24. Vale
Vale
I know we crossed a line in that room.
Not a small one. Not the kind you can explain away later if the right person asks the right question. A real one.
The Brotherhood doesn’t believe in personal ties. Not when they interfere with the work. Not when they make you hesitate. Not when they make you choose badly.
They call it discipline. Purity of purpose.
We’re taught that early, in a hundred different ways. Never attach. Never protect something you want. Never confuse desire with duty, because one of them always contaminates the other.
And tonight, all three of us did exactly that.
I stand in the room after Voss is gone, looking at the contract on the desk and the wall full of Lena’s life, and I know we made a very big decision. One that might come back to bite us hard.
I’ve heard the stories. Brothers who got soft where they shouldn’t have. Men who picked a woman, a child, a family, and convinced themselves they could balance both worlds. Men who thought they could want something and still remain useful.
It never ends well.
Sometimes they disappear. Sometimes they’re punished publicly enough that nobody else gets ideas. Sometimes they survive long enough to wish they hadn’t.
I try not to think about any of that now.
I fail.
Because Lena is standing a few feet away from me, pale and shaken and doing that thing she does where she holds herself too straight when she’s close to falling apart, and all I can think is that if this is the mistake that ruins me, I walked into it willingly.
A part of me, the meanest part, almost thinks I might deserve whatever comes from that.
Wanting her already feels like a breach, and protecting her feels worse, but there’s something almost relieving in the idea of punishment finally catching up to me in a shape I chose.
I don’t let any of that show.
Knox is still watching the door Voss used like he expects him to come back through it with reinforcements.
Havoc has gone quieter than usual, which is never a good sign.
Lena is staring at the corkboard again, not really seeing it now.
Her face has gone blank in that dangerous way people’s faces do when they’re close to shock.
“Lena.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s too far inside her own head.
I step in front of her, close enough to catch her attention without crowding her. When her eyes finally lift to mine, there’s nothing steady in them. Just strain. Confusion. The beginning of fear she can’t joke away fast enough.
“You need to sit down,” I say.
Her mouth twitches like she wants to argue on principle, but it dies before it reaches her face. “I’m so tired of people saying that.”
“I know.”
That gets the faintest reaction. Not quite a smile. Just recognition.
I glance at the chair by the desk, then back at her. “Sit.”
This time she does it. Slowly, like her body is only half listening.
I crouch in front of her because standing over her feels wrong, because she already looks overwhelmed enough without me adding height and shadow to it. My knees crack slightly when I lower myself. I ignore that too.
She lets out a breath and looks anywhere but at me. “I really hate that this is happening in front of witnesses,” she mutters.
“Havoc barely counts as a witness.”
From somewhere behind me, Havoc says, “Rude.”
“I want to go home,” she says. The words come out tired, but firm enough that all three of us hear the decision inside them.
Knox looks at her first. Havoc goes still against the desk.
I’m the one who answers. “That’s not a good idea.”
Lena looks at me like she expected that and hates that she did. “It’s my apartment.”
“It’s also compromised.”
Her mouth tightens. “You mean watched.”
“Yes.”
She lets out a breath through her nose and looks down at herself. At her wrinkled clothes. At the way the day has already settled into her skin. “I’m beginning to stink,” she says.
The words are dry, almost funny, but there’s real discomfort under them.
And immediately, stupidly, my body betrays me with a thought I do not need.
She smells like me.
Like Havoc too.
I know it because I can still catch it under the house, the paper, the chemical smell of this room. Skin, sweat, sex, all of it lingering on her. Enough that I know Havoc can smell it too. I don’t have to look at him to know that. He’ll have clocked it the second she said the word.
I keep my face flat. “It’s too dangerous to go back,” I say. “We can get you new clothes.”
She looks up at me. “I don’t want new clothes.”
“It’s the smarter option.”
“No,” she says. “The smarter option is not leaving my ID and passport in an apartment that apparently doubles as somebody’s personal surveillance lab.” She folds her arms. “And before one of you says you can replace everything, I would rather have my own clothes. My own documents. My own things.”
I look at her for a second.
Not because I disagree, but because she’s right again.
Smart girl.
“I left everything there,” she says. “Phone. Wallet. Passport. Clothes. Half my life, apparently.”
Havoc pushes off the desk. “Bit generous, calling that half a life.”
She gives him a tired look. “I’m hanging on by a thread. Let me be dramatic.”
“I’ll go,” I say.
All three of them look at me.
Knox’s expression hardens slightly. “Alone?”
“I’ll move faster that way.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I look at him. “Then no. Not alone in the philosophical sense. But yes, alone enough.”
Havoc huffs a laugh. “Beautifully useless answer.”
“I know the layout now,” I say, ignoring him. “I know what to look for. Her documents, clothes, essentials. I can get in and out without dragging her back into that place.”
Lena opens her mouth, probably to argue, but Knox beats her to it.
“He’s right about one thing,” he says. “You’re not going back there.”
She folds her arms. “You say that like I’m suddenly twelve.”
“No,” Havoc says. “Twelve-year-olds are easier to manage.”
She glares at him.
He smiles.
I look at Knox. “You stay with her. Explain what she needs to understand.”
Lena narrows her eyes. “That sounds ominous.”
“It is,” Knox says.
That shuts her up for half a beat.
I’m already halfway turned toward the door in my head, already sorting through my strategy.
I have to imagine the apartment is still being monitored.
She’s going to be staying with us at the motel until we know she’s safe, and the thought sits wrong in my chest for reasons I don’t want to examine too closely.
Not because I mind her there.
Because I don’t.
Because I mind how quickly that arrangement has started to feel natural.
Knox looks at me for a second longer, then nods once. “Get what matters. Don’t linger.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Havoc pushes off the desk and glances at Lena. “While Scarface plays retrieval boy, we get to do the fun part.”
She looks from him to Knox. “I hate the way you say things.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t want to get used to any of you.”
“That’s healthy,” he says.
Knox cuts in before Havoc can keep going. “You need to understand what protection means.”
Lena’s face closes a little at the word. “I’m starting to think it doesn’t mean anything good.”
“No,” Knox says. “It means limits. Visibility. We keep you close. We don’t let you wander. We don’t let strangers near you. We don’t let you call the police.”
There’s the line.
Lena stares at him. “Still insane, by the way.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Havoc says, quieter now, less mocking than before. “The Brotherhood doesn’t handle things through the cops. Never has.”
She looks at him, then at Knox. “Why?”
“Because police ask questions,” Knox says.
“And?” she asks.
“And the Brotherhood prefers problems handled before they become paperwork,” Havoc says.
She lets out a disbelieving breath. “That is one of the worst sentences I’ve ever heard.”
“Probably,” Knox says. “Still true.”
I leave before I can hear more. I take Knox’s car, leaving Havoc’s truck by the house.
The Brotherhood doesn’t like men with divided loyalties.
Doesn’t forgive personal attachments. Doesn’t tolerate hesitation where duty should be free of conflict, of emotions.
I’ve heard too many stories not to know that.
Men who wanted something too much. Men who got soft where they should have been sharp.
Men who believed they could protect and desire the same person without it costing them.
It always costs them, and I know we won’t be any different.
I don’t like how much of this no longer feels theoretical.
Worse, I don’t like that I can’t fully trust the Brotherhood to help if this gets bigger.
That thought is its own kind of sickness. Not because I think the Brotherhood is weak. Because I don’t know if I can trust them. Because even after working so many years for them, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
There’s nothing in Lena’s background that makes sense.
The road is wet from earlier mist, the city still in that washed-out hour where everything looks unfinished. Traffic hasn’t built yet. Just delivery vans, a couple of taxis, people with actual normal lives moving through a morning that still belongs to them.
I keep one hand on the wheel and go back over it again.
Foster care. No family anyone can name. No money. No obvious enemies. No history that reads like motive. Yet, her name was on a redacted file which gave little away.
My grip tightens slightly on the wheel.
Then there’s Voss.
Last night at the club, he was too careful. He knew the name Lena meant something. I saw it on his face before he smothered it. He gave us the minimum, told us to walk away, and acted like that would be enough.
Then dawn comes and suddenly he’s calling Knox, helping, waiting at Caldwell’s house like he’d changed his mind overnight.
Men like Voss do not change their minds like that.
Not for free. Not without reason.
So what changed?
Did he go back because of something we said? Because of Lena’s name? Because he knew something and hoped he was wrong, then found proof he wasn’t?
Or was he sent there?
That thought sits badly in me. I don’t like not knowing which side of a move I’m standing on. I like it even less when Brotherhood men start acting on instinct instead of instruction.
Nothing about him adds up. Nothing about Lena does either.
I turn onto her street and let the rest of the thinking go quiet.
The building looks like most others in the city. Brick front. Narrow entrance. Old intercom. The kind of place nobody notices unless they live there.
I park half a block away and watch for a moment. Windows. Street corners. Parked cars. Sidewalk. Nothing obvious. No one lingering too long. No reason for my neck to prickle.
Inside, the building smells like old paint and yesterday’s cooking. The stairwell light flickers once on the second floor. Her hallway is quiet. No doors cracked open. No curious neighbors pretending not to listen.
Her apartment door opens without a problem.
That bothers me.
No splintered frame. No visible damage. No signs that someone forced their way in and left it that way. Whoever set those cameras up did it neatly. Whoever watched her wanted the place to keep looking normal.
I step inside and close the door behind me.
It looks exactly like it did on the monitor, and that gets under my skin more than I expect. The chair. The counter. The bed in the next room. A life paused instead of abandoned.
I move quickly.
Wallet from the tray near the kitchen. Passport from a desk drawer after a short search.
Phone charger from beside the bed. Laptop from the canvas sleeve.
The green duffel from the closet. Then clothes.
Jeans. Shirts. Underwear. Socks. Toiletries.
Whatever matters. Whatever lets her feel like she still owns something.
I zip the duffel and stand.
The apartment feels close around me now. Not dangerous exactly. Just watched, even empty. I take one last pass through the rooms, not because I think I missed anything important, but because it feels wrong to leave pieces of her behind in a place like this.
Then I’m done.
I carry the bag and the box out, lock the door behind me, and head for the stairs.
I push through the building entrance and step back onto the street.
Cold air. Wet pavement.
A gray morning barely getting started.
Then I hear a voice.
“Vale.”
Everything in me locks. I know that voice.
I start to turn, and something slams into the side of my head.
Light bursts across my vision. My grip loosens. The box drops from my arm and papers spill across the pavement. I hit the ground hard, knee first, then shoulder, and before I can get my bearings another blow lands.
Boots move around me. More than one person.
I try to push up and get kicked in the ribs so hard my breath disappears. Another strike to the back of my head. My hands slide on the pavement. My body won’t answer fast enough.
I can’t get a clear look at anyone. Just dark shapes moving in and out of the weak morning light. Legs. Coats. Motion. The taste of blood filling my mouth.
Someone says something above me, but the ringing in my ears swallows most of it.
Then that voice again, closer this time. Familiar enough to hollow me out.
I try to lift my head, but a hand catches my jaw and drives it back into the ground. Pain tears through me as another hit follows, and then another.
I stop trying to count.
The world shrinks to impact, concrete, blood, and the ugly realization that I should have anticipated this.
The papers are everywhere now, skidding over the pavement, gathering at the curb. One photograph lands face-up in a shallow puddle. Blonde hair. A child’s face.
I reach for it.
A boot comes down on my wrist.
Something gives.
The sound barely reaches me. My sight is going at the edges now, the morning dimming into blur. I hear the duffel being pulled away. Footsteps shifting. The rush of blood in my ears getting louder. I try once more to get up.
The last blow catches me high and hard. Everything drops away.
Then nothing.