Nico laughs again, his voice coming out in little more than a wheeze by this stage. “There’s no point in lying,Padre. It’s over. It’s just too bad we didn’t get to sample the goods first.”
Aidan doesn’t hesitate. He pulls Nico away from the wall and puts him in a chokehold. His forearm snaps tighter, squeezing with bone-crushing precision. Nico’s eyes bulge, his neck straining against the unrelenting grip. A wet, rattling cough escapes him, followed by a sharp, gurgling choke. Panic and realisation flicker across his face, but it’s too late. Every gasp, every futile twist of his body, only tightens the coil of steel around his throat.
Antonio lets out a strangled, horrified cry and lunges for his son, fingers clawing at the air, only for Liam to slam into him, pinning him against the table. Da moves with calculated force, restraining Una against his chest before she can do anything.
Nico goes slack, body folding unnaturally over Aidan’s arm before collapsing to the ground with a wet, final thump. The sound fills the room, a brutal punctuation mark. Blood tinges the corner of his lips, his eyes glazed, the life seeping out of him in a sickeningly immediate silence.
The room goes deathly still, every eye frozen on the aftermath. Suddenly, the chaos feels muted under the weight of answers finally coming to the surface. Jonathan lowers his gun slightly, voice quiet but cutting through the tension.
“Tell me the truth, Isabella. What do you know?”
Isabella whimpers under Lily’s blade. “Nothing—Mum said—Papàdidn’t—it wasn’t—”
“Don’t. Lie.” Lily presses the knife harder, her whole arm trembling. “You were supposed to be my friend.” Her voicebreaks, splintering. “You smiled at me every day. Laughed with me. Knew what they did to girls and came to class like it wasnothing.”
Isabella sobs, breath hitching in wet, panicked gasps. “I didn’t want to! They threatened me—I didn’t have a choice—”
“Bullshit,” Liam snaps. “You always have a choice.”
“You chose them,” Lily whispers. “Over me.”
Una’s composure cracks. “Isabella, for God’s sake, shut your mouth.”
“No,” Jonathan says. “Let her talk.”
Antonio’s voice spikes, frantic. “She doesn’t know anything. We kept the girls separate. They weren’t supposed to interact—she was only supposed to calm the assets, not—”
Lily’s snarl rips through the room. “Assets?”
Una fights Da’s grip. “Fine! Victims. Girls. Whatever you want to call them, they were never meant for you to find!”
Niamh flinches so hard she nearly folds in on herself. “They hurt us,” she whispers. “Beat us. Starved us. Threatened our families. And when one girl ran… they brought her back. And made us watch as they—” She cuts herself off, pressing a hand over her mouth as tears trickle down her cheeks,
For a beat, there’s silence.
Then Da swears, low and vicious.
Jonathan’s voice is quiet as he glares at Una, lip pulled back in disgust. “You murdered those girls.”
Una opens her mouth—some weak justification already forming—but Antonio snaps first, panic tearing through him.
“We didn’t kill them!” he shouts, thrashing as Liam hauls him back.
“Where are the others?” I demand. I draw my gun and use the barrel to tilt Una’s chin up, forcing her to look at me. To really look.
Her breath shudders out of her, shoulders trembling. “Safe,” she says quickly. “Alive. Hidden.”
“Liar,” Da growls, the word pressed right into her ear. His face twists with revulsion at being this close to her, like her very presence disgusts him. “You sold them. Just like you planned to sell Lily. Over my dead fucking body do you touch a hair on that girl’s head. Now start talking before I snap your fucking neck like I should have years ago.”
A sound slips from Lily—small, broken, and so full of grief it nearly brings me to my knees. I reach for her, but she’s still locked on Isabella, knife trembling against her skin.
Her voice is quiet when she speaks. Too quiet. Dangerous in a way that has me inching closer to her.
“Tell me where they sent them,” she says, each word carved from grief and fury. “Now.”
Isabella’s knees buckle. “I-I don’t know. I swear. They never told me. I just… I just got the girls down in the basement ready. I don’t know where they go after that, I swear!”
I catch Lily’s wrist just before she opens Isabella’s throat, my arm hooking around her waist and dragging her backward against me, the knife clattering to the ground as I force her to let it go. She kicks, claws, snarls, like an animal crawling out of hell.
