Every gun lifted slightly. Riven flinched, eyes darting, assessing angles, calculating distances he already knew weren’t in his favor. This wasn’t bravado anymore. It wasn’t even bluffing. It was survival. One wrong twitch and it was over. He’dnever admit it—not out loud, not to anyone—but if Thane were here, he wouldn’t feel this small, this cornered.
But Thane wasn’t here, and Riven stared down the barrels of five guns, heart thudding against the inside of his ribs like it wanted to claw its way out. He knew that look in Lareth’s eyes. They weren’t bluffing. Not this time.
Survival clawed to the top of everything else. Rage, pride, the sting of failure—none of it mattered if he died here. Riven raised his hands slowly, his voice a low drawl to hide the tightness in his chest. “Fine.”
He turned and stepped toward the truck.
“Smart choice,” Lareth said, his voice slick with satisfaction. “I always knew you’d be more useful this way.”
Riven stepped up onto the metal bumper, then into the darkened cargo space, boots echoing against the empty truck bed. The shadows swallowed him fast—until a figure moved past him, brushing his shoulder as it dismounted.
Kieran.
Of course.
Lareth stayed just outside the door, backlit by the weak glow from the car headlights. “You’ll make a much better bargaining chip than anything else we’ve got,” he said casually, like it was already done.
That stopped Riven mid-step. He turned, half laughing. “You serious?” His voice echoed in the metal cavity of the truck. “You really think that’s leverage?”
It would’ve been funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
They thought they could use him to bargain with Thane? With the Matriarch? Riven had been in that compound long enough to see how House Virellien functioned. Efficient. Strategic. Detached. You served until you didn’t. You were useful until you weren’t. The House didn’t waste sentiment on tools, and they certainly didn’t waste resources retrieving broken ones.
And yet, for all that cold logic, something sour pooled in his stomach. Because part of him wanted to believe he wasn’t just a tool. That Thane—no, that anyone—would care if he disappeared. That someone would raise hell to get him back.
But Riven knew better. Didn’t he?
His lips curled in bitterness.
“You clearly don’t know a damn thing about House Virellien,” he said, voice low and hard. “They don’t care if a tool gets broken.”
The grin didn’t fade from Lareth’s face, but something tightened in his posture. “We’ll see,” he said simply.
Then he reached for the door and pushed it closed, the metal slamming shut with a teeth-rattlingclang, plunging Riven into darkness.
Chapter 43
The darkness swallowed him completely. No cracks of light, no steady hum of electronics, just the metallic groan of the truck as it rumbled to life beneath his feet and rolled forward into the unknown.
Riven braced himself against the cold wall of the freight container as inertia shoved him off balance. The engine’s growl vibrated up through the floor. Every jolt in the road rattled his bones. He hadn’t seen a hint of a tail in the parking lot, and now he was in a moving box, headed who knew where. If they’d scrambled the signal, it stood to reason they’d scrambled tracking, too. No one was going to intercept this vehicle. No one would even know where to look.
That was when the panic started to creep in—slow at first, then fast. It clawed at the edges of his chest, tightening, a rising tide of suffocation. He pressed his hands to his knees and forced himself to breathe.
He clenched his jaw.
So what? He’d spent years surviving without help. Why should now be any different?
Because now,some bitter corner of his mind answered,you’d gotten used to having it.
Riven scowled and slammed the heel of his boot against the floor. A sharpclangrang out, loud and useless in the dark. “Fuckthat,” Riven muttered aloud, his voice harsh in the container’s echo chamber. “I’m not going to sit here waiting for rescue.”
He forced himself upright and paced a few short steps, though the confines of the truck bed didn’t give him much room. The darkness was disorienting—he had to stretch his hands out to keep from running into the walls—but the motion helped. Focused him.
They were going to open that door eventually. And when they did, he’d get one chance. A second, maybe two.
He knew the odds weren’t great. Two men in front. One or more outside. Guns. Trained reflexes. He didn’t even have a weapon, just the metal case with the fake syringe. And fists, if it came to that.
Still. Better to go down swinging than get used as a bargaining chip in someone else’s game. But the minutes dragged.
