She is absolutelydangerous.
And I have no idea what to do about it except keep her close enough to study and far enough away to maintain the control that’s slipping with each day she remains unbroken in my territory.
Chapter Eight
RAZE
The Next Day
The rest of the club starts visiting her, curiosity and pragmatism driving them to check on the prisoner who refuses to break under conditions designed specifically to accomplish exactly that.
Maul arrives first, the werewolf’s bulk filling her doorway as he studies her with dark eyes that calculate threat assessment and potential usefulness in the same glance. He carries paperwork, manifests for next week’s shipment of cursed artifacts, financial statements from our three legitimate businesses, and ledgers that need organizing and reconciling before the next club meeting.
I watch through the security feed Flux installed years ago, cameras hidden in vents and corners providing clear views of every secured room in this wing. Not because I don’t trust the brothers, but because information is power, and knowing what's happening in my territory, regardless of who’s involved, is how empires maintain control.
“President says you stay alive, you might as well make yourself useful.” Maul drops the paperwork on her desk with enough force to make her jump slightly, though she hides the reaction well. “You read numbers?”
She picks up one of the manifests, scanning columns with practiced efficiency that suggests familiarity with financial documents beyond basic literacy. “Yeah, I read numbers. What kind of numbers are we talking about?”
“The kind that’ll get you buried in pieces too small to identify if you share them with anyone outside this room.” His tonestays conversational, almost friendly, but the threat beneath it lands with the weight of absolute sincerity. “The club moves money through three mountain businesses… a logging company, a hunting supply store, and a bar. Millions pass through them every month.”
He pauses just long enough to let that settle. “You’d be working the books,” he continues. “Reconciling accounts. Tracking the revenue. Making sure everything looks exactly the way it should if anyone official ever decides to audit us.”
Clean. Boring. Safe.
On paper.
I watch the moment it clicks for her, not surprise, not greed, but focus. Her eyes widen a fraction, then sharpen, calculation flickering behind them as she realizes what he isn’t saying.
Access to the numbers doesn’t mean access to the truth.
Because there are gaps.
Places where the math should resolve cleanly and doesn’t. Revenue streams that balance too perfectly. Expenses that vanish without explanation. Flows that obey human accounting rules while quietly violating every other law they should be subject to.
Flux’s work.
Magic woven so tightly through the ledgers that to anyone else, the books would read pristine, legitimate, and untouchable. Every supernatural dollar is scrubbed until it emerges mortal, clean enough to pass any audit, investigation, or any human eye.
“You won’t find anything illegal,” he adds calmly, watching her closely now.
That’s the test.
Not whether she can uncover our crimes.
But whether she notices whatisn’tthere.
Whether she feels the pressure beneath the numbers. The way the accounts resist scrutiny. The faint imprecision, no, thecrafted perfection, that suggests something unseen is smoothing the edges.
If she is human, she’ll see nothing but well-run businesses and tidy books.
If she is more than that…
I see it in the way her fingers curl slightly, like she wants to reach for the figures already. In the way her gaze doesn’t go soft with relief but tightens instead.
She understands.
This isn’t an offer.
