He nods fast. “Got it.” #2
I step closer until I’m directly in front of the man again. “Why Olivia?”
His brows pull together. “What?”
I hit him. Closed fist. Hard enough to snap his head sideways and split the skin at the corner of his mouth again. Not because I’m losing control. Because he touched her.
“Why Olivia?”
“I don’t know.”
Hammer grips the back of the chair.
Joker steps away, giving me space.
Shadow watches from the wall.
Logan says nothing.
The man tries to breathe around the blood in his mouth. “I don’t know why her. We don’t ask. We never ask. You ask, you don’t get called again. Sometimes it’s debt. Sometimes it’s men wanting women back. Sometimes it’s buyers with specifics. We don’t know which. We get a job and we do it.”
“You drug them all?”
“Usually.” The word usually turns the air black.
Blaze’s mouth curls. “Usually. He says usually like he’s talking about a fucking lunch order.”
The man looks toward him, desperate. “It’s business.”
Cain moves so fast the man doesn’t see it coming. His fist lands heavy against the side of the man’s face. The chair rattles. Blood spatters the concrete.
“Business?” Cain says, voice low enough to be more dangerous than yelling. “You grab women off streets and call it business?”
The man coughs, groaning.
Logan lets it happen.
So do I.
Cain steps back after one hit because Cain still has control and a family upstairs that reminds him what happens when violence spills too far.
I don’t have that kind of anchor. Not yet. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Olivia is becoming one. I shove that thought down where it belongs.
“What happens after delivery?” Shadow asks.
The man shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Hammer’s hand tightens.
“I don’t,” he insists. “We drop and leave.”
“Who verifies?”
“Different crews. Handlers. I don’t fucking know what they call themselves.”
“Names,” Logan says.
The man hesitates.
Wrong.
Hammer drives his fist into his ribs again, same spot as before. This time something gives. Not fully broken maybe, but close enough that the sound changes. The man screams.
Joker closes his eyes for half a second like he’s savoring the sound.
Blaze sees it and mutters, “See, that’s why no one invites you to normal hobbies.”
Joker opens his eyes and looks at him.
Blaze points at the man. “Focus, psycho.”
Joker’s mouth curves slightly.
The man sobs once, humiliated by it, and that does more than the pain. Pride cracks before bone sometimes. “Denton,” he gasps. “A guy named Denton handled one drop. I don’t know if it’s his real name.”
“Last name?” Logan asks.
“No.”
“Where?”
“Montgomery. Two months ago.”
Shadow pulls out his phone and starts typing.
“More,” I say.
The man’s head rolls slightly. “I don’t know.”
I crouch in front of him. Eye level. That scares him more than standing over him.
Good.
“Who else has her folder?”
His face blanks. “What?”
I don’t repeat the question.
He looks from me to Logan, then back. “I don’t know.”
The room stills. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just every man in it understanding he gave the wrong answer.
My control changes. Not breaks. Not slips. Changes. Patient violence has a different shape.
The man sees it and starts talking too fast. “I don’t know. I swear. The scout maybe. Whoever requested her. The middleman. Maybe transport if the file goes with her. I don’t know how many copies.”
Copies.
The word cuts deep. Her picture. Her family. Her routine. Passed hand to hand. Bought. Sold. Studied.
I stand.
Logan’s eyes are on me.
Shadow’s too.
Joker smiles again, slow and faint, like he recognizes the exact moment violence stops being a reaction and becomes a plan.
“Wrong answer,” I say.
The man starts begging. Not words worth writing down. Just noise.
I don’t hit him yet. That would be easy. I turn to Logan instead. “They have a chain. We find every link.”
Logan’s face stays hard. “We will.” He hears it. The personal edge under the strategy. I don’t pull it back. I just don’t acknowledge it. Logan steps closer, lowering his voice. “You don’t get to turn this into a private war.”
“It isn’t private.”
“It is if you start making calls off instinct.”
“This is information.” I hold his stare. He isn’t wrong. Doesn’t matter. “They had her folder,” I say.
“I know.”
“They had her routine.”
“I know.”
“They put a needle in her neck.”
Logan’s jaw flexes. “I know.”
“Then you know what happens next.”
The room is quiet around us.
Even Blaze shuts up.
Logan’s eyes hold mine for a long second. President to brother. Brother to problem. Problem to weapon. Finally, he says, “What happens next is we do this right.”
“Then do it fast.”
His mouth tightens. “You forget who gives orders?”
“No.” That’s not apology. It’s truth. He hears the difference. Punishment is still coming for me walking past him upstairs. I know that. He knows I know. It sits between us, waiting its turn. Not now. Not with Olivia’s folder in my hand.
Logan looks toward Shadow. “Get Dom on the burner. I want everything stripped. Contacts, call logs, pings, routes.”
Shadow nods and steps out.
“Blaze,” Logan says.
Blaze straightens. “Yeah?”
“Take the folder. Copy what we need. Then get it back upstairs locked away.”
My hand tightens around it.
Logan sees.
Everyone sees.
He steps closer. “Cobra.”
I don’t move.
“It’s evidence.”
“It’s hers.”
“It’s both.”
I hate that. But it’s true enough.
Blaze’s humor is gone when he holds out his hand. “I’ll keep it clean.”
I look at him. He doesn’t make a joke.
Smart.
I hand him the folder. It feels wrong leaving my hand. Everything about tonight feels wrong.
Blaze takes it carefully, like even he understands that paper has weight now.
Logan turns back to the man in the chair. “You’re going to keep talking.”
“I told you everything.”
Joker laughs. Soft. Awful. “No,” he says. “You told us the beginning.”
The man starts shaking again.
I look at Hammer. Then Cain. Then Joker.
“Have your fun,” I say.
The man’s eyes jerk to me, panic going wide and white.
I step closer one last time. “But save his last breath for me.”
No one questions it. Not even Logan.
The man begins begging again.
This time, I walk out before the sound can become satisfying.
The hallway outside the cage is colder than upstairs, but it feels easier to breathe in for half a second. Only half. Then Olivia’s face from the folder pushes back into my head. Laughing. Unaware. Watched.
My hands curl. I force them open. Strategy.
That’s what this is. Find the scout. Find Denton.
Find the handler. Find the buyer. Find anyone who saw her picture and thought they could turn her into a job.
Every link. One by one. That’s all. That’s the plan.
Not anger. Not need. Not the way my chest tightens when I think of her waking upstairs, scared and trying to leave because she doesn’t understand yet that the world outside has teeth already sunk into her name.
I head for the stairs. Behind me, the first scream starts. I don’t slow. I don’t look back. They can have him for now. I have something more important to check on.
Her.