Chapter 9
Carly
I wake to pressure around my wrists.
For one second, I’m back in that room.
The air feels wrong. Stale. Close. My arms are pulled behind me, rope biting into skin that only just started to heal.
My pulse spikes.
Then I breathe.
In.
Out.
The panic rises—
And stops.
Because I know something now that I didn’t know before.
Doc will come.
The Saints will come.
They don’t leave people behind.
I open my eyes fully.
Different room.
Concrete floor. Single bulb overhead. No music. No perfume. No fake velvet and cheap promises.
A warehouse.
I test the rope lightly. Tight. Professional knot.
My ankles are tied too.
A door scrapes open somewhere behind me.
Boots on concrete.
I don’t turn my head.
I don’t give him that.
“Well,” he says.
That voice.
Smooth. Polished. Like authority wrapped in rot.
I look at him then.
The badge man.
Clean shirt. Polished shoes. That same calm, irritated tone he used when he said he just needed to verify my age. Badge on his belt. Nothing to worry about.
“You cost me a recruiter,” he says mildly. “Good help isn’t easy to replace.”
“Tessa?” My voice doesn’t shake.
He smiles slightly. “She was useful.”
“You were going to sell me.”
He tilts his head. “That was the plan.”
He steps closer, crouching so we’re eye level.
“You were supposed to be premium inventory,” he says. “Untouched. High value.”
The words should hurt.
They don’t.
“Now?” I ask.
His smile fades.
“Now you’re damaged goods.”
He says it like it’s a financial report.
“You ran. You brought attention. You got a motorcycle club sniffing around.”
He studies my face.
“And you’ve clearly been used.”
There it is.
The insult. The calculation.
I hold his gaze.
“Still breathing,” I say.
Something flickers in his eyes.
He didn’t expect that.
“I’ll still sell you,” he continues calmly. “But you don’t get the careful client now. You get the one who likes resistance.”
My stomach tightens.
Just a little.
But not from fear.
From anger.
“You think they won’t find you?” I ask.
He smiles again.
“They?”
“The Saints.”
That smile slips, just barely.
“They won’t get here in time.”
I lean back against the wall as much as the rope allows.
“They always do.”
A sharp crack echoes from somewhere in the building.
His head turns slightly.
Another one.
Louder.
A door slamming open.
He stands abruptly.
“You think they can just—”
The warehouse explodes.
Metal screaming.
Shouting.
A shout from somewhere down the hall. A body hitting concrete.
The badge man reaches for something at his waist.
The door behind me slams open so hard it hits the wall.
Doc fills the doorway.
Behind him, Viper and Ghost move like shadows with teeth.
The badge man spins.
Too slow.
Doc crosses the space in three strides.
Grabs him.
Slams him into the wall.
Hard.
“You touched her?” Doc says.
His voice isn’t raised.
That’s worse.
The badge man struggles.
“I was conducting—”
Doc drives him into the concrete again.
“I don’t care what you call it.”
The Saints fan out around the room. Saint cuts my bindings. Ghost moves to the door, watching the hallway.
Doc doesn’t look at me yet.
He’s focused on the man in his grip.
“You wanted to sell her?” Doc asks quietly.
The badge man goes pale.
“You think that scares me?” he snaps, trying to recover composure. “You have no idea how this works.”
“I know enough.”
Doc’s fist connects once.
The man drops to his knees.
Doc finally looks at me.
And everything changes.
The cold fractures.
He’s beside me in a second.
“You hurt?” he asks.
“No.”
He checks anyway. Hands gentle. Eyes scanning every inch of me like he’s cataloging damage.
“I knew you’d come,” I say.
His jaw tightens.
“I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”
“You didn’t let me,” I say softly. “I chose to stand there.”
His hands still.
Behind him, Viper hauls the badge man upright.
“You know how we found this place?” Viper asks.
The badge man glares.
“You ran a clean decoy,” Ghost says. “Van peeled out. We chased it.”
A faint, smug twitch at the corner of the badge man’s mouth.
Saint steps in. “Empty.”
Viper nods once. “You moved her through the back while we were burning miles.”
The badge man says nothing.
Doesn’t have to.
Doc’s voice cuts in, quiet and lethal.
“Tessa told us about this building.”
That lands.
The smugness fractures.
“All of them,” Ghost adds. “Every stash spot. Every transfer point.”
Saint tilts his head. “You built a smart maze.”
Viper’s grip tightens in the badge man’s collar.
“She handed us the map.”
Silence.
The badge man’s composure finally cracks.
Doc cups the back of my head and pulls me into him.
For a second, the world narrows to his chest. His heartbeat. The smell of leather and gunpowder.
“I’m here,” he murmurs against my hair.
“I wasn’t scared,” I whisper.
His grip tightens.
“I was,” he admits.
That does something to me.
He pulls back just enough to look at me.
“You don’t get taken again,” he says. “Not while I’m breathing.”
“I know.”
Behind us, Ghost wrenches his arms back and secures them with a thick zip tie, plastic biting into skin.
“You’re done.”
The Saints form around us.
Solid.
Unbreakable.
Doc brushes his thumb over the rope marks on my wrists.
“You good?” he asks again.
“Yes.”
And I mean it.