“You want her dead and gone, there are easier ways. You want her here breathing, that’s… new.”
“She’s more valuable breathing. We have plenty of corpses already.”
He walks to a table in the corner, flips open a leather folder, and pulls out a single sheet of black-banded paper. The kind we only use when something’s off the books. I don’t reach for it. He holds it out anyway.
I take it.
Coordinates. Timing. Surveillance footage. Her patrol routes. Even the strength of the wards protecting the Brotherhood’s current den. It’s all here. Detailed. Efficient. Terrifying.
“You’ve been watching them for months.”
“Of course I have. I always keep my enemies close. And their women even closer.”
I grit my teeth.
He notices.
“You’re not questioning me, are you?”
“Never said that.”
Roman steps in close. Too close. His voice is a breath now, full of heat and venom. “You were raised for this. Trained in it. Sharpened like a blade. You forget that when you start bleeding conscience all over the floor.”
“I haven’t forgotten a damn thing.”
“Then prove it. Bring me the wolf.”
I don’t respond. I take the file, turn on my heel, and walk.
The hallway stretches out in front of me like a throat waiting to be swallowed. I walk past the cages again. This time I look. Cell 4B has a young girl—witchblood, maybe twelve, maybe younger. She’s not crying. That’s what bothers me.
I keep walking.
In my quarters, I throw the file on the bed and pour a glass of the cheap synthetic whiskey Harrow stashes in the walls. It tastes like ash and chemicals, and that’s fine. I sit on the edge of the bunk, elbows on my knees, glass in hand, staring at nothing for a long time.
Mary Crane.
I remember her from the old days, before the Pact fell, before Roman turned our world upside down. I remember the way she looked at us—like we were barely holding together, and she’d be the one to stitch us back up whether we wanted her to or not. I remember her sharpness, not cruel but exacting. The way she didn’t flinch from blood or sorrow, only from empty words.
She was the only one I didn’t lie to back then.
Didn’t tell the truth either. Just didn’t lie.
Now Roman wants her in chains. Wants her here. Not dead or broken.
Used.
I don’t know what unsettles me more—the fact that he’s targeting her, or the fact that I don’t immediately feel like obeying.
A fox who stops trusting his pack is one thing. A fox who stops believing in his alpha… well, he’s just a rogue waiting to die.
But I’m still here.
Still in it.
Still following orders.
I down the rest of the drink, slam the glass down harder than necessary, and start stripping off my training gear. I’ve got a mission.
