Chapter Three
Mara woke up hurting.
For half a second, nothing made sense.
Then it all came rushing back at once.
The office. The locked door. Her boss’s face hardening as the numbers stopped being numbers and started being names. Hands on her. The stairwell. The street. The car.
The men who had saved her.
Her breath hitched, but she didn’t panic. Panic wasted time.
She forced herself to breathe slowly, cataloguing what her body was telling her the way she always did when something went wrong.
This wasn’t the sharp, frantic pain of fear.
This was the heavy, grinding ache that settled in once adrenaline burned out.
Her ribs throbbed with every breath. Her cheek felt tight and hot, skin stretched over swelling.
When she shifted even slightly, something deep in her side protested and she hissed, curling instinctively inward.
Bruised. Badly.
But alive.
That mattered.
She knew where she was.
The knowledge anchored her before her eyes ever opened. She wasn’t in her car. She wasn’t on the street. She wasn’t in her office.
Her eyes opened slowly.
The ceiling above her was unfamiliar—plain, off-white, faintly cracked near one corner. No flickering fluorescents. No buzzing. Just quiet. Real, solid quiet.
Memory followed, not all at once, but in manageable fragments.
Being helped inside. Not carried—guided. A narrow hallway. A room already prepared.
A woman with tired eyes and a calm, professional voice asking, where does it hurt?
No names. No soothing lies. Just practiced hands pressing gently along her ribs, checking her pupils, listening to her lungs.
Bruised, not broken, the woman had said. Hurts like hell either way.
Then soup. Salty and hot. Someone sitting nearby while she ate, not talking, just there.
Sleep had taken her before she could argue.
Soft mattress. Clean sheets. A faint smell of antiseptic and coffee.
Safe.
For now.
Mara exhaled carefully and turned her head.
The room was sparsely furnished but intentional. She’d noticed that even before—no wasted space, no personal clutter. A place meant to be used, not lived in.
She could hear movement beyond the walls now. Footsteps. A low murmur of voices. She wasn’t alone.
That realization settled something deep in her chest. A small table with medical supplies neatly arranged. A chair pulled close to the bed. No clutter. No personal touches. Like a place meant for recovery, not living.
A safehouse, then.
Figures.
She pushed herself up on one elbow and immediately regretted it. Pain flared hot and bright through her ribs, stealing her breath.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“Careful.”
The voice came from the doorway.
Luca leaned against the frame, arms crossed, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t fool her for a second. He looked the same as he had in the car—solid, controlled—but now without the rush of motion around him, she noticed more.
The faint scar along his jaw was jagged, and no doubt would have hurt like hell.
The way his dark eyes took her in, assessing without crowding.
“Doc says bruised ribs,” he said. “Bad ones. You’re going to feel like shit for a few days.”
“Only a few?” she muttered.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re optimistic I see.”
She shifted again, slower this time, and leaned back against the pillows. “How long was I out?”
“Couple hours.”
“And you stayed?”
“Yeah.”
The answer was immediate. Unqualified.
That unsettled her more than it should have.
She glanced down at herself. Someone had taken her jacket, folded it neatly over the chair. Her bag sat on the table within reach.
“Luca,” she said, when his eyes followed her gaze. “If you took anything—”
“We didn’t,” Luca cut in. “Your stuff’s untouched. Including the drive.”
Her fingers curled into the sheet. Relief washed through her, sharp enough to sting.
“Kol insisted,” he added dryly. “Said if we wanted you to trust us, stealing your leverage would be a stupid fucking way to start. I was all for taking it and then putting it back and pretending we didn’t do shit.”
She snorted before she could stop herself, then winced.
“Still not convinced,” she said.
“That’s fine,” Luca replied. “You don’t have to trust us yet. Just don’t do anything reckless.”
Her gaze hardened. “Like what?”
“Like trying to walk out with cracked ribs and no backup.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, she asked, “Why are you really helping me?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, stopping just short of the bed. He didn’t loom. Didn’t crowd. Just existed there, solid and immovable.
“Because men like your boss count on women being weaker than them and alone,” he said. “And because he crossed a line we never would.”
“Lots of men cross lines,” she said quietly.
“That is true,” Luca said with a nod, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Even us. We break more laws than most, and we sure as shit have benefited from that. But there are just some lines we do not cross, and we don’t let others get away with crossing them. Not with us watching.”
That sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with pain.
A knock sounded softly at the door before either of them could speak again.
Mateo stepped in first, carrying two coffees and the faint scent of cold night air with him.
Up close, he was even broader than he’d looked in the car, shoulders filling the doorway like he’d been built to block it.
Dark hair was cropped short at the sides, longer on top and shoved back like he never bothered with a mirror, and his eyes were a warm brown that missed nothing.
Ink crept up from beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt—black and bold.
“You’re awake,” he said, tone blunt but not unkind. “Good. Means you didn’t crack anything important.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I feel deeply reassured.”
Mateo huffed a laugh and set one of the cups down. “You should be. I’ve seen worse walk away.”
Kol followed him in, silent as ever, phone in hand.
He was lean where Mateo was solid, all sharp lines and contained energy, dark hair cut close and eyes a cool, unreadable grey that flicked over her like a scanner before settling back into stillness.
He paused just inside the room, eyes flicking to her with quick, sharp interest.
“You ran, and took help when it was offered,” he said. “Not many people do that right.”
“Wasn’t pretty,” she replied.
“No, but it was effective,” Kol said, which sounded like praise coming from him.
Mateo leaned back against the wall. “Your boss is making calls. Loud ones.”
Her stomach tightened. “To who?”
“Anyone who’ll listen,” Mateo said. “And a few who shouldn’t.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. “Which means we don’t have much time.”
Mara looked between them. Three men. No softness. No false comfort.
Just facts.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Luca met her gaze. “Now you heal. We debrief the rest of our team, and we figure out who else is involved. And then we decide what to do about it.”
“And if I don’t like your plan?”
Mateo smirked. “Then you can tell us to go fuck ourselves.”
Kol added, deadpan, “For full disclosure, we probably won’t.”
Against her better judgment, Mara laughed.
It hurt like hell.
But for the first time that night, it was real.
****
Luca didn’t like closed doors.
He tolerated them. Used them when he had to. But he trusted rooms where he could see every exit far more than ones that shut the world out.
The conference room off the safehouse kitchen was one of the latter. No windows. Thick walls. A single door that locked from the inside.
Which meant it was used for one thing only.
Truth.
Luca took the seat closest to the door. Habit, not dominance.
Mateo dropped into the chair opposite him, stretching his long legs out, boot hooking around the table leg like he was anchoring himself to the floor.
Kol leaned against the wall instead of sitting, phone already dark in his hand, attention fixed on the room rather than the device.
The fourth chair remained empty.
That wasn’t unusual.
“You checked the perimeter?” Luca asked.
“Twice,” Mateo replied. “And again because you were going to ask.”
“Good.”
Kol’s mouth twitched faintly. “Doc cleared her for minimal movement, not travel. Ribs will scream if she sneezes.”
“She won’t,” Mateo said. “She’s too stubborn.”
Luca exhaled through his nose. “That stubbornness is the only reason she’s still breathing.”
That earned him a look from Kol.
“Agreed,” Kol said. “She clocked the stairwell. Used it. Didn’t freeze.”
Mateo nodded once. “She took a hit and still ran. Most people would have folded.”
Silence settled—not heavy, but deliberate.
Then the door opened.
No knock. No announcement.
Just a presence that shifted the room.
Elias stepped inside.
He didn’t fill the doorway the way Mateo did. Didn’t move with Kol’s quiet sharpness. He was average height, neatly dressed, dark coat unbuttoned, hands bare.
But the room reoriented around him anyway.
Luca stood.
So did Mateo.
Kol straightened, phone slipping into his pocket.
Elias waved them down without a word and took the empty chair, folding his hands on the table as if he’d always been there.
“Report,” he said.
Luca leaned forward slightly, forearms braced on the table. “She clocked the tail before she hit the garage. Didn’t panic. Let them think she was rattled.”
Elias said nothing, eyes fixed on Luca.
“They went hands-on near her car,” Luca continued. “She let it happen just long enough to get them close. Used the stairwell instead of the vehicle. Took a hit to the ribs and kept moving.”
Mateo snorted. “Most people would’ve curled up on the concrete.”
“She didn’t,” Luca said. “She ran. Almost made it out clean.”
Kol pushed off the wall. “They misjudged her. Assumed her fear meant compliance.”
Luca nodded once. “That mistake is the only reason she’s alive.” He looked back to Elias. “We pulled her from the street. Bruised ribs. Facial swelling. No breaks. She had the drive on her the whole time.”
Silence followed.
Elias absorbed it without reaction. He didn’t ask questions he already knew the answers to.
When he finished, Elias nodded once.
“And her boss?” Elias asked.
“Dirty,” Mateo said. “But not the top of this particular pile of shit.”
Kol added, “Too many outgoing calls. Too fast. He’s panicking.”
Elias’s gaze flicked between them. “And the woman?”
Luca answered without hesitation. “She’s strong. She’s smart. And she knows she’s in danger.”
“That wasn’t the question,” Elias said mildly.
Luca held his gaze. “She’s not expendable.”
For a moment, the room went very still.
Then Elias nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Then we proceed.”
Mateo leaned back. “We tell her about the Covenant?”
“Enough to get her to trust us,” Elias replied. “But not everything.”
Kol’s head tilted. “She’ll have questions.”
“She’s already asking them,” Luca said.
Elias’s mouth curved slightly. “Then, Luca, give her the truth that matters.”
Mara was awake when they came looking for her in her bedroom.
She was sitting up in bed, mug of water balanced carefully in both hands, pain etched into the tightness around her eyes but her spine straight.
Luca stopped just inside the doorway.
“You ready?” he asked.
“For what?” she replied.
“For some pain medication and some answers.”
She wrinkled her nose in a way that Luca refused to find adorable. “Can I skip the medication and go straight to the answers?”
Luca was already shaking his head. “No chance in hell. Why hurt when you don’t have to?”
Mara sighed. “Because they make me a little fuzzy. I want my head clear for this.”
Luca looked at her for a long moment. “Take the medication, we’ll keep it brief and to the point.”
Mara huffed a soft laugh that ended in a grimace. “Yeah, because the three of you are Chatty Kathy’s at the best of times. But, yeah, okay, let’s get the medication in. I hurt like hell.”
They moved to the small dining table. Mateo pulled out a chair for her without comment and Luca handed her the medication before sitting down opposite her. Kol stayed near the wall, as if distance were a choice rather than a habit.
“There’s something you need to understand,” he said. “About who we are.”
Mara didn’t interrupt.
“We belong to an organization called the Iron Covenant,” Luca continued. “We’re not law enforcement. We’re not vigilantes looking for medals either. We do commit crimes and we operate in the spaces where the law fails.”
Mateo crossed his arms. “We don’t traffic women. We don’t touch kids. We don’t sell people. Ever.”
“And if someone does?” Mara asked.
Kol answered. “They don’t get to keep doing it.”
“You said that you broke laws,” Mara asked something that had been bothering her since the night they all met. “And that the crime you all committed was organized. That screams Mafia to me. Is that what you are?”
Luca sensed that Mateo and Kol shared a look, while he just gave her a small smile. “Short answer? Yes. But there is a long answer to that question as well.”
Mara frowned. “And that is?” Luca knew this was not the time to get into all of that.
“You know, I’m on the run and the man I have been working for over the past 18 months has been trafficking humans for reasons that absolutely turn my stomach, and I have nothing but a strong desire to not think about all of that in any detail, so I am up for story time.
Trust me when I tell you, I can handle the truth. ”
Luca sat back in his chair, his gaze never leaving hers “Oh, we have no doubt of that guerriera.” That had just slipped out, but she was most certainly a warrior no matter what language you used to address her as one.
“But there is more at stake here than we can tell you, so please, just trust us for now.”
She didn’t like that, he could tell from the way her grip tightened on the mug. “And Grant Havelock?”
“He crossed that line we just spoke about, and we have been on him for a while,” Luca said. “And because you saw part of what he is doing—and because you ran and were smart as hell to bring evidence with you—you’re under our protection now.”
“For how long?”
Luca still met her gaze. “As long as it takes.”
She studied their faces. Three men who didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften the truth.
“Do I get a choice?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mateo said immediately. “You always get a choice, Mara.”
“And if I walk?”
Mateo shrugged. “We won’t stop you.”
Kol added, “We’ll still keep an eye out for you, though. It’s a nasty habit we have.”
Mara exhaled slowly.
“I don’t like being in the dark,” she said.
Luca nodded. “Neither do we.”
She looked down at her hands, then back up.
“Okay,” she said. “Then tell me what happens next.”
Luca felt something settle into place.
Not relief.
Commitment.