We take an elevator up—how many floors, I lose track—and then I’m being led into what’s clearly Darius’s office. Sleek, modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking pack territory.
The guards push me into a chair. I slump forward, barely able to hold myself upright.
Darius sits across from me and spreads a map across his desk. “Show me the safe house locations.”
I lean forward and point to three spots on the map.
He marks them, then says, “Walk me through the hierarchy as you understand it.”
He pulls out a blank piece of paper and starts to sketch an organizational chart as I talk.
We spend the next hour strategizing. He asks questions I don’t have answers to, but I give him what I can. Patterns I’ve noticed. Weaknesses in their protocols. The fact that handlers check in with operatives every forty-eight hours—if I don’t respond to that call soon, they’ll know something is wrong.
“We can use that,” Darius mutters, making notes. “Stage a response, buy ourselves time.”
When he runs out of questions, he leans back in his chair and studies me.
“You’ve been cooperative,” he says. “More than I expected.”
“I told you I’d help. How is Anne? Will you let her go now?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “There’s something you should know.”
My chest tightens at his words. “Is she okay?”
“Physically? She’s fine. She’s been at home since”—he pauses—“since she reported you.”
It feels like he just kicked me in the stomach. “What?”
“Anne is the one who turned you in.” Darius’s tone is frank. “She overheard your phone call in the parking lot. Heard everything you said to your handler.”
No. No, that can’t be!
But it makes sense. That faint vanilla scent I caught after the call…I thought I just missed her too much.
“Wait, so she’s fine? That screaming—” I choke out.
A faint smile crosses Darius’s face. “One of the female soldiers. I would never have tortured Anne, no matter what she might have done. In this case, I knew she wasn’t guilty of anything. But she was your weakness.”
I should feel angry, but instead, I’m relieved. My Anne is fine. Nothing happened to her. I don’t even care that she turned me in. But…
She heard everything.
And then, I remember my own voice, cold and dismissive, saying she was “just useful.” Claiming my relationship with her was “all fake.” That the mission was what mattered, not her.
Devastation crashes over me like a wave.
“Turning you in destroyed her. She fainted when I left to arrest you, and she has become a shell of herself,” Darius continues, and there’s an almost cruel tinge to his clinicaldelivery. “She hasn’t eaten properly in days. She can barely sleep. Your betrayal broke her.”
Each word is a knife twisting in my chest.
“In your quest for revenge against a pack that never gave up on you,” Darius says quietly, “you shattered the one person who truly loved you.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think past the horror of what I’ve done.
“I need to see her,” I manage. “I need to explain—”
“You’ll get your chance.” Darius stands, moving to look out the window. “You’ll be staying with her for the next week while we coordinate our efforts against the Covenant.”
