Chapter 17 #2
She held his gaze, pulse hammering. Her chest grew tight with fear, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching her fold.
Tomas’s smirk cut like a knife, one she wouldn’t allow to hit its mark.
“You’re wrong. You think I’m just a tool to hurt him, but every threat you make only proves how small you really are. ”
“You think this is about you?” he scoffed. “It’s not. It’s about him. Hurting you hurts him. That’s the math. That’s all I need.”
“So I’m just leverage,” Mariah whispered. Her throat went painfully dry. “A way to get at Leif.”
He nodded once. “Too bad for you. I don’t want to spill your blood, but if it comes to that, I’ll do it. It’s about showing Leif what it’s like to lose something he thinks belongs to him.”
Her heart twisted at the coldness in his tone. “You’re wrong. He doesn’t see me as a thing.”
“Then why’d he leave you with me?” Tomas sneered. “Because he trusted me? Because he thought I’d stay invisible like always? I was never his equal. Never his brother. He kept me in the corner while he advanced others. Always others. You think I didn’t see that?”
The knot in her throat tightened. “So this is your revenge?”
“Revenge and survival,” he said. “Rocco promised me a huge payout. A future. He wanted you delivered. Now—” Tomas’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me something. Is he dead? Did Magnus finish him?”
She blinked, startled by the raw hunger in his question. “I don’t know.”
He slammed the butt of the gun against the dash, making her flinch. “Don’t lie to me! He has to be dead. That’s the only reason the line’s gone cold. If he’s gone, then I don’t get my final payment, and that means I do this my way. Getting even.”
“You’re pathetic,” she said, her voice trembling but strong. “You think hurting me makes you more visible? It just makes you weak.”
Tomas leaned closer, gun lifting until it brushed her cheek. “Careful. I might still need you breathing, but that doesn’t mean you don’t bleed.”
Mariah forced her voice steady. “Then what? You drag me to the Trinity like some offering? You think that’ll make you a king?”
“It’ll make me the man who broke Leif Severin,” he hissed. “And when he comes, he’ll come hard. Then he’ll see what I’ve done, and it’ll rip him apart. That’s enough. That’s my payment now.”
Her bound hands struggled against the rope, skin scraping. Every part of her screamed to fight, but she kept her eyes on him, steady, burning. “You won’t break him. You’ll only prove why he never trusted you in the first place.”
The words hit. She saw it in the flicker of his eyes, the way rage surged up to cover the wound she’d exposed. He shoved the gun back into his lap and started the engine. The chapel faded in the rearview as he turned onto the road, eyes cold and hard.
Mariah sat back, heart pounding, knowing every mile carried her deeper into his madness. She didn’t let herself cry. She didn’t let herself break. Not here. Not for him.
LEIF PUSHED out of his office, past a stale conference room that stank of coffee and fear, and headed for the garage at a run.
The Brand burned in his palm like someone had wired it to a live current.
Every step hit bone. He didn’t try to breathe through it.
He let it tell him what it always told him when she was too far and too quiet. Move.
“Keys,” he snapped. Viktor tossed a fob without looking up from the floor plans spread on the hood of a truck. “Apartment route’s clear,” Viktor said. “Titus and Zane are two minutes out. Cade’s already moving from the south.”
“Nobody goes lights and sirens,” Leif said. “I don’t want Tomas spooked.”
He slid behind the wheel of a black SUV and slammed the door. The Brand surged again, a hard pull north and east, while her apartment lay due west. Tomas was taking her to her apartment, but the bond tugged him toward the Trinity. He was torn in two—his head saying one thing, his hand another.
The last thing he had from her was silence, the deliberate cut of their bond when she killed her phone. That choice still stripped away logic as he fought between what he knew and what he felt.
He took the ramp out of the garage fast, tires chirping on the painted concrete.
Dallas opened in sun and glare. He punched the gas and cut left on instinct and habit.
The city was a map he’d memorized in violence.
He threaded through delivery vans and a city bus that wanted his lane and didn’t get it.
“Status,” he said into the comms bud in his ear.
Titus came on first. “I’m at her floor. Door’s intact. No sign of entry. I’m breaking in.” A pause, then his voice again, harder. “Apartment’s empty. She’s not here.”
Zane followed, voice edged. “Garage camera picked them up earlier. Tomas’s sedan left seven minutes before we started the sweep.”
Cade came in calm. He was always calm when it would be useful to someone else. “I’ve got street cams from three blocks out. Tomas took the cut toward the chapel district, then disappeared at the light.”
Leif’s fingers tightened on the wheel. The Brand pulled hard enough to sting.
Titus was at her door and she wasn’t there.
Cade’s cams showed Tomas cutting toward the chapel, but the bond kept dragging him toward Trinity.
He trusted the pull in his gut and made the call. “We pivot. All of us. Trinity.”
“Copy,” Cade said. “Alaric is inbound to Trinity. Magnus with him.”
Leif nodded out of habit and then remembered no one could see it. “Tell them to wait for my call before they breach.”
“They heard you,” Titus said dryly. “They’re choosing whether to obey.”
“They’ll obey,” Leif said. He took the last corner too fast. The SUV drifted and caught. He put it straight and counted the seconds until the Trinity warehouse came into view, a hulking shape of rusted steel and shadow by the river.
He killed the engine and was out before the vehicle finished rocking. The Brand went violent enough to take his breath. He pressed his palm to the burn and rode it.
A dozen boots hit gravel as the men piled out and gathered behind the shadowed line of a billboard.
The Trinity loomed close now, the warehouse a hulking shape of rusted steel and shadow by the river.
The crooked service gate waited like an old wound.
Cameras looked dead. The air smelled of oil and river tar.
Leif counted faces by habit. Titus, Zane, Cade, Alaric, Magnus. He didn’t need checks. He only needed them steady. He kept his voice low. “We’re not walking in loud. We don’t give him a show. We get in, get her, get out. No mistakes. No wasted time. No mercy.”
Titus stepped forward. “I go first,” he said. “I’ll take the service hinge. Small entry. I get the latch, ease it open just long enough for one man at a time, then the rest of you pour through behind me.”
Cade shaded the river line and pointed out possible handoffs. “If he tries to move her, the water side covers an exit. I’ll watch boats and alleyways. If anything moves, I drop him fast. He won’t see it coming.”
Alaric folded the map in his head and matched it to Rocco’s words from earlier.
“Camera’s dead. Service gate’s beat. He’ll likely stage her along the back to kill her, using the dead camera as cover.
That’s where we stop him. Magnus, you’re with me on the flank.
You force the yard. Titus, get the gate. Zane, with Leif. Cade, river watch.”
Magnus cracked his knuckles, the sound small and final. “We take one window,” he said. “We don’t kill anyone who can help us. Just the ones who make noise.” His eyes settled on the shadowed doors like a man choosing instruments.
Leif’s palm burned. The Brand tugged him toward her and he answered with a promise. “We move fast and clean. If anyone has a clear shot to stop him before he hurts her, we take it. If he runs, we box him in. No bargaining.”
They checked weapons, tightened straps, and mouthed last-minute confirmations. Quiet became a religion in the group. Leif stared at the dead camera high on the corrugated wall and thought of Mariah, of rope at delicate wrists, of a woman steady in the middle of a man’s fury.
“Positions,” he said. “Move on my mark.”