“So what do we do?”
“Now,” he says, reaching for his phone, “we react.”
He dials without hesitation and sets the phone on speaker.
“Yeah,” a voice answers.
“Ghost,” Blade says calmly. “They grabbed the friend. Her name is Lyla.”
Friend.
The word feels too small.
“Address?”
Blade reads it off.
“Industrial strip,” Ghost says. “Old Huntington storage.”
Industrial strip.
She’s there because of me.
“Figures,” Blade mutters.
“They’ll expect her alone,” Ghost adds.
“She’s not going alone.”
Relief flickers. Brief. Fragile.
“Of course she’s not. You want bodies?” Ghost asks.
“Quiet ones,” Blade says.
“You’ll have them.”
“She doesn’t leave my sight,” Blade says.
My pulse kicks at that. Protective. Territorial. Certain.
“Understood.”
The call ends.
Silence presses in.
“They said not to tell anyone,” I whisper.
“They don’t get to make rules in my life.”
I wish I believed that was enough.
“What if they hurt her because of this?”
“They need her breathing. For now.”
The calm in his voice chills me.
