“No,” I whispered. “I think it’s war. And I think maybe—deep down—you’re tired of being on the wrong side.”
The silence was heavy again. He looked like he wanted to say something. Lefty looked like he wanted to disappear.
I decided to go for it. At this point, what did I have to lose?
Realistically? Not much.
My odds of making it out of this alive were … bleak. And that was me being generous. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know how long I’d been here. I didn’t even know if Charlie was still breathing. The crash had been bad—really bad—and Department 77 didn’t exactly have a track record of mercy. If they’d been willing to orchestrate a near-death abduction in open water, what else were they capable of?
Everything in me screamedthis is bigger than you realized. Marshall wasn’t just some asshole with power and charm—he was connected to something vast, well-funded, and terrifying. These weren’t just men with guns. They were operatives.
Trained. Programmed. Dead-eyed.
If Charlie had survived, he’d be coming for me. I believed that. I had to believe that.
But if he hadn’t?
Then I was alone. And if I was alone, I needed to be smarter than everyone in this house. Fast.
“You know,” I said, lips curling into the ghost of a smile, “I once convinced an entire tech company to rebrand using nothing but a TikTok trend and a spray bottle. If I can do that, I can make you believe you’re not a villain.”
“Shut up,” Righty repeated. But it didn’t land the same way.
I leaned back, slow and steady. “You can shut me up, or you can listen. One of those ends with me screaming when the big boss gets bored and comes back. The other? Ends with you walking away from this with your soul still mostly intact.”
Lefty took a step toward Righty. Whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Righty muttered a curse and turned away.
That was all I needed. A crack in the armor.
Marshall thought he had me boxed in. Thought dragging me to some old-money tomb with a front porch and a body count would break me. But he didn’t know the version of me that crawled from the river. The one who’d surfaced gasping my love’s name.
Charlie.
My throat tightened, but I didn’t let it show.
I couldn’t afford to crack.
Not now. Not here.
Instead, I looked at the guards again, clearing my throat. “When he comes back, you should think about whether you want to be the one holding me down while he tries to make me his Stepford wife.”
No answer.
That was okay. The silence told me plenty.
They were thinking. Considering. Doubting.
And doubt was my new best friend.
The room around me felt less like a cage and more like a chessboard now. I was still down, sure. But not out.
Marshall might have dragged me here thinking I’d break.
But I’d spent years building an empire out of nothing but grit and likes and people underestimating me. I’d survived toxic agents, online hate, and parents who thought money could replace love.
If Marshall thought being scared was going to make me stop fighting, he didn’t know the first thing about the woman sitting on this cracked sofa.
