Chapter Forty
GAbrIAL
THE ROOM was silent except for the slow drip of water in the corner.
The man knelt on the tile, wrists bound, shoulders hunched like he thought shrinking small enough would save him. Blood already streaked his jaw from the beating before. His shirt was torn, his breath ragged.
I let him stay quiet. Let him think silence might be his salvation.
I poured a glass of wine at the side table, slow and deliberate. The liquid bled dark against the crystal. Only when the room was still again did I speak.
“You walked into the bikers’ den,” I said evenly. “And you were seen.”
His head jerked up, eyes wide. “No—”
“Yes,” I cut in, voice calm, final. “You lingered too long. Drew their attention. Now their eyes are open.”
He shook his head, desperate. “I asked the questions just like you ordered. I kept it vague. They don’t know anything.”
“They know enough.”
I nodded once. The guard raised his pistol.
The man’s pleas cut off in a sharp crack of gunfire. His body collapsed forward, staining the tile darker.
I let the silence stretch. None of the others dared to move.
“Failure,” I said, setting the glass aside, “is weakness. And weakness spreads like rot. I do not tolerate infection in my house.”
Emilio stood nearest the wall, jacket still carrying the grit of the road. He didn’t flinch. He knew better.
“Tell me,” I said, wiping a crimson drop from my cuff, “what you’ve learned since.”
“She’s in Charleston,” he answered. “With the bikers. The Devil’s House MC. They’re protecting her—keeping her and the children under their roof. It isn’t hiding anymore. It’s a shield. They’ve put themselves between her and us.”
My mouth curved. “Of course they have. Outlaws always mistake theft for charity. They take what isn’t theirs, wrap it in leather and steel, and call it brotherhood.”
I walked to the window. Outside, the courtyard fire pits burned low, embers smoldering like eyes in the dark. The mark of the Flame was everywhere—carved into stone, stitched into banners, inked into flesh.
“She thinks,” I murmured, “that she can live another life. That she can carry what is mine into another man’s house, another man’s bed. That she can make the children forget who gave them breath.”
I turned, fixing my gaze on Emilio. “She has forgotten what happens to women who believe freedom is anything more than a lie.”
He hesitated, then said carefully, “There is… another option. A man close to them. Someone we can use.”
I stilled. “Use?”
“He already carries a secret. One he knows would kill him if it came out. Fear is the oldest chain. Pull it tight enough, he’ll move as we tell him. No one will see it for what it is.”
A slow smile spread across my face.
“Weak men are the easiest to bend,” I said. “They think silence will keep them safe, when really it only makes them mine.”
I lifted my glass again, swirling the last of the wine, watching the red catch the light.
“Let the bikers play at guardianship. Let them believe they’ve stolen from me. When they are comfortable, when they think she belongs to them…” I sipped, savoring it.
“…that is when I will take her back. And with her, everything they hold dear.”