The guard turned without a word and strode to the door, heavy boots echoing on concrete. He left without looking back, the door clanging with a metallic finality that reminded Sabin of every prison cell he’d ever been in. And he’d been in a few.
But this place was different. Not a prison — a black site. Somewhere Praetorian could make people disappear. Somewhere no one would hear screams.
Sabin closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the metal chair, which was bolted to the floor like they expected him to Hulk out and throw it through a wall. The zip ties bit into his wrists and ankles, secure enough that he’d have to break his ownthumbs to slip free. Not an option now, with his left hand already partially wrecked.
How long had he been here? Three days? Four? The windowless room made it impossible to track time. The harsh fluorescent light never turned off, disrupting any sense of day and night. They fed him sporadically — sometimes what felt like hours apart, sometimes after what must have been an entire day.
He’d mapped every crack in the ceiling. Counted the tiles on the floor — thirty-six. Memorized the pattern of rust stains on the door. One looked like Florida, if Florida had an extra peninsula sticking out of the panhandle.
He needed to stay sharp. Needed to hold onto the parts of himself that made him Jean-Sabin Cavalier: reformed thief, brother, smartass. The easiest way to break someone wasn’t physical pain — it was stealing their sense of self.
So he ran through old jobs in his head, like fingering rosary beads. The Louvre — that gorgeous Monet that now hung in some Russian oligarch’s private collection. He’d moved through the museum’s ventilation system while Vivi charmed the security guard. He’d been twenty-two, Vivi only twenty, and it had been their first major score.
Monte Carlo — the emerald necklace that had required a water approach, diving from a speedboat at midnight and swimming beneath the yacht where the owner’s trophy wife wore it to a party. He’d picked the stateroom lock while dripping wet, barefoot on white carpet.
Mais, what a rush that had been. Almost as good as sex. Almost.
Hong Kong — the jade figurine, small enough to fit in his palm, valuable enough to buy a small island. That one had been dicey. The building’s security had been updated since their intel gathering phase. He’d improvised an exit through a constructionzone next door, leaping from scaffolding while alarms blared behind him.
Istanbul.
His breath caught.
Istanbul had changed everything.
He remembered Vivi’s face when they realized the job had gone sideways. The Turkish National Police surrounding the compound while they were still inside Sokolov’s vault, the collection already bagged and ready to move. The raw panic in her eyes when she understood what he was about to do, the way she’d grabbed his arm so hard her nails left half-moons in his skin.
“Sabin, no.”
He’d looked at Dom. One second, maybe two.Get her out of here, mon ami.
Dom’s jaw tightened — he saw it, understood it, hated it—but he’d pulled her away just as they had planned.
Then Sabin stepped into the corridor, put himself between the tunnel entrance and the sound of boots on stone.
Behind him, he heard Vivi. “Don’t you dare.”
Then Dom’s voice, low and hard, saying her name.
Then the sounds of her fighting — she always fought, his sister, even when there was nothing left to fight for — and Dom’s footsteps moving away fast, her voice getting farther away.
The last thing he’d heard before the police took him down was her screaming his name into the dark.
His chest ached at the memory. Hisp'tite sœur, screaming for him in the dark.
They had her now. That’s what the guard with the Napoleon complex had told him yesterday while backhanding him hard enough to split his lip. They had Vivi. And Dom, too, because the bastard had been with her when they grabbed her.
She wasn’t alone in this.
And that—thatwas the only thing that kept him from completely losing hope. Because Dom might be a lot of things—reckless, impulsive, overprotective to the point of being controlling—but he was also absolutely lethal. When it came to Vivi, he had no qualms about doing whatever it took to protect her. He'd burn the world down to keep her safe if he had to. Mais oui. That much, Sabin knew.
Sabin shifted in the chair, trying to find a position that didn’t send fresh waves of pain through his broken fingers. There was none. Even the slight movement of air from the ventilation system above made his hand throb.
Focus.
He needed to focus.
The guards. He’d been watching them carefully, cataloging their patterns and behaviors. Looking for the weak link. Not for escape—at least not yet—but for information. The more he knew about his captors, the better his chances.
