Wolff
The warehouse sits thirty miles outside the city, surrounded by rusted fencing and acres of empty concrete that haven’t seen legitimate business in decades. Rain drums against the corrugated steel roof. Inside, the air smells like motor oil, damp concrete, and old blood.
Commander Weston and Gage stand in the center of the warehouse, staring at the two figures kneeling several feet away. Black canvas sacks cover both their heads. Their wrists are zip-tied behind their backs, ankles bound together.
Neither of them has stopped shaking since Graves and I threw them in the back of the van.
Graves leans against a steel support beam, smoking a cigarette. “They screamed the whole drive,” he says around the cigarette. “Mostly him. Daughter puked after the second stoplight.”
Weston walks forward slowly until he’s standing over them.
“Remove the bags.”
Graves pushes himself off the beam. “Showtime.” Reaching down, he yanks the first sack free.
Commander Harrington blinks against the warehouse lights, his face swollen from the ride over, one eye already beginning to close. Blood has dried beneath his nose.
He spots Weston.
Whatever bravado he’d been clinging to evaporates instantly.
“What the fuck is this?” he snaps, trying to straighten despite the restraints. “Untie me right now. You’re out of your goddamn mind!”
Weston doesn’t respond. His attention shifts to the second figure.
Graves crouches, yanks the bag off, and tosses it aside.
Devin gasps as cool air hits her face. Her blonde hair hangs in tangled strings around cheeks streaked with mascara and snot. Her wrists are rubbed raw where she’d fought the restraints. She starts hyperventilating the second she sees her father.
“Daddy!”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Commander Harrington says quickly, his voice cracking despite his attempt to sound calm. “It’s going to be okay. They can’t hurt us.”
“Don’t lie to her,” Weston says.
Devin lets out another broken sob.
Harrington jerks against the restraints, his face twisting with fury. “You piece of shit. You think I won’t end you for this? You think I won’t burn everything you’ve ever touched to the ground?”
Weston doesn’t even look at him.
He opens the file I gave him—the one Graves stole from Harrington’s desk. Every message translated. Every conversation with Akim. Every dirty deal laid out in black and white.
Harrington’s face drains of what little color it had left. “You have no right to that.”
“I had every fucking right the second you sold my daughter.” Weston closes the folder and crouches in front of Devin. “And you helped him.”
She shakes her head frantically. “No… I didn’t know…”
“You knew enough.”
“Daddy…” Her voice shatters. “Please…” She turns toward Harrington, tears streaming down her face. “He told me I had to. He said—”
Weston’s hand lands across her face. The crack echoes through the warehouse. Her head snaps sideways, blood spilling from her split lip onto the concrete.
“No…” she sobs. “No…”
“Your father sold you.” He grabs her jaw, forcing her to look at Harrington. “He made a deal with Akim he couldn’t pay. So Akim changed the price. You.”
Devin sobs harder.
“But when it came time to collect…he found another way.”
More tears slide down Devin’s face.
“You gave AJ your dress. And your daddy fed Akim her description. He let them take my little girl so they wouldn’t take his.”
Harrington’s breathing grows ragged. “Weston…listen to me—”
“No. You listen.” Weston stands slowly, looking down at Harrington with complete disgust. “You sold my daughter and sent her to hell. You watched me search for her. And every goddamn day, you smiled to my fucking face.”
Devin’s crying turns to wailing.
Weston gives me a nod. I pull my knife from its sheath and step behind her.
Her body locks up immediately. “Please. Please… I didn’t know. I didn’t want to… Please…”
I grab a fistful of her hair, tilting her head back. The blade presses against the side of her throat.
Harrington is thrashing against his restraints, face purple with rage and terror. “Don’t you fucking touch her! Weston, I’ll give you anything—money, territory, whatever you want—”
“You can’t give back what they took from my daughter.”
“Graves!” she screams. “Help me!”
Graves takes another drag of his cigarette. “Sorry, gorgeous. I don’t fuck with daddy issues.”
Harrington pulls against his restraints again. “You fuckers have no idea who you’re messing with—”
Weston pulls out his gun and puts a bullet through Harrington’s left kneecap. The scream that follows is immediate, blood spraying across the concrete floor.
“Stop fucking begging,” Weston says coldly. “This isn’t a negotiation. This is what happens when you make a deal with the devil and lose.”
He gives me a nod.
AJ was never supposed to be in Russia. Was never supposed to meet Akim. Never supposed to end up on that stage. Never supposed to spend months chained to a fucking bed, sold to monsters because one father decided someone else’s daughter was cheaper than his own.
Every nightmare.
Every scar.
Every panic attack.
It should’ve been someone else’s life. AJ should’ve gone home from Greece with a sunburn and too many fucking souvenirs. Instead, she went to Russia.
I drag the blade across Devin’s throat.
She gurgles, eyes wide with shock, blood pouring down her front in a bright red sheet. Her hands twitch uselessly behind her back as she collapses forward onto the concrete.
Harrington screams. It’s a raw, animal sound that echoes off the walls.
“Now it’s your turn,” Weston says to Harrington. He takes a knife from Graves and steps closer. “I’m going to take my time with you.”
He starts cutting.
First the fingers. Then the ears. Then deeper, carving into Harrington’s chest while the man screams and begs. Weston works methodically, like a man who has imagined this moment.
Gage stands frozen a few feet away, face pale, eyes wide. Weston glances at him mid-cut.
“This is a lesson for you, Gage. There are some things even bigger than the Sovereign. When they come for your blood, you don’t negotiate.”
When it’s finally over, Weston stands in the middle of the blood-soaked warehouse, breathing hard. For several long seconds, he doesn’t move.
Then he walks to a rusted metal chair and drops onto it, the knife slipping from his hand and clattering across the concrete.
“Fuck.” He drags a shaking hand down his face, leaving another streak of blood behind. “I haven’t done that in years.”
Graves wanders over, fishing a cigarette from his pocket before holding it out. Weston takes it without a word. The warehouse falls quiet, the rain against the roof the only sound. Finally, Weston looks at me.
“Two down.” He exhales a stream of smoke. “One’s still breathing.”
Akim.
I’ve spent the last month tracking him down through every contact I could shake loose. AJ’s in rehab. Safe. Making progress. The best facility I could find.
I stare at the blood drying across my knuckles. Now it’s time to finish this.
Weston crushes the cigarette beneath his boot. “Whatever resources you need…they’re yours, K9. You find that fucking bastard and you rip him apart. I want him to understand exactly why he’s dying.”
He doesn’t need to tell me. I’ve got a plan for that motherfucker. For every scar he left on her body. Every nightmare he put into her head.
I’m going to make him pay for all of it.
“And David?” My eyes cut to Weston.
He goes still, staring at the blood pooling across the concrete.
“I spent my whole life trying to make the right decisions for AJ. I thought David would give her stability. I thought I was securing her future.” His fingers tighten around the chair.
“Turns out, I handed her to another fucking predator.”
The security footage I studied, frame by fucking frame until my eyes bled, plays in my head again. The shoulder width. The gait. The way he favored his left knee. The fraction of a second when the porch light caught his jaw.
Every. Fucking. Frame.
Looks like she finally sees you for the monster you really are.
David’s words drill into my fucking skull. He wanted AJ to believe I was the one who raped her. He wanted her to look at me and see her worst fucking nightmare.
Gage steps forward from the shadows, face still pale but jaw set. “I’m going too.”
Weston’s head snaps toward him. “No, Son. I need you here. I need to cover up this fucking mess, and I need you with me. You’re staying.”
Gage’s fists clench at his sides, eyes flicking to the blood, to Devin’s body, to his father. “After everything they did to her—”
“Exactly,” Weston cuts in. “This is bigger than the Sovereign now. You stay here and help me bury this. Learn how we protect our own when the system fails.” He looks at me, his expression like stone. “Take care of him. We’ll take care of the rest.”
With pleasure, Commander. With absolute fucking pleasure.
“Goddamn. Two fucking Commanders down.” Graves exhales smoke. “I’ve never been more turned on.”
I’m halfway out the door when Weston calls after me. “K9.”
I glance back.
“Name your price.”
“When this is over…” My voice is steady. “AJ chooses. No arranged marriages. No political alliances. No Commanders deciding what’s best for her.” I hold his stare. “She chooses who she spends the rest of her life with.”
The warehouse goes silent as he studies me. “That’s your price?”
“It’s the only one I care about.”
He nods. “Done.”
I turn and push out the door. I didn’t ask for that promise thinking she’d choose me. I asked because for the first time in her fucking life…
She deserves the chance to choose at all.