34. Eva
EVA
My phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
I already know.
Hudson: It’s me.
Eva: I know.
Hudson: I got him out.
Relief hits me so hard it almost hurts.
Eva: Okay… is he with you?
There’s a pause. Too long.
Hudson: Not in time.
My chest tightens so violently it feels like something inside me tears open.
Eva: Hudson… what do you mean?
Hudson: I thought I could fix it. I couldn’t.
Eva: No. No, that’s not?—
Hudson: He was right there. I had him
Hudson: And I still lost him
A broken sound leaves me before I can stop it.
I press my hand over my mouth, but it doesn’t help.
Lucian.
Sweet, awkward, endlessly chatty Lucian.
Eva: I’m so sorry
The reply takes longer this time.
Hudson: He wasn’t supposed to die like that.
Hudson: He deserved better.
Tears blur the screen instantly.
I wipe them away, but more come right after.
I can see him so clearly.
The way he hovered at the edges of rooms, like he wasn’t sure he belonged there.
The way he looked at Hudson, as if he hung the fucking moon.
Eva: He did. He really did
Hudson: I should’ve gotten him out sooner
Hudson: I left him there
Pain twists sharply through my chest.
Eva: You went back for him
Hudson: Wasn’t enough.
I just stare at the words.
Wasn’t enough.
As if love could ever be measured like that.
Eva: You loved him. He knew it
I hesitate before sending the next one.
Eva: He wasn’t alone at the end.
A long pause.
I hold my breath. My chest aches so much it feels bruised from the inside out.
Eva: Thank you for that.
My fingers shake as I type again.
Hudson: I couldn’t keep him
I close my eyes.
Because that’s the part that will hurt him most.
Eva: You were there. That matters
Hudson: Didn’t save him.
I stare at the blinking cursor for a moment.
Eva: It would’ve meant everything to him
I don’t even know if that’s true.
I know Lucian would have clung to any bit of love he was given.
Hudson: I don’t know how to live with this
There it is.
The real wound beneath everything else.
Eva: You don’t have to figure that out right now
Eva: Just don’t shut down on me, okay?
Tears fill my eyes.
I press the phone to my chest.
For a moment, I let myself cry.
Not just for Hudson.
For Lucian.
For the boy who never had a chance to be anything but collateral damage in someone else’s war.
For the innocent way he moved through the world.
For the fact that he’s just… gone.
I type one last message before I can’t stop myself.
Eva: I’m really going to miss him
Three dots appear, then disappear. They come back, then nothing.
Somehow, that silence hurts most.
* * *
“It’s time for war with the Iron Eagles,” my father says.
His entire leadership team is packed into the conference room.
And I’m sitting off to the side instead of at the table.
Because apparently, having a vagina disqualifies me from participating in organized crime strategy.
They’re fucking cavemen.
I make myself look small anyway.
Quiet.
Careful.
I keep my hands folded in my lap, shaking a little to make it believable.
The cuts on my arms show under my sweater sleeves. The bruises on my collarbone peek out on purpose.
The goal is simple.
Let them believe what they already want to believe.
That I came back broken.
My father paces at the front of the room, his voice low and strong, drawing everyone’s attention.
“They took my daughter,” he says.
A wave of anger moves through the room.
Men shift in their chairs.
Mutter curses under their breath.
Some of them look at me with pity.
I keep my eyes lowered and watch everything through my lashes.
“And when they were done, they dumped her like trash.”
Every part of it is aimed exactly where he wants.
He’s good at this. He always has been.
“They think we won’t respond,” he says. “They think we’re weak. They’re wrong.”
That gets louder reactions.
Fists hit the table.
Chairs scrape.
A couple of men are already leaning forward, almost excited by the idea of violence.
“They’re animals,” my father says coldly. “And we’re going to remind them exactly who they’re dealing with.”
More agreement.
More anger.
The room almost shakes with it.
It might be convincing if I didn’t know the truth.
If I didn’t know the same man giving this speech was the one who left me to suffer.
“You should go,” he says suddenly, without even looking at me.
Fucking dismissed.
Just like that.
The men keep talking as I slowly get up from my chair, moving stiffly to show I’m still hurting.
Not one of them stops speaking.
Not one of them asks if I’m okay.
Because the women are the ones who suffer.
The men are the ones who strategize.
That’s how things work here.
I lower my head and walk out of the room without a word.
The broken daughter.
Exactly what they expect.
* * *
I head straight for the kitchen.
The women are there, as always. They clean, cook, and raise children while the men plan violence and call it leadership.
A few heads turn the second I walk in.
“I’m fine,” I say quietly.
Nobody believes that.
“They said the Eagles did that to you,” Jessa says carefully from near the island counter. “Is that true?”
I shift my weight a little, letting the pain show on my face.
“They…” My throat tightens. “They did things.”
The room goes completely silent.
Mara’s hand rises toward me instinctively before stopping halfway.
“How long were you there?” someone asks softly.
I look down at the counter for a moment before giving a small shrug.
“Long enough,” I whisper. My throat tightens. “Long enough that I started hoping someone would come to save me.”
I trace the crack in the wood with my fingertip.
“They didn’t,” I add and let the tears run.
“They didn’t even try?” Jessa asks.
“I don’t know if they tried,” I say. “All I know is nobody came through that door for me.” My throat tightens. “I was left to rot.”
A woman near the sink presses her lips together.
Another one glances toward the hallway, toward the conference room where the men are.
“They just left you there?” Mara asks quietly.
I finally look up.
“I was bleeding,” I say. “Some days I couldn’t walk.” My eyes move slowly between them. “And all I kept thinking was… if this had happened to one of you…” I let the words hang. “Would they have moved faster?”
That hits home because they can relate now.
“Did you hear about our woman smuggling operation?” I continue.
Immediate disbelief flashes across multiple faces.
“No,” somebody says instantly. “That’s not what we do.”
I nod slowly, acting like I understand their reaction.
“That’s what I said too.”
The room goes silent again.
I keep my expression uncertain and shaken, as if I don’t want to believe my own words.
“They take girls from places nobody notices,” I say quietly. “Shelters. Bad neighborhoods. Runaways.” My stomach twists. “Some of them are just kids.”
“No,” someone says immediately. “That’s not what we do.”
Mara stares at me in horror.
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” I ask.
Silence settles over the room.
Because now doubt has settled in.
Aim at the men behind closed doors.
“You should ask your husbands what’s being shipped overseas,” I say quietly. “See if they can look you in the eye when they answer.”
* * *
The videos are the next step.
I’ll send them to a handful of people inside the house.
Wives.
Brothers.
Trusted soldiers.
Men close enough to matter.
The first video shows young girls being loaded into crates.
Drugged.
Barely conscious.
Handled like livestock.
The second is worse.
Men sitting around a table bidding on them.
Laughing.
Negotiating prices.
My stomach twists more with every second.
Because I recognize faces.
My father in one video.
Baron in another.
Other men from this house.
Men who smiled at me growing up.
Men who carried me on their shoulders as a child.
I feel nauseous.
How the hell did I not know?
My thumb hovers over the send button.
Once I send this, there’s no taking it back.
No more pretending now.
No going back to being just someone’s daughter.
I think about the girls inside those crates.
The way none of them moved.
No one in the videos treated them like people.
I hit send.
* * *
Men gather weapons.
Pulling on boots.
Loading magazines.
They talk loudly about burning the Iron Eagles to the ground.
But then everything changes.
Movement slows.
Phones appear in hands.
Brows furrow.
“What the fuck is this?”
“That’s fake.”
“Zoom in.”
Silence.
“…are those kids?”
No one answers.
Because they can all see it.
“They’re fucking children.”
The mood in the room changes right away.
Anger turns uncertain.
The urge for violence fades.
A man near the wall lowers his gun.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” he mutters.
Across the room, my father is being pulled into the center of the growing chaos.
His face is turning red.
“This is misinformation,” he snaps. “You’re being manipulated.”
“You expect us to believe that?” someone fires back immediately.
No one moves.
“Stay the course,” he snaps. “Keep moving. This is fake. It’s meant to sow discord.”
The plan is to hit the Eagles fast.
Hit them hard.
My father had already mobilized men before the meeting even ended. Weapons. Routes. Safe houses. Retaliation.
Jonas Sorenson fully intended to go to war.
He made one critical mistake. It wasn’t stupidity; it was arrogance.
He assumed he still controlled the room.
He thought loyalty would last longer than fear.
“You telling me that’s not you in the footage?” another man demands.
Now my father is sweating.
He yanks at his shirt collar aggressively.
“I’m not fighting for somebody who traffics kids,” someone says near the back of the room.
“Bullshit,” another fires back. “You think the Eagles couldn’t fake a video?”
“That’s Jonas.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“The fuck it isn’t.”
Voices start to crash over each other after that.
Fast.
Loud.
Angry.
The room turns chaotic in seconds.
One man shoves another hard enough to make a chair topple sideways.
Someone storms toward the door, phone already clutched in his hand.
“Where the fuck are you going?” somebody barks.
“Home,” the guy snaps back. “Before the Feds kick the fucking door in.”
That word changes everything immediately.
Feds.
Panic flashes openly across several faces now.
One of the younger prospects bolts for the hallway.
Another man grabs him by the vest before he makes it two steps.
“Sit the fuck down.”
“Get off me!”
The first punch lands hard enough to crack against bone.
Suddenly, everyone’s yelling at once.
Accusations.
Denials.
Threats.
Chairs scrape violently across the floor.
A woman screams somewhere deeper in the house.
Through it all, my father keeps losing control of the room.
That’s when he finally snaps.
“What the fuck do you think we do every day?” he roars.
The entire room freezes.
“We move drugs. We run guns. We extort people. You think this is a fucking charity organization?” His face is red now, spit flying as he points wildly around the room. “You think we’re out here rescuing puppies and handing out blankets?”
Nobody answers.
Because now they’re seeing him clearly.
Not the leader.
Not the provider.
Just a violent man losing his grip.
“Man the fuck up,” my father snarls. “Or get out of my house.”
The room erupts again immediately.
More shouting.
More accusations.
Fear turning into anger.
Standing near the corner, I start backing away slowly.
Carefully.
The plan was never for me to stay in the middle of this.
Just light the match and walk away.
Let the house burn from the inside until the Feds arrive.
I make it halfway down the hall when a hand grabs my arm hard.
“What the?—”
I’m pulled sideways into a nearby office.
The door slams hard enough to shake the walls.
Baron Roybal shoves me backward.
“What the fuck did you do?” he snarls.
I stare at him, chest heaving.
“Fuck you.”
His hand hits the side of my head so hard my vision goes white.
I slam against the wall.
Pain explodes behind my eyes.
Blood fills my mouth instantly as my teeth cut into my cheek.
“You all deserve to burn,” I spit.
Baron laughs once.
It sounds ugly.
It’s mocking.
“Oh, now we’re monsters?” he sneers. “That’s rich coming from you.”
I wipe blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.
“You’re fucking garbage,” I say. “Every single one of you.”
His expression twists.
“You begged to be involved,” he snaps. “Remember that? You wanted into the business. Wanted Daddy to take you seriously.” He steps closer. “And look what happened. You fucked everything up.”
I glare at him, my head pounding with dizziness.
“Your father was right,” Baron continues cruelly. “Women have no place in this world.”
A sharp laugh slips out.
“What a devastating revelation,” I sneer. “Like I haven’t heard that bullshit my entire life.”
His face darkens immediately.
“You spoiled little bitch.”
“Better than being a rapist.”
That lands hard.
“You think you’re better than us?” he snarls. “Than your father?” His hand fists in my shirt. “That man funded your whole fucking life.”
Fueled by anger, I throw myself at him, screaming with all the hatred I have for this creep.
I claw at his face.
His neck.
His eyes.
We hit the floor together hard enough to shake the furniture.
But he’s bigger.
Stronger.
Meaner.
It takes him seconds to overpower me.
His hand closes around my throat, crushing my airway as he pins me down.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarls.
Black spots spark across my vision.
“You fucking whore.”
“You’re…” I choke hard against his grip. “Going… to burn in?—”
His face twists with rage.
“Not before you do.”
One hand releases my throat only to fist painfully into my hair instead.
He yanks my head back so hard that tears fill my eyes.
For one terrible heartbeat, he stares at me.
Breathing hard.
Sweating.
Wild-eyed.
Then his mouth curls.
“I would’ve liked to fuck you first.”
Horror rushes through me.
And then, he slams my head against the floor.
The world goes black instantly.