Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
GRACE
Ithought I was ready to watch Ignacio suffer.
I’d told myself I was. I’d repeated it in my head over and over while we dragged him downstairs—reminded myself of every moment he stole from me, every fear he carved into my bones. I thought feeling justified would make this easier.
It didn’t.
Every sound in that basement scraped at nerves that were already bruised raw. The zap of electricity, the stifled gasps, the way the air shifted right before Voodoo pressed the button—all of it mixed into a nauseating cocktail I tasted on the back of my tongue. And the smell…
God, I wasn’t prepared for that. Sweat, adrenaline, damp concrete, and something sharp and metallic that made my stomach twist until I had to brace a hand against my thigh to keep from doubling over.
I kept my face blank. Eyes forward. Breathing even.
My whole life had been choices made under pressure.
Someone always wanted something from me—my talent, my charm, my image, my silence.
Every deal, every performance, every false smile was a negotiation of what I was willing to give.
And Ignacio… Ignacio was just the darkest twist on a pattern I’d spent years pretending I wasn’t trapped in.
He saw me and decided he had the right to take whatever he wanted.
No warning. No care. No humanity.
He was the embodiment of every nightmare I’d swallowed and every compromise I’d made to stay afloat. Yet watching him jerk in that chair didn’t erase anything he’d done. It didn’t make me feel powerful. It didn’t even make me feel safe.
It just made me feel hollow.
Like there were only so many pieces of myself I could carve away in the name of survival before I had nothing left worth saving. That sacrifice with Ignacio all those months back had helped to save me ultimately, I could live with that no matter how much he made my skin crawl now.
Voodoo was steady. Too steady. His voice was a low anchor in the storm, calm where Bones seethed like a bottled storm, and AB held himself apart. Yet even his clinical distance seemed a facade whenever I caught the anger blazing in his eyes.
Watching Voodoo work—measured, controlled, relentless—was its own kind of disorienting. He took no real joy in this. He would probably be happier if we could just end him and be done with it. At the same time, he hated what Ignacio had done to me more.
That knowledge both warmed and terrified me. Legend’s arrival was a lifeline I didn’t necessarily need, yet made staying above water that much easier. That he dragged an unconscious Sinclair with him…
My sister’s former boss. The man who might know exactly who Ignacio’s “rumored” benefactor actually was. The man we’d needed since the moment this nightmare began and if only I’d realized it sooner.
Somewhere inside, a spark lit—small but real. Relief. Maybe even hope.
Legend had joined Voodoo after he deposited his burden, but he cut a quick look at me, warmth filling his eyes as he gave me a once over. Funnily enough, I’d been giving him a similar inspection. Wanted to make sure he was okay. “Hey, Gracie,” he mouthed the words, winking once. “Miss me?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded once.
But Ignacio whimpered at the sight of new faces, and the moment shattered. The torture wasn’t done. The answers weren’t complete. And the smell—the awful, cloying mix of fear and sweat and scorched air—hit me again, harder this time.
I forced the bile back down.
We needed the truth. All of it.
I could fall apart later.
So I stayed. I locked my reactions down. It was when I fixed my eyes on Ignacio once more, that realized his attention had gone to Sinclair. Fear, genuine fear, not pain-laced fear or begging-laced fear flooded his face.
Fear and defeat.
Had he just realized there was only one way out of this situation for him? A vicious part of me did a little fistbump.
Good.
Because maybe now—finally—he’d talk.
Ignacio’s lips moved first—barely a twitch, like his mouth was trying to form a word before his brain could catch up. Whatever he tried to say came out as a raw, broken scrape of sound. I didn’t catch it. No one did.
He swallowed. Tried again.
“—fanta.” Barely more than a gasp. Garbled. Wet around the edges.
Voodoo took one slow step closer. Calm. Controlled. Deadly.
“Repeat it,” he ordered, voice soft as a closing door. “Clearly.”
Ignacio’s eyes darted to Sinclair again—unconscious, slumped, completely unaware of the havoc his mere presence had wrought. Breathing shallow, Ignacio shook his head once, sharply, as if trying to refuse the word instead of the instruction.
Voodoo lifted the remote just a fraction.
Ignacio broke.
“Infanta,” he choked out.
The word cracked through the basement like a gunshot.
Bones froze. Alphabet looked up so fast his chair squealed against the floor. Legend’s easy slouch straightened into something sharp.
My stomach gave a sickening twist. I didn’t know the meaning, not exactly, but something in the way Ignacio said it—half terror, half surrender—hit me like a cold hand on the back of my neck.
Voodoo didn’t move. Didn’t react outwardly. But something in the line of his shoulders changed, a subtle tightening, like a string pulled taut.
“Infanta,” Ignacio repeated, quieter now, like saying it too loud might summon whatever nightmare the name belonged to.
“Who is that?” Bones growled, stepping forward, barely leashed violence rolling off him in waves.
Ignacio winced like even the question hurt. “A name,” he whispered. “A title. I don’t—I don’t know which. That’s all I heard.”
“A nickname, then,” Alphabet said, tone clipped, already typing one-handed. His eyes had gone flat in that dangerous, calculating way.
“It’s all I know,” Ignacio insisted quickly, desperately. “I swear. I wasn’t told more. I wasn’t—”
His voice cracked on the last word. Broke apart like something inside him finally understood he’d already signed his own death sentence.
Voodoo lowered the remote, just slightly. Not a reprieve, not really. More like a pause. A moment to weigh the truth or the lie in Ignacio’s words.
I gripped my hands together, digging my fingers into the flesh of each as if that little bite of pain would keep me grounded and present. The scent of scorched hair lingered, thick and nauseating. My stomach rioted again, and I clenched my teeth until the wave passed.
Infanta.
That was a name given to the female offspring of a monarch, but not an heir. Not quite a princess, yet also a princess. That didn’t make any sense.
Around me, the guys shot each other speaking looks, communicating more with their eyes and expressions than most people did with their words.
Some of it, I even understood. Legend hadn’t been here long enough to read Ignacio so he waited for Voodoo’s verdict.
Bones wanted verification before they ended him.
AB? His fingers flew over his laptop, always digging for more intelligence. But what was he going to turn on just searching Infanta unless it was some codename for another black ops program or dangerous operative. What were the chances of that? Really?
I didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t let myself feel the flood of dread, fury, or the sick twist of vindication unfurling through me.
But if I was reading Ignacio right, and I was pretty sure I was, then Infanta wasn’t just a clue, it was a key. We just needed to know where to look.
One more goddamn mystery.
Voodoo didn’t waste the opening Ignacio had given.
A spare few moments after “Infanta” settled like poison in the air, Voodoo closed the distance once more until he was close enough that Ignacio shrank back even though he had nowhere to go.
“Where did you hear the name?” Voodoo asked.
Ignacio’s breath stuttered. “I—I don’t know—just… people talking.”
“When?”
“During… pickups. Sometimes.”
“Who said it?”
“I don’t—someone from the docks—maybe—”
“What was your plan for Grace when you tried to escape with her?”
Ignacio flinched so hard the chair scraped. “I—nothing—I wasn’t—”
“Answer the question.”
“N-no plan, I swear—just—keep her…”
“Keep her?” Voodoo pressed.
“Keep her, my pet. She’s beautiful, she feels beautiful when she rides your cock, she’s so perfect and I wanted to keep her forever.” He wet his lips, not looking at her as if he didn’t dare. “The buyers would not notice, and if they did…”
Grace felt something inside her go cold.
He didn’t even have a plan. Just impulse. Just want. He played the power broker because he just wanted me.
“If the buyers were upset,” Voodoo prompted, “what would have happened?”
Ignacio sagged. “They… would handle it.” Me. They would handle him. Though he didn’t say that aloud.
Not once did Voodoo let the answers just linger, from one question to the next, he pushed him. “How did you and your men get your tasks?”
“Phone. Burner phones. Always changing.”
“Who gave the orders?”
A helpless shake of his head. “Never saw him. Never heard his real voice.”
Voodoo’s expression didn’t flicker. His voice stayed maddeningly steady.
“Where were the orders sent from?”
“Different numbers. Sometimes texts. Sometimes calls. Sometimes a middleman at the port.”
“Which port manager?”
Ignacio mumbled a name—one Alphabet immediately typed, only to shake his head a second later. “He died six months ago,” AB muttered. “Not helpful.”
“When were you given destinations?”
“Last minute,” Ignacio whispered. “Always. They changed all the time. Pickups changed. Drop points changed. Nothing stayed the same.”
“Why?” Voodoo asked.
“Competition? Malice? Stupidity?” Ignacio let out a choked laugh—half misery, half hysteria. “Because they didn’t trust us. Because we weren’t important. We were just… hands. Labor. Disposable.”
His eyes darted to me once more and I refused to look away.
“Define your role,” Voodoo said.
Ignacio swallowed hard. “The pickup. The allocation. Then prepping the cargo for transport.”
Cargo.