“Kim—”
“I am done,” I say, voice shaking now, “being the prize at the center of other people’s wars.”
Vox mutters, “Jesus Christ,” under her breath, but she doesn’t interrupt.
Tur drags a hand down his face, claws flexing and retracting like his body doesn’t know what to do with them. “You don’t understand what they’ll do to you if they get their hands on you again.”
I hold his gaze. “I understand exactly what they’ll do. That’s why I’m not letting you fight this without me.”
“You will get hurt.”
“I am already hurt.”
“You will die.”
“So might you,” I snap. “So might all of us. That’s kind of the fucking theme lately.”
His voice drops to something raw. “I can’t lose you.”
The room goes dead silent.
I soften just a fraction. Just enough to reach him.
“You don’t get to protect me from the cost of this,” I say quietly. “You only get to stand next to me while I pay it.”
He stares at me like I just stabbed him.
Mara clears her throat again. “For what it’s worth… she’s right. The Nine won’t negotiate with anyone who doesn’t look like they own the thing they’re trying to take.”
Ishaan speaks up from the back, voice calm and relentless. “And the people in this district won’t follow a plan she isn’t visibly part of.”
Tur looks like he might rip the wall out.
Vox pushes off the wall. “Also? Every syndicate defector we’ve gotten in the last twelve hours asked the same question before they said a damn thing: ‘Is Fierson still alive?’ Your symbolic value here is not negotiable.”
Tur finally looks away from me.
That’s when I know he’s losing.
I put my hand on his chest. Feel his heart slamming against bone and scar tissue and fear.
“I’m not asking you to like it,” I say. “I’m telling you it’s happening.”
He closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, something in him looks older.
“Then I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he says.
I nod. “Good.”
The intelligence comes in ugly.
Intercepted comms that crackle with static and coded threats. Couriers dragged in half-dead by Reaper scouts, shaking so hard their teeth rattle while they spill what they know in exchange for medical nanites and asylum promises we may or may not be able to keep. A mid-level Nine accountant who shows up bleeding through his suit jacket, sobbing that they cut off his brother’s hand when he tried to defect alone.
Every story is the same.
Final strike. Total saturation. No negotiations.
