The SUV is a pressurised cabin of hate, the engine a low-frequency growl that matches the vibration in my teeth. The city is a smudge in the rearview mirror, and the trees are closing in like the walls of a cell.
Then, the console screen glows.Unknown.
Hook’s hand doesn’t even shake as he taps the speaker icon.
The sound of a lighter flicking open fills the car, followed by a long, slow exhale of smoke. Then comes that voice—a dry, aristocratic rasp that makes my skin crawl with the phantom sensation of insects.
“James,” Viktor purrs. “And little Peter. Since whendid the King and his shadow become such fast friends? I thought you’d be at each other’s throats by now. It’s a touching display of solidarity. Almost enough to make me sentimental.”
“Viktor,” Hook says, his voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “I’m going to find a way to keep you alive after I’ve removed your heart. I want to see how long you can stare at the hole in your chest before the light goes out.”
Viktor laughs. It’s a rich, genuinely amused sound. “Still the romantic, James. But you’re distracted. And Peter…” He pauses, and I can practically hear him smiling through the phone. “Back from the dead, boy. I have to say, your timing is impeccable. You rose just in time to miss the best parts of her.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I scream, lunging toward the dashboard as if I could throttle the signal. “I’m going to tear your world apart! Where is she? Give her back to me!”
“Give her back?” Viktor’s voice drops, becoming intimate, disgusting. “She’s not a library book, Peter. She’s a masterpiece. And masterpieces are meant to be enjoyed. You should have seen her an hour ago. We had to… prep her for the transition. A little something in the veins to keep her compliant. Heroin is such a beautiful conductor for a voice like hers. She doesn’t scream anymore—she sings. A low, thrumming hum that vibrates right against your skin when you’re deep inside her.”
My stomach turns over, a violent surge of bile hitting the back of my throat. I can see it. I can see her eyes blown out, her body limp and heavy, that needle-track ruin on her pale arm.
“She has a very specific way of breaking,” Viktor continues, his voice conversational, clinical. “That tight, desperate heat of her… it felt like she was trying to swallow me whole just to make it stop. I almost kept her for myself. But the buyer? He offered a figure that even I couldn’t ignore. Fifty million for a widow in chains. Can you believe it? She’s the most expensive thing I’ve ever sold. And she was worth every cent of the commission.”
Hook’s knuckles are white on the wheel, the surgical steel of his hook vibrating with the tension in his arm. He doesn’t look at me, but I can see the vein in his temple throbbing.
“You’re a dead man, Viktor,” Hook says, the silk finally stripped away, leaving only the jagged iron.
“Maybe,” Viktor says, the lighter flicking again. “But I’m a rich dead man who knows exactly how your girl tastes. She’s at the estate, boys. The altar is set. The buyer is waiting to see if his fifty million was well spent. Don’t be late for the ceremony. I’d hate for you to miss the moment she finally forgets your names.”
The line goes dead.
The silence that follows is a physical blow. I’m staring at the blank screen, my breath coming in short, jagged hitches. My mind is a scorched-earth map of madness.Heroin. Fifty million. Sings.The words are branding themselves into my brain.
“He touched her,” I whisper, my hands shaking so hard I can’t close them into fists. “He used her and he drugged her and he sold her like she was fucking cattle.”
I turn to Hook, my eyes wide and wild. “Did you hear him? Did you hear what he did to her?”
Hook doesn’t answer. He just shifts the car into a lower gear and slams his foot on the gas. The SUV screams as it hurtles into the heart of the forest, the headlights cutting through the rain like twin blades.
“I heard,” Hook says, his voice a flat, dead thing. “And now, we aren’t just going for a rescue, Peter. We’re going to make sure that for fifty million dollars, the buyer gets exactly what he paid for.”
“What’s that?” I rasp.
Hook looks at me, and for the first time tonight, there’s no mockery in his eyes. Only a reflection of the same murderous ruin that’s eating me alive.
“A goddamn bloodbath.”
The silence following Viktor’s laugh is worse than the explosion at the club. It’s a vacuum that sucks the air right out of my lungs, leaving me gasping in the dark.
I stare at my reflection in the window, but I don’t see myself. I see her. I see the ring I slid onto her finger, that heavy, cold promise of forever that was supposed to be her lighthouse. It has a tracker. A state-of-the-art, military-grade GPS chip embedded in the platinum, and it’s fucking useless because Viktor is a ghost and the woods are a dead zone.
“I did this,” I whisper, and the words feel like I’m vomiting up shards of glass.
“Peter—”
“No, shut up, James! Just fucking shut up!” I scream, my voice cracking, hitting a register of pure, unadulterated grief. I grab my head, my fingers digging into my scalp until I feel my own blood under my nails. “I gave her that ring. I told her she was safe. I told her I’d always find her, and now he’s… he’s got her on a needle. He’s got his hands on her, and she’s probably looking at that ring, waiting for a ping that isn’t coming. She’s waiting for a husband who let her get dragged into a nightmare for fifty million fucking dollars.”
The image of her “singing” under the weight of the heroin hits me again—a low, drugged-out hum. My Wendy. My sharp, brilliant, stubborn wife, reduced to a vibration in some monster’s throat. A sob rips out of my chest, jagged and ugly. It’s the sound of a man being hollowed out.
“I promised her,” I choke out, the tears finally blurring the dashboard into a smear of blue and green. “The vows… they weren’t just words, James. They were a contract. And I broke it. I let the world in. I let him touch her. Every time she gasps tonight, every time that buyer lays a finger on her skin, it’s my fault. It’s my hand on the needle. It’s my silence in the room.”
