Chapter 17
ALARIC STUDIED the blood on the concrete and decided it told a cleaner story than the man making it.
Rocco wheezed on the chair, wrists taped to the arms, face lumped and purple in uneven patches.
One eye had swollen shut. The other watched Alaric the way a rabbit watches a shadow.
Magnus stood off to the side, hands loose, breathing steady.
He could hit for hours without needing water or rest. He never rushed the last ten percent.
That was the difference between rage and skill.
Magnus had both and used the second to feed the first.
“Again,” Alaric said.
Magnus dragged the knuckles in once, short and brutal. Rocco’s head snapped and sagged. The sound he made was small and wet. The room smelled like bleach that had given up.
“You paid Tomas,” Alaric said. “Say it into the phone.”
Rocco coughed and swallowed. “I already told you.”
“You told my brother,” Alaric said. “Now you’ll tell Leif.”
He took out his phone and waited. The call rang.
No answer. He tried again. Still nothing.
He watched the screen a long second, then glanced at his palm.
The skin went tight. The small white arc at the base of the thumb had sharpened in the last hour.
Lightning. It didn’t burn. It didn’t glow.
It simply existed, as blunt and undeniable as the truth he was about to deliver.
He closed his fist and called again.
The third ring cut short. Leif took it. His voice came clipped and wrong, like he’d been running without air. “Talk.”
“We have your answer,” Alaric said. “It wasn’t Rocco.”
The silence on the line thinned and then held. Alaric didn’t fill it.
“Who,” Leif said.
“Tomas.”
On the chair, Rocco groaned. Magnus tipped his head, waiting for a word. One word. Alaric didn’t give it yet.
“Say that again,” Leif said.
“Tomas set the bomb,” Alaric said. “Rocco hired him because Tomas was for sale and because he hated you enough to make it cheap. Rocco’s story hasn’t shifted in an hour.”
Leif breathed once. “Where is he?”
“Where is Tomas?” Alaric corrected. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
A beat. Alaric heard a door open on Leif’s end. Footfalls. Someone swearing low. Leif’s voice came back harder. “With Mariah. He took her from the tower. He said he was taking her back to her apartment. That’s all I know.”
Magnus’s gaze cut to Alaric. The big man had blood on his knuckles and calm in his eyes. Waiting.
“How long ago?” Alaric asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Leif said. “Maybe twenty.”
Alaric’s mind mapped streets, lights, morning traffic, the way the streets choked at the wrong time of day. He saw the way Tomas would drive when he had a clock and a hostage, smooth and quiet and forgettable. He saw angles he didn’t like.
“You tried her phone?” Alaric said.
“She killed it,” Leif said. “To think without me in her head. I’ll deal with that later.”
“Later,” Alaric said.
He let the word sit. He looked at Rocco. The man’s chest moved in small jerks. Fear did that when a body had run out of other options. Alaric held the phone away from his mouth. “Magnus,” he said. “Tomas.”
Magnus leaned in until Rocco could see the cold in his eyes. “Say it again.”
Rocco’s voice came thin. “Tomas took the money. Tomas put the charge. I never had a man inside the penthouse. He did. He told me what route your security walked and when your sweep missed a cavity in the soffit. He sent photos. He knew how to move around Leif’s schedules. He had keys.”
Magnus straightened and nodded once. He didn’t look satisfied. He never did when a story finished the way he predicted. He just filed the confirmation and reached for the next task.
Alaric lifted the phone. “You heard that.”
“I heard it,” Leif said. “I’m on my way.”
“You’re not alone,” Alaric said. “I’ll take south. Magnus will take west. Titus, Zane, and Cade are inbound?”
“They will be,” Leif said. “I’m done asking. They’re closest to her apartment.”
“Good,” Alaric said.
There was a short sound on the line then, a harsh exhale that could’ve been a curse or a prayer. Alaric didn’t ask. He understood the shape of it. The Brand would be pulling like a hooked wire. When it pulled that hard, it meant one thing. Time had turned predatory.
“Leif,” Alaric said.
“What?”
“Are you steady?”
“I’m not the one bleeding,” Leif said. “Move.”
The line went dead. Alaric slid the phone into his pocket and turned to Magnus.
“Leif sent her with him,” Magnus said. No judgment in it. Just a fact that needed correction.
“He did,” Alaric said. “We’ll burn the mistake off fast.”
Magnus looked at Rocco. “What do you want from him?”
Alaric listened to the quiet inside himself and found the answer. “Closure,” he said. “Then a map.”
Magnus’s mouth ticked in something that wasn’t a smile. He planted a palm on the chair back and leaned down until his breath touched Rocco’s ear. “You gave us your Judas. Now you’ll give us streets and doors and the men Tomas drinks with when he thinks no one’s looking.”
“I don’t know,” Rocco said.
Magnus lifted his head. Alaric shook his once. Try again.
Rocco’s good eye fluttered. “I don’t know where he’s taking her.”
“I didn’t ask where he’s taking her,” Alaric said. “I asked where he hides when he’s proud of himself. There’s a difference.”
Rocco searched his memory. Men always did when you cut out every reason not to. It took ten seconds. Less. “He’s got a cousin at a warehouse on the water. The old fertilizer import. They turned the office into a card room.”
“The Trinity,” Alaric said. “East side or west?”
“East,” Rocco said. “Back road is blocked most days. You need the service gate. Security camera died last month and nobody fixed it.”
Alaric nodded and looked at Magnus. “You’ll clear that.”
“Now,” Magnus said.
“Not yet,” Alaric said. “Leif first.”
Magnus stared at Rocco. “You done with him?”
Alaric listened to the quiet inside himself and found the answer. “Yes.”
Magnus stepped forward. He didn’t posture. He didn’t speak. He finished it with the same efficiency he used to break a wristlock or strip a rifle. Rocco’s head sagged and did not lift again. The room went a different kind of quiet.
Alaric pulled a rag from the workbench and tossed it. Magnus cleaned his hands and tossed the rag back. The clock on the wall clicked. Somewhere below, a forklift beeped and rolled past. Life had the nerve to keep going.
“Call the car,” Alaric said.
Magnus moved to the door and spoke into the hall. He returned with fresh gloves and slipped them on, fingers flexing once. “You want the river first.”
“I want Leif first,” Alaric said. “If he’s already on the move, we don’t separate his head from his men.”
Magnus grunted. Agreement. He looked at the chair again, then at Alaric. “He said service gate.”
“He did,” Alaric said. “Tomas will expect we sweep the front and the office. He’ll use the dead camera. He’ll like that. It’ll make him feel clever.”
Magnus’s eyes went flat. “He’s clever enough to die last.”
“Maybe,” Alaric said. “Not today.”
He dialed Leif again. The phone picked up on the first ring this time.
“Two things,” Alaric said. “Rocco’s finished. We’ve got a location Tomas likes when he’s celebrating. East Trinity. Old fertilizer import. Service gate. Camera dead. If Tomas runs there, he won’t go inside. He’ll stage along the river and wait for an execution.”
“Copy,” Leif said. “I’m five minutes from her apartment.”
“Don’t go in blind,” Alaric said. “If he’s still there, he’s already moved his piece. Don’t let him trade yours.”
Leif gave a jagged laugh with no humor in it. “He won’t get the chance.”
“Magnus and I are inbound,” Alaric said.
There was a pause. Street noise bled through the line. A horn. A tire squeal. Leif spoke again, lower. “I can sense her.”
Alaric looked at his palm. The lightning bolt held steady, white and clean against skin that had seen too much. “Then move with that,” he said. “Not against it.”
The call ended. Alaric slipped the phone away and walked to the door. Magnus fell in at his shoulder. They pushed out into a corridor that smelled like oil and dust, then down stairs to the loading dock where heat sat in a low layer and made the air seem old.
A black sedan idled at the curb. Alaric slid into the back. Magnus took the front. The driver glanced at the rearview and waited.
“Trinity warehouse,” Alaric said. “Fast without noise.”
The car pulled into daylight. Dallas lifted around them in glass and concrete. They took side streets, then a cut-through behind a bakery that already had a line. Alaric watched the city the way a surgeon watches a screen. For anomalies. For openings. For a glint of something wrong.
“Magnus,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“If Tomas puts eyes on you first, you keep them. If he puts hands on her, you take them.”
Magnus’s mouth went hard. “Understood.”
MARIAH SAT stiff in the car seat, every nerve on edge. Tomas hadn’t moved the gun from his lap, though he hadn’t lifted it either. His silence scraped worse than threats. When she finally spoke, it was steady. “Why? Why betray him?”
Tomas’s jaw worked. “Because men like me don’t get seen. Leif never advanced me. Years at his side and he looked right through me. I was invisible.” His mouth twisted. “But Rocco saw me. Promised money. Promised I’d matter.”
Mariah swallowed, refusing to flinch even when the muzzle angled closer. “So you’ll sell him out? You’ll sell me out?”
“You don’t belong to him,” Tomas snapped. “You belong to Rocco. Always have. Your brother gave you to him. Leif stole what wasn’t his, and now he pays through you.”
Her wrists ached where he’d bound them, but her voice sharpened. “You’re wrong. I’m not a prize to hand from man to man. And if you think Leif hasn’t seen you, maybe it’s because you chose to stay in the shadows.”
Tomas’s eyes flared, rage hot enough to burn. “Shut up. You don’t know anything.”