Not a sacrifice.
Love.
The kind that ignores commandments.
The kind that spits at heaven.
The kind that walks into a kill box because a woman with sharp teeth and haunted eyes is inside it.
I step onto the road.
Every footfall is a vow.
To Pia.To myself.To the men waiting with guns and bad timing.
I am not here to negotiate.
I am not here to plead.
I am not here as Father, Bishop, or anything they think they can push onto its knees.
I am walking into hell alone—
so it remembers my name.
Inside the Rival Compound
Two men plug the mouth of the warehouse like rotted teeth—thick necks, dull eyes, guns hanging low but already hungry.
The door behind them is steel, eaten with rust, graffiti clawed across it like something tried to die there and failed. A camera blinks red above my head.
Watching.Logging.Choosing.
I stop three feet out and lift my hands.
Empty.
No surrender.
An Invitation.
“I’m here for her,” I say.
My voice comes out clean. Sharper than I feel. A blade that’s already drawn blood and wants more.
The guards trade a look—deciding whether to laugh or lower me into the floor.
One of them squints at my throat.
“No collar,” he mutters.
Like that makes me harmless.
It makes me honest.
“Go tell your boss,” I say quietly. “Now.”
The closer guard jerks his chin. The other disappears into the dark, gun brushing his thigh. The door cracks open, and the building exhales—oil, iron, old blood. Under it all, a generator thrums, and somewhere inside a voice carries that sounds bored with killing.
