Chapter 41
Seraphina
We slipped out just past midnight—Callum, Kieran, and I.
No mission orders. No check-ins. Just the three of us moving through shadows like ghosts.
I hadn’t asked Kieran to come. I’d barely gotten the words out to Callum—just held up the photo and address I’d found in my mother’s journals, and he was already checking his weapon.
Kieran didn’t say anything, just climbed into the backseat of the car. I opened the passenger door, slid in, and stared straight ahead. Silent. Unreadable.
He hadn’t looked at me once.
The address took us to a desolate strip along the east river, where the only light came from flickering security lamps and the occasional blink of passing ships in the dark.
The storage unit stood between two rusting shipping warehouses. Its corrugated door groaned like a warning as Callum forced it open with quiet precision.
Inside, it smelled like dust and metal and time. One tarp-covered crate. Nothing else.
Callum cracked the lock. We both leaned in. Kieran stayed by the door, watching our backs, arms folded tight across his chest .
The crate held old photographs, weather-worn documents, a burner phone, and a sealed plastic bag containing a single black USB drive.
I reached for one of the photos. My breath caught.
It was my mother.
Smiling.
Next to a man I didn’t recognize. Mid-40s, lean build, close-cropped hair, and a presence that unsettled something deep in my chest. His hand rested on her shoulder, too familiar to be professional.
But it was his eyes that stopped me—cold, empty, calculating.
“That’s Elijah Crane,” Callum murmured, voice like a warning. “Ex-Blackdawn. Went off-grid fifteen years ago. Most thought he was dead. Bastard’s harder to kill than cockroaches.”
“What if he wasn’t?” My voice came out thin. “What if she wasn’t just taken—what if she chose to go with him?”
Callum looked at me. Really looked. And for the first time, I saw doubt in his expression. Not in me—but in everything he thought he knew.
Kieran didn’t speak. But I could feel the weight of his stare on my back.
We packed the evidence quickly. As we stepped out into the corridor, footsteps echoed from the far end.
Three men emerged from the shadows. Not cops. Not gang muscle. Too careful for either. One of them smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re trespassing,” he said calmly. “Last chance to walk away.”
Callum shifted instantly, placing his body between me and the threat. Kieran moved, too—silent but ready.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “No problem here.”
But the man reached inside his coat.
Wrong move.
Callum was already there.
A blur of movement. A grunt. Bone hitting metal.
One man dropped. The other two froze.
Kieran moved forward slowly, voice low. “Think very hard about what you’re doing.”
The remaining men backed off, hands raised.
Callum grabbed the speaker by the collar, shoved him against the wall, and pressed a knife to his throat—not quite cutting, but enough to turn the man’s face a shade paler.
“If I ever see you near her again,” Callum said, voice like ice over gravel, “ou won’t be walkin’ out next time. You’ll vanish before you can beg.”
The man nodded furiously. Callum dropped him like garbage and turned back to me, breathing even, like he hadn’t just promised to kill someone without hesitation.
I didn’t move.
I’d seen him in combat. But this was different. This was personal. And all of it— all of it —was for me.
We got to the car in silence.
Kieran said nothing as he got back into the backseat. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t even glance at Callum.
I slid into the back, still gripping the USB like it might burn a hole in my palm.
Callum started the engine.
The entire drive back was cloaked in silence—heavy and sharp. No one spoke.
And somehow, that said more than shouting ever could.