Chapter 32
Callum
I’ve known rage most of my life. It’s lived in me, a low simmerin’ fire in my gut, the kind that never goes out, just waits for a reason to flare.
But this—what I feel now—this is different.
This is what happens when a woman like Seraphina Vex decides she’s done takin’ shit from the world.
It’s not grief that’s got her tight-lipped and starin’ straight through walls.
It’s purpose. A fire’s been lit under her, and fuck me, I want to feed it until everything burns.
She didn’t cry when she saw that photo. Her mother, barely more than a girl, standin’ in a filthy room with others like her, all labeled like livestock.
Twenty-six years ago. She didn’t break down or sob.
She went silent. Still. Like a hurricane right before it rips through the coastline.
And now? Now she’s movin’ like a woman possessed, and I’m not ashamed to say I’d follow her into hell if she asked.
I stayed behind when she went to shower.
Reaper’s file still open on the laptop, the contents turnin’ my stomach inside out.
I’ve seen horror. I’ve done worse. But this?
It’s rot, pure and simple. Images, reports, receipts—proof of monsters wearin’ suits and uniforms and church robes.
They laughed in messages about the virgins, complainin’ they couldn’t "use them" until the buyers were done inspectin’ them. Human lives, turned into currency. Even now, some of the faces I recognize are men who sit in Parliament, generals on active fuckin’ duty, elite donors with pristine reputations.
The kind of men the world trusts. The kind who smile for the cameras while the filth they built festers underground.
My fists clenched so hard my knuckles split again—same scar from Serbia, right where I always split 'em. Pain grounds me. Keeps me sharp.
Seraphina stepped into the room behind me, hair damp from the shower, tied up with that look in her eye again—quiet, but dangerous. "Any progress?" she asked.
I nodded, still starin’ at the screen. “Some. Not enough.” I motioned for her to come closer. She leaned over my shoulder, brows furrowed as she scanned the files.
“What’s this folder?” she asked.
“Secondary funders,” I told her. “The ones clean enough to show face in public, but dirty enough to launder blood money in the dark.”
She scrolled through a few names, muttered one under her breath. “They’re untouchable.”
I gave her a slow smile, one with no warmth in it. “Aye. But untouchable doesn’t mean unkillable, darlin’.”
She went quiet. I think she liked hearin’ it said out loud.
We’d been circlin’ the idea for weeks now—takin’ Blackdawn apart piece by piece. But this... this turned the idea into a mission. With her mother’s face now part of the evidence, part of the why , there’s no goin’ back. No more slow dances around morality or hesitation. It’s war now.
As I kept diggin’, I came across another image that stopped me cold.
Grainy. Black and white. Time-stamped fifteen years ago.
A cage, somewhere deep in a facility. Inside, a girl no older than ten or eleven, bruises on her face, hands zip-tied behind her back.
And next to her, grinnin’ like the fuckin’ devil himself, was a face I hadn’t seen in years—but one I’d never forget.
Elias Rook.
He was supposed to be dead. Or disappeared, at least—that was the whisper in old files, the myth traded between ghosts like me. But here he was, real as sin.
The rage came fast and brutal. I slammed my fist on the table so hard the laptop jumped, the echo loud in the small room. Seraphina stiffened behind me, but didn’t flinch.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice steady.
I turned the screen toward her. “Recognize him?”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the man beside the little girl. “He funds Blackdawn’s weapons distribution. Or… he did. I found his name once. Thought he was gone.”
“Aye,” I said, voice tight. “That was the cover. But he’s not gone. Not if this image is real. He’s out there. And he buys children.”
I stood and began pacin’ like a man barely containin’ himself. “I can’t wait for Facility E. Too much prep. Too many layers. But him?” I stopped, lookin’ her dead in the eye. “He dies first.”
She didn’t argue. Just nodded once, firm.
Back at the laptop, I grabbed a pen and circled his name so hard it tore the paper beneath. Elias Rook. First on the list. A warm-up. A message.
“Ye know what I did before this?” I asked, my voice low.
She glanced up. “You were recon.”
I smiled, mean and bitter. “Aye. That’s what the file says. But before that? I was ghost unit. Black ops. Extraction. Interrogation. I was the bastard they sent when they didn’t want bodies found. I wasn’t just dirty—I was drenched.”
She didn’t look away. Didn’t recoil. She watched me like she knew what kind of monster she was dealin’ with—and welcomed it.
“I’m not a good man,” I said, movin’ closer, the words thick in my throat. “But I’m the right bastard for this job.”
She stepped close, eyes like fire, voice like sin. “Then let’s be monsters. Together.”
Feck me, I could’ve kissed her right then. Could’ve ruined her in the best way. But instead, I whispered what we both already knew.
“Let’s start with Rook.”