Chapter 21 #2
“Some bloodlines are more valuable, and those go into the supply chain.” I hate how I’m saying it makes it sound like a logistical issue.
“Yes. I’m willing to bet there’s something special about the Sangrey line that they just found out about.
” He nods. “A courier they’d already written off just turned into something worth a great deal more.
” He taps the desk once. “The Syndicate doesn’t spend a dragon on a woman they’ve already cut loose. They were taking her back.”
The thought makes my teeth grind. “To put into the pipeline.”
“Most likely. And if blood is what they’re keeping the sister for, she’s not in a holding cell.
She’s in the trade Faine described.” He looks at me straight.
“Which changes how we hunt. If anyone in that pipeline hears that someone’s asking after one girl by name, she’ll disappear.
It won’t matter if her blood is valuable; they have a replacement lined up. ”
“So then we hunt quietly,” I say.
“We hunt quietly.” He opens a drawer, takes out a folder, sets both phones on top of it. “Vanya. Nobody else. She was the Ivory League’s best asset.”
“Ivory League?”
“Syndicate leadership. The Shadowhand…top of the ladder. Her records mapped half their network before we ever raided a facility. If the sister’s in the system, Vanya will find the thread.
The real phone goes to her tonight—the number that called Grace, the towers it routed through, the drop site, the region.
She’ll keep the circle small. No council. No paper trail.”
“How long?”
“If the sister hasn’t been moved recently, days. If she has, weeks. I won’t dress it up. She might not last that long. Shifters are strong, but months of heavy blood loss…” He shakes his head. “They could simply decide to empty her completely.”
I go cold. “There’s time pressure.”
“Very likely.” He closes the drawer. “And understand what I can’t do.
I can’t clear Grace. The council has that file; they know what’s on the phone…
and whoever built it is watching to see if it holds.
The day I set her loose, they know I’ve stopped believing it, and they go to ground.
Right now their work is holding, and they think they’ve won.
People who think they’ve won get comfortable, and comfortable people slip.
So we can’t openly clear your girl. On paper she’s a fugitive, and you’re the man who’ll bring her in. ”
“I can live with that.”
“Good,” he says, watching me. “Then bring her here. Not true containment—my roof, my protection, nothing on the record until this resolves. She’d be safer behind our wards than in whatever hole you’ve got her in.”
“No.” It’s out of me before the reasons are. Fast enough that Viktor’s eyes narrow.
“That was quick.”
“Whoever targeted her is here.” I keep my voice level. “You’d be putting her under the same roof as the person who framed her for murder. Your wards keep things out. They’ve never had to protect you from the inside.”
All sound arguments. They’re not the real ones.
Viktor studies me longer than I like.
“You’re sure your judgment’s clean on this?”
“It’s the same judgment you hired.”
He lets it go. He takes a fresh burner from the drawer and slides it across.
“You call me. No one else. Every second day unless something breaks. If something changes, if Vanya finds anything, you hear it from me first.” He stands, which means we’re done.
“Keep her buried, Decker. Whatever they wanted with her, they haven’t stopped wanting it. ”
The drive back feels as long as the one in. I spend it sorting what I’ll say from what I won’t.
Viktor believed me. I can tell her that.
Aurora is hunting for her sister, quietly, with the best operative they have.
I can tell her that too. It could take days, maybe weeks, and she’ll be viewed as a traitor the whole time.
She won’t like it, but she’ll take it, because she’s been taking worse for months.
Then there’s the rest.
Her sister isn’t being stored. She’s being used.
The clock on her isn’t how long until we find her—it’s whether we find her before somebody in that pipeline decides she’s cheaper drained.
And if Sangrey blood is worth that much, Grace is worth the same.
There’s a price on the woman in my den. I don’t understand it yet, and I already hate it.
I could tell her. She’s not fragile. She’s carried more than most people I’ve worked beside.
But she walked into that meeting in town knowing it could be a trap, because it was the only road left to her sister.
A woman who’ll spend herself that cheap will do it again the second she learns her own blood can buy what her intel never could.
She’d find a way off this mountain and hand herself over, and it wouldn’t save Serenity. It would just give them another source.
So I’ll carry it.
I leave the truck in the trees and climb the last stretch on foot with the light going. The den mouth comes up through the fir, and I stop below it with my hand on cold stone.
She’s going to ask me for everything.
I still don’t know how I’m going to say less than that and make her believe me.