Chapter Twenty
Elowen blinked in the darkness, her senses heightened despite the fog in her mind. Her eyelids felt heavy, as if they had been sewn shut while she was unconscious. When she tried to move, pain shot through her shoulders and a throbbing headache demanded her attention.
Where am I?
The question came slowly as her mind fought through the haze.
She caught her breath at the strange air around her—the dampness mixed with the salty, tarry smell, alongside something rotten and decaying.
Her stomach twisted as she realised she could smell the Thames—or something that had lingered beside it for too long.
She tested her hands cautiously, flexing them.
A sharp sting ripped through her wrists.
Rope. Rough rope. Looking down, she saw that she was tied to a chair, her body stiff from pain and shock.
She tugged gently, feeling the fibres, and a small spark of determination broke through her panic—they would hold, but not forever.
Moonlight streamed through a grimy window, casting shadows that danced like fleeting moments of her own life. The pale light fell across crates stacked in disarray, each one labelled with shipping manifests.
Water dripped in the shadows, each drop echoing against the wood, marking time with a cruel rhythm.
Then she heard the sound she feared: the scrape of a latch against cold metal.
The door swung open.
Victor.
The polished, charming man she had known was gone. In his place stood a predator, the veneer of civility stripped away. His grey eyes, once soft, now gleamed with calculation. His boots struck the floor in deliberate rhythm, each step echoing through the vast, dim space.
He stopped a few paces away, fingers tapping against the pistol at his side—a restless, uneven beat betraying his tension. “You’re awake,” he said. His tone was flat, factual.
Elowen forced herself to meet his gaze. “Why?”
“Why?” He laughed, a sharp, mirthless sound. “Why, indeed? You of all people should understand my purpose.”
“You mean excuses,” she replied, lifting her chin. “Excuses for betrayal. How does power justify this? How can it justify turning people into pawns?”
His hand twitched near the pistol. Anger flashed across his face. “Pawns? This isn’t about pawns, Elowen. It’s about consequences. About results. Do you imagine I care for them as you do?”
“I know enough to see the cost,” she shot back. “Your cause doesn’t excuse the lives you destroy in its name.”
Victor began to pace, agitation crackling beneath the surface. “Do you think I do this lightly? Every decision I make is calculated, weighed against risk and reward. Every action is deliberate.”
“Deliberate doesn’t make it right,” Elowen said quietly. “Intentional doesn’t make it just. You call this strategy—I call it cruelty.”
He froze, then turned sharply. “Cruelty? You dare say that when failure is the alternative—when ruin is the choice! The Duke—your precious Duke—has been meddling, obstructing, threatening everything I’ve built. I cannot let him succeed!”
“You think taking me will stop him?” she demanded. “Do you believe that holding me here will silence him? You underestimate him—and me.”
Victor’s fists curled. “I underestimate no one. I anticipate, I manoeuvre, I secure outcomes. And you—” his voice dropped to a hiss—“you are the perfect lure. A prize. A trap. Nothing more than leverage.”
Elowen’s stomach tightened, but she held his gaze. “You would endanger me for your ambition?”
“I would endanger anyone,” he snapped. “Anyone who stands in the way of what must be done. This is bigger than sentiment—bigger than morality. This is survival.”
“You call it strategy,” she said, her lips trembling, “but it’s murder by proxy. You’re not winning anything, Victor—you’re destroying everything you touch.”
Victor’s face flushed red, revealing his desperation behind the fury. He stepped closer, hands flexing at his sides. “I’m ensuring the future! I’m ensuring order! You see chaos where I see control, Elowen! You see horror where I see necessity!”
Her voice sharpened, calm in defiance. “You see necessity where there is greed. Ambition blinds you. You’re not a saviour—you’re a man too consumed to see what he’s become.”
For a moment, silence. Then he leaned forward, searching her face for fear—and found none. His mouth twisted.
“You think your bravery impresses me?” he snarled. “You are entirely under my control. Every breath you take is because I allow it!”
“And yet here you are,” she returned, voice calm. “Arguing. Pleading for me to understand you. That’s not control. That’s desperation.”
His jaw tightened. “Do you know why you’re here? Do you understand your role?”
“I think I do,” she said. “You mean to lure Lucas—to trap him, frame him, destroy what you cannot control. You intend to use me to hurt him and my family.”
Victor’s expression twisted into something almost ecstatic. “Yes. Every shadow, every plan—it all leads here. He will come. And when he does, he will walk straight into ruin. And you—” his voice dropped—“you are the bait. The reason he will fall.”
Elowen swallowed hard but did not look away. “And you think that makes it right. That the end justifies everything. You don’t even see the man you’ve become.”
“I see everything,” he said fiercely. “Every obstacle, every threat—and I act. I do what must be done, even when it breaks my soul. And you dare to judge me?”
Elowen’s heart raced, but she felt a flicker of hope pierce through her fear. She had been listening, searching the room, and now her eyes caught movement outside the grimy window behind him.
A shadow. Tall. Careful. Moving between the warehouses, weaving through crates and loading docks.
Her heart soared.
Lucas.
Victor, oblivious, continued his tirade. “You think I enjoy this? You think your pain brings me pleasure? You’re wrong. This is agony—but necessary agony.”
“I understand plenty,” she said softly. “Enough to know your sacrifice is just selfishness. You aren’t protecting anyone. You’re destroying. And you will fail.”
Victor spun, fury blazing. “And what will you do when he comes? When your Duke arrives, thinking he can save you? Will you warn him? Will you betray me? You—”
Elowen began to move her fingers subtly against the ropes binding her wrists, the rough fibres biting, but starting to give under her careful pulls. Her heart raced. If she could loosen them enough, she might free her hands before Victor could act again.
Victor’s grey eyes darted to the window behind him. “What—”
She didn’t reply. Her pulse hammered; every instinct urged her on. Lucas was out there, moving, observing, calculating. The hope she had clung to surged through her.
Victor’s frustration flared again, oblivious to the threat outside, consumed by his unravelling plan. “You think your courage matters! You think defiance changes the outcome! You are nothing! Nothing but a tool, a pawn, a means to an end!”
Elowen’s breath caught, her fingers moving quickly. The fibres loosened further. She met his gaze calmly. “Then consider this, Victor: pawns sometimes bite back.”
Outside, the shadow shifted again. Lucas was getting closer. And in that moment, Elowen felt a spark of steely hope. She would not give in. She would not falter.
And if Victor meant to use her as bait, he would soon find she had teeth.
***
The brick bit into Lucas’s shoulder—cold, rough, unforgiving—and he welcomed it, for it kept him still.
He could see nothing but a slit of moonlight through the warehouse windows, hear only the lapping of water and the faint creak of timber.
Beside him, Henry’s breathing was tight and measured.
William’s jaw worked soundlessly in the dark.
“Tell me again,” Lucas whispered.
William’s voice came as a dry rustle. “A dockhand saw a young woman being carried from a carriage into this warehouse. He described Victor overseeing it—coat, gait, the cigar. Frederick verified the location. The manifests link this building to Lord Orvilleton’s shipments.”
Henry’s hand tightened on his knife hilt. “Constable’s men hold the perimeter. They’ll move on my signal. We know they expect pursuit. That’s why those three are patrolling as hired muscle.”
Footsteps scraped on cobbles, slow and deliberate. Lucas felt the vibration through the wall. He drew William further into shadow, pressing himself against the brick like part of it.
Three shapes detached from the gloom and moved toward the southeast approach. The men’s voices carried—low, rough, mocking. Boots scuffed; lanterns bobbed. One spat.
“Night’s clear,” a gruff voice said. “No one’s keen to be seen.”
“Good,” another replied. “Makes the work easier.” They laughed—short, mean sounds.
Lucas counted the strides, gauged the spacing between men and light. He studied the doorline, the seams where wood gave way. The southwest entrance—William had said—was less guarded within. That would be Henry and William’s route, both cover and escape.
“On my mark,” Lucas murmured. “Henry, William—take the rear. When I break the front, the constable presses in from the yard. Move fast. No theatrics.”
He smelled the river—salt, tar, rot. It pulsed beneath the city, as alive as blood. He felt Elowen’s pulse beneath his own, imagined yet immediate, and pushed that image into the narrow space between thought and muscle.
“Now,” he breathed.
Lucas sprang. The door splintered beneath his shoulder with a sound like gunfire. Wood burst, splinters rained; the shock jolted through his arm and ribs. He rolled, came up on his knees inside the dim cavern of the warehouse.
Light pooled in the centre where lanterns hung low. Crates crouched like sleeping beasts; papers lay scattered across a barrel table. He saw her then—Elowen—bound to a chair, back straight, chin high, moonlight tracing her face.