He blinks hard, trying to fight it, but his lips tremble. He turns away, scanning the walls, the floor—anywhere but my face. The adrenaline that once fueled his anger drains out, leaving only the cold, which seeps into him fast. I can see it in the way his shoulders curl, in how his breath keeps fogging the glass.
Usually, I crank the heat up before I come down here to give them a false sense of safety, of comfort. But not this time—not with Scott. He’s already cracked; he just doesn’t know it yet.
“Look, man, I’m not privileged enough to know everything,” he stammers, his voice shaking with the kind of desperation that comes when the last bit of bravado burns out. “All they told me was that I’d need to make a delivery to one of their people.”
“Who arethey?” I ask, though the answer is already forming in the back of my mind.
“They didn’t give me names,” he says quickly. “I don’t think it’s even possible to find that out. They’ve been contacting me through a man, and a man, and another man—it’s like a fucking cobweb, dude. You pull one thread, and it leads to a hundred others. You never see the real spider.”
His words hang in the cold air, reverberating against the glass walls like a whispered verdict. It doesn’t take long before a final, brutal realization washes over me.
That motherfucker.
He’s been working for The Order.
A double agent in our ranks. A rat buried deep in the roots of what we’ve built.
My jaw tightens, heat flooding my face as my nails dig into my bandaged palm. A sting of pain slices through the skin, blood whispering beneath the surface. I glance down at my hand, and something in my chest twists.
Estella.
Is she behind this? Has she found out?
I’ve been waiting for her or Cane to reach out with a new target, but what ifthisis their play? What if they’ve already taken Ezra? What if, right now, he’s strapped to a chair somewhere, spilling everything we’ve fought for?
My pulse leaps, hammering in my ears. A bead of sweat snakes down my temple, hot and slow, as the thought coils tighter around my throat. Fear shoots up my spine, jagged and electric, feeding off my frayed nerves, twisting and growing stronger with every heartbeat.
“The card,” Scott mutters suddenly, snapping me back to reality. “It said something about Mount McKinley. I think that’s where whoever you’re looking for is hiding.”
I clamp down on my lower lip with all the force I can muster. The sharp sting slices through my thoughts, anchoring me to reality, while the metallic tang of blood floods my mouth. The sudden, biting sensation drags me back from the spiral consuming my mind, pulling me inch by inch toward the present.
“What about the woman you delivered to? What does she know?” I ask.
“I don’t fucking know, man!” he blurts, the words tumbling out between shaky breaths. “I swear, that’s all I know! They told me to make a delivery, and I did—and I’ve regretted it every fucking second since!”
Disgust coils in my chest as he crumbles. Tears streak his face, and his palms slam against the glass in frantic, useless bursts of panic. The sharp, jarring sound echoes through the room, mingling with his choked, desperate pleas and filling the space with raw tension.
“So you’re saying you’re useless,” I mutter, more stating than questioning.
He freezes, his lips trembling, eyes darting frantically around the cage. Terror blooms across his face, spreading like a dark infection just beneath the skin, insidious and unstoppable.
“No, no, please!” he screams, dropping to his knees. His hands scrape across the wooden floor, searching blindly for a loose panel, a latch, a miracle. Anything. Each frantic motion he makes grates against my nerves like static.
Maybe he hopes I’ll hesitate. That I’ll see myself in him—a man trapped in a system too big to escape, bleeding regret and begging for mercy.
But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know my mother’s been long dead because of men like him. Because of the same chain he chose to be a link in. And that, since that day, I’ve been searching for something to fill the fucking void she left behind.
I slip the key from my pocket, its cold metal edge biting into my fingers, anchoring me to the moment. Static hums in my ears as I move on autopilot, muscles coiling with deliberate precision. One step, then another, until I reach the door. I swing it open and step inside.
Scott’s body shrinks into the far corner, shaking, eyes wide and frantic with the dawning realization that there is nowhere left to run. He presses himself tighter against the wall, handsflying to cover his face as if that fragile shield could somehow protect him from what’s coming.
And then, with the clarity of inevitability, I do exactly what Ineedto do.
Barcelona, Spain
Sunlight spills through the half-open shutters, striping the tiled floor in bands of gold and shadow. The air hums softly with the sound of some old trip-hop track, its rhythm blending with the waking city outside—the murmur of voices, the distant clang of a tram, the faint whistle of morning air sneaking through the window.
My slippers make quiet, shuffling sounds against the cool tiles as I move around the kitchen. The melody pulls me somewhere familiar, somewhere softer. Dante recently said he wanted to listen to my music—and somehow, that thought stuck.I hadn’t touched my records in weeks. Not because I’d forgotten them, but because I hadn’t felt the need.
