"Stockholm syndrome. Threats against people you care about. There are a lot of reasons victims sometimes protect their abusers."
The word "victims" lands like a slap. Her eyes flash dangerously.
"Is that what I am to you now? Just another victim? Another rescued woman who needs the big strong bikers to protect her?" She steps closer, fury giving her a strength I haven't seen since before. "I survived five years of hell while you were riding around playing the hero. Don't you dare reduce me to just another victim."
Something inside me snaps. All the confusion, guilt, and unresolved anger of the past two weeks converging into a single, jagged point.
"Then tell me the truth," I demand, closing the distance between us. "All of it. What really happened the night you disappeared? Who took you and why? Because none of this makes sense, Cara. Trafficking victims are usually runaways, vulnerable women without connections. You were a law student with a future. With me." My voice cracks on the last word. "Why you?"
She stares at me, chest rising and falling rapidly. For a moment, I think she'll throw me out. Then something shifts in her expression—resignation, maybe, or simply exhaustion.
"You want the truth?" she says quietly. "Fine. Sit down. You should be sitting for this."
I take the desk chair reluctantly, pain throbbing in time with my pulse. Cara remains standing, arms wrapped around herself like armor.
"I was coming home from work," she begins, eyes fixed on some middle distance. "Later than usual because I'd stopped to pick up champagne. I'd gotten my law school acceptance letter that day. Was going to surprise you with the news."
The revelation hits like a physical blow. Law school. A future I never knew she'd secured.
"The parking garage was almost empty," she continues. "I heard footsteps behind me, but before I could turn around, someone grabbed me. Two men. They knew my name. Knew about you."
"Me?" I repeat, ice forming in my veins.
She nods, jaw tight. "They said you owed a debt. That I was the payment."
"What debt? I didn't owe anyone?—"
"I know that now," she cuts me off. "But then? All I knew was that they had photos of you. Knew where you worked, your schedule. Said if I didn't cooperate, they'd kill you."
My mind races, flashing back through old club business, trying to identify enemies who would go this far. "What did they make you do?"
"Write the note." Her voice drops to nearly a whisper. "They dictated it. 'I'm sorry.' That's all they would let me write. Then they took my engagement ring, my phone, everything that connected me to my life."
I remember finding that note. Two words on a piece of paper that shattered my world. The empty closet where she'd cleared out some clothes to make it look like she'd left voluntarily.
"They transferred me between locations for the first few months," she continues mechanically, as if reciting a story that happened to someone else. "Used my credit card in different cities to create a false trail. Had some woman who looked vaguely like me on security cameras. They were thorough."
"And then?"
"And then I was sold." Her eyes meet mine, hollow with remembered horror. "The debt was paid, they said. But I was valuable merchandise now. Young, educated, attractive. Premium product."
Bile rises in my throat at her use of their terminology. The clinical distance she's created to tell this story is somehow worse than tears would be.
"I tried to escape three times that first year," she says. "The first time, they broke three fingers on my right hand. The second time, my collarbone." She touches the scar I noticed when she was stitching me up. "The third time was the worst. They showed me recent photos of you, promised they'd make you suffer if I tried again. So I stopped trying to escape. Started focusing on just surviving instead."
Rain drums against the window, filling the silence that follows her words. I struggle to process the horror of what she's describing—that while I was drowning my sorrows, convincing myself she'd chosen to leave, she was enduring unimaginable suffering because of some connection to me.
"Who?" I finally manage to ask, voice thick with rage. "Who claimed I owed them a debt?"
"They never used names around us," she says. "But the man in charge wore expensive suits. Had a tattoo on his wrist—small, like a chess piece. A knight, I think."
The description doesn't match anyone I know, but I file it away. "And the connection to the Reapers?"
"Came later. About two years in, the operation expanded. Reapers provided security, new routes. The arrangement seemed new, but profitable."
I stand abruptly, unable to contain the energy coursing through me. My fist connects with the wall before I can stop myself, pain shooting up my arm from the impact.
"Falcon," Cara says, voice steady despite my outburst. "It wasn't your fault."
