"Is this her?" He slides the photo across the desk.
Dalla leans forward to look.
Her breath catches.
"That's... that's not her. But it could be her mother. Or her sister. The resemblance is—" She looks up at Runes, confusion and dawning fear in her eyes. "Who is this?"
"Her name was Freya." Runes' voice is flat. Emotionless.
The voice of a man who's buried his feelings so deep they can't touch him anymore. "She ran a trafficking operation out of this area over thirty years ago. Brought girls in from overseas and stole girls from around the States, moved them through the States, sold them to the highest bidder. She was part of the trafficking situation your brother was part of, the fucked up breeding shit. She was smart, ruthless, and completely without conscience."
"Was?"
"She's dead now."
Dalla waits for him to continue.
When he doesn't, she asks the question I can see forming on her lips.
"How do you know so much about her?"
Runes meets his daughter's eyes. "Because I’m the one who killed her."
The words hang in the air like a death sentence.
Dalla stares at her father, shock written across her face.
I can see her trying to reconcile the man she knows—the protective father, the club president, the man who braids his daughter's hair and threatens her boyfriends—with someone capable of killing a woman.
"She was destroying lives, Dalla. Young girls, some of them barely teenagers. We tried to stop her through other means, but she was too well-connected, too careful. So, I did what had to be done, and I got vengeance for your brother and the others in her ring." His jaw tightens. "I slit her throat with her own knife, and I'd do it again. She kidnapped Fenrir’s kids, and the bitch deserved what she got. Fucking with my family, and then fucking with his."
"Did she have family?"
"A daughter. We never found her after Freya died. She would have been young—five, maybe six years old. We assumed she went into the system, got lost in foster care somewhere. Grew up, moved on, never knew what her mother really was." His hands curl into fists. "Apparently, we were wrong."
"Solveig," I say quietly. "Sol is short for Solveig."
Runes nods. "Freya's daughter. All grown up and looking for revenge."
"But why now?" Dalla asks. "It's been thirty years. Why come after us now?"
"Because now she has the resources." I'm thinking out loud, pieces clicking into place like a puzzle I've been trying to solve for weeks. "She's been rebuilding her mother's network. The trafficking operation you thought Eddie was running—she was behind it the whole time. He was just a front, a figurehead taking the heat while she worked in the shadows."
"And when we killed Eddie..."
"You didn't stop her. You just inconvenienced her." I turn to Runes. "She's been watching your compound for weeks. The camera I found, the sedan—it was all her. Gathering intel. Learning your patterns. Looking for weaknesses."
"Looking for me," Dalla says quietly, her hand pressed against her stomach again. "She wasn't watching the compound. She was watching for an opportunity to get to me."
The realization hits me like a punch to the gut.
Last night, when Dalla snuck out alone, she walked directly into Solveig's trap.
The only reason she came back is because Solveig wasn't ready yet.
She was still scouting, still planning, still waiting for the perfect moment.
But now she's made contact.
