameson's people. Shadera realizes that escaping with Jameson could allow Maximus to retaliate against the people she cares about, so she chooses to remain in the Heart. Jameson leaves after giving her an encrypted tablet and telling her that he loves her.

After returning to the apartment, Greyson and Shadera are attacked by Veyra assassins. They fight together and kill the attackers. The violence and adrenaline lead to another sexual encounter between them, but the situation changes when Greyson discovers that Shadera has been searching through his belongings and has the photograph of Brooker. He becomes furious because Brooker's death is still one of the deepest unresolved wounds in his life.

Callum captures a Veyra officer who has been spying on Greyson and Shadera. During interrogation, the officer confirms the existence of the Culling and explains that the regime intends to use chemical weapons against the outer rings. Lira recognizes the officer as one of the men who sexually assaulted her when she was fourteen. She takes Callum's gun and kills him herself. This is how Greyson and Callum find out that Lira has been used like that for years. The discovery of the Culling makes it clear that the rebellion has very little time left to act. Lira also learns at this point that both men, Callum and Greyson, have been working with a part of the rebellion to help those who need it. 

Greyson and Shadera are then summoned to visit Maximus, they make plans to meet up with Lira and Callum later. Maximus eventually has Greyson and Shadera separated and imprisoned. He threatens Greyson with what he will do to Lira if Greyson refuses to cooperate. While imprisoned, Shadera is tortured. Greyson can hear what is happening to her and begs the guards to hurt him instead. Maximus then reveals another piece of the truth: Shadera was the assassin who killed Brooker. Shadera confirms that she killed a man operating under the name Levi Pierce, but she had not known that he was Greyson's brother. Greyson is devastated because the woman he has begun to love is also, unknowingly, the person who killed the brother whose death has haunted him throughout the story.

While waiting to hear back from Greyson and Shadera, Callum and Lira are able to have a moment to talk about themseleves. This leads to the two of them sleeping together. That is until they find out that the other two have been taken and new plans need ot be made. They sneak into the rebel area to gain more information and be part of the plan. There is a man there, Captain Mikel,  who is very interested in Greyson’s life, and he claims to be Greyson’s father, this then leads to the truth about Brooker. Brooker is alive. His death was staged using another body, and he has been operating within the rebellion. The rebellion had believed that Brooker was one of its important figures, but he is actually feeding information back to the regime. This means that the supposed death of Brooker was part of a larger manipulation. Shadera also learns that her assassination mission was manipulated: she had not originally been intended to kill Greyson, and the plan involving her was designed around the broader political conflict.

Greyson and Shadera are left emotionally separated by the revelation. Shadera realizes she has been manipulated by both the Daggermouths and the Heart. Greyson cannot immediately separate his feelings for Shadera from the fact that she killed Brooker. They acknowledge that they had begun falling for each other just before the truth destroyed their trust. Neither can undo what happened.Though when Shadera can not even bathe herself, Greyson softens up and decides to help her, knowing that the two are needing to prepare for their wedding. 

The rebellion nevertheless moves forward with the Vow ceremony as its central operation. Callum works on compromising the Heart's communications and surveillance systems. Lira prepares the evidence she has collected against Maximus. Jameson moves rebels through the underground tunnels and makes sure people in the lower rings are moved into shelters. The plan is to use the heavily televised marriage ceremony, which Maximus intends as propaganda, as the setting for a coordinated rebellion. Lira and Callum have a conversation together, but Lira tells him that she has her own agenda for the day. 

On the morning of the ceremony, Maximus reminds Greyson that he is expected to smile and publicly participate in the Vow. Shadera is brought out after being heavily beaten and tortured. Greyson sees the extent of her injuries and becomes determined to kill his father. He helps Shadera bathe and treats her broken bones. She prepares for the ceremony wearing a white dress that leaves her bruises and scars visible instead of hiding them. Greyson gives her a concealed weapon, and they agree that they may both get an opportunity to kill Maximus.

The Vow ceremony begins on the public platform. Greyson and Shadera appear before the city as the regime's ideal political couple. Instead of allowing the ceremony to proceed according to Maximus's script, they reveal their faces. Their unmasking is an act of public defiance because the masks have always represented the regime's control over identity and visibility. Lira, who is marrying the two, then makes her own move, publicly rejecting the role she has been forced to play inside the Heart. Women begin removing their masks in a coordinated act of rebellion. The spectacle that was supposed to demonstrate the regime's power instead becomes a public rejection of it. On top of that Lira shows her scars that her father has given her, show ing that she hasn’t had any control for years. 

The rebellion's plan then collapses when Brooker arrivies and reveals that he is actually working for Maximus and not the rebellions. He turns against the rebels and shoots Callum in the head in front of Lira. Callum dies. His death occurs immediately after his relationship with Lira has finally become fully reconciled, making the loss particularly devastating for her. The attack turns the ceremony into a violent confrontation rather than the controlled revolutionary spectacle the rebels had planned.

Maximus attempts to kill Greyson during the chaos. Captain Mikel intervenes and takes the shot meant for Greyson. Mikel dies protecting him. Greyson then learns that Mikel was not simply a loyal Veyra captain: Mikel is his biological father. Maximus is therefore not Greyson's biological father, despite having raised him as his son and used him as an instrument of the regime. Mikel had secretly worked against Maximus while trying to protect Greyson. His death leaves Greyson without the father who secretly protected him and without the family structure he once believed he understood.

Elara then reveals that she has secretly been Python, the rebel leader whose identity has been concealed throughout the story. Her apparent submission to Maximus has allowed her to operate unnoticed for years. She finally confronts him publicly, orders him to kneel, and shoots him in the head. Maximus dies on the same public stage where he used executions to maintain control over New Found Haven.

The ceremony therefore ends with multiple major losses and revelations. Callum is dead, Mikel is dead, Brooker has exposed himself as a traitor working for Maximus, Maximus has been killed by Elara, and Elara's identity as Python has been revealed. Jameson survives and remains involved with the rebellion. Greyson and Shadera survive the ceremony, but their relationship has been fundamentally altered by the revelation surrounding Brooker and Shadera's role in his death. The women who publicly unmask themselves have also transformed what was supposed to be a government-controlled broadcast into an act of collective rebellion.