I run. My boots hit the gravel and asphalt like drums, a relentless rhythm of fury and fear. Jonathan calls something behind me, Liam yells, cars are pulling up, men jumping out with shouts, but the noise is all meaningless, swallowed by the sound of my heartbeat hammering in my ears. I am a storm, a force of nature, moving toward her.
Nothing else exists except that scream and the knowledge that I am the only one who can stop it.
The seemingly abandoned building looms before me, jagged shadows stretching across broken windows and rusting metal. Every instinct screams to slow down, to assess, to wait, but I can’t. I won’t.
Bolting straight for the front door, I don’t hesitate. Instead, I crash into it, one hand on the handle and another on my knife. The second the door opens, I’m sprinting past the walls with their cracked cream paint and the thick layers of grime and dust on bulletin boards and bolted-down tables.
Footsteps echo behind me—guards trying to intercept—but I barely see them. One reaches for a baton. I shove, and his body hits the wall with a sickening thud. Another draws a gun, only to grunt in pain as someone behind me shoots him. But I barely register the action. There is only her, and the need threaded into my very DNA to reach her before it’s too late.
The scream comes again, closer now, sharper, lacerating my chest. I follow it blindly, turning corners, crashing through doors, ignoring the chaos behind me. And then I see her and, for a split second, the world freezes.
Not because of Lily—though she’s there, chest heaving with panicked breaths, clutching a terrified redhead's hand even as her own fear bleeds from her every pore—but because the woman cornering her isn’t just some random enemy.
It’s my mother. Standing in the middle of this slaughterhouse like she belongs here.
The sight of her here hits wrong. Deep. Like a bone that never healed properly, suddenly snapping all over again.
Of course, she’s dressed perfectly. Of course, she looks untouched by the chaos, the violence, the screaming. She alwaysdid know how to stand in the wreckage and pretend her hands were clean.
For half a heartbeat, my mind refuses to catch up. Glitches as it tries to insist this is some trick, some warped coincidence. That she shouldn’t be here. That shewouldn’tbe here.
Then her eyes meet mine.
And there’s no mistaking it.
There’s no guilt or remorse in Una’s eyes, only calculation, like she’s weighing me up and determining what way to play this. Trying to decide how best to twist this to her advantage.
And with that look comes the betrayal—cold and brutal—spreading through my chest like frostbite. This isn’t just her choosing power over people. This isn’t just her manipulating from the shadows.
This is her standing shoulder to shoulder with the man who took Lily.
Working with the man behind the ring that stole years from Helen, tried to take Cora and Abbie from us, robbed Logan of his mother and any chance of closure.
The ring that’s trafficked God knows how many girls, that caused Cole’s death and has been haunting us for longer than we even knew.
Something inside me goes eerily still as I throw myself into the space between them and Lily, dragging her behind me instinctively. The move pins Una and Antonio between us and the door but that’s the least of my concerns. My hands grip her wrists, pulling her tight against me, my body a solid, immovable barrier. She leans her forehead against my back, fingers digging into my jacket like anchors, grounding herself. The feel of her—warm, alive, trembling—courses through me even as she clingsto the terrified girl at her side, protecting her as fiercely as I protect Lily.
Relief crashes through me so hard it almost brings me to my knees.
I found her.
I fucking found her.
But it doesn’t soften what I feel when I look at Una. It only sharpens it.
“Don’t touch her,” I growl, voice low, vibrating with something darker than anger, as I stare down my own mother. It’s a warning, a threat, a promise all at once. Mother or not Iwillkill her if she takes so much as half a step in Lily’s direction.
“Matthew,” she sighs, like this is a boardroom and not a crime scene. “You’re making this far more dramatic than it needs to be.”
That does it.
Years of distance, of resentment, of knowing she loved herself more than she ever loved me, all of it condenses into a single, blinding certainty.
“You knew,” I spit, each word landing like an accusation. “You planned this. You stood back and let him take her.”
Antonio shifts, sensing the shift in the room, but I don’t even look at him. He’s a secondary concern right now. Jonathan and the others are handling his men and this—this—is the real betrayal now.
Una’s lips curve, faint and indulgent, like she’s indulging a tantrum. “I did what was necessary.”
