Chapter 47
Seraphina
The call came through while I was half-drained and half-hopeful. Emerson had been chasing a lead, Reaper was chasing caffeine, and I was chasing the impossible idea that maybe—just maybe—we’d talk to a witness before someone silenced them.
No such luck.
“Accident. Single vehicle. Witness is dead.”
That’s what Emerson said. No emotion. Just fact. I don’t blame him—feelings get you killed in our line of work. But the way his voice clipped that last word— dead —landed in my chest like a steel bolt.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t look at anyone. My hand curled tighter around the armrest of the chair, nails biting into the worn leather. I felt Callum beside me before I heard him. Tense. Barely breathing.
Emerson broke the silence. “She was scheduled to meet us in two days. Said she had hard copies—payroll logs, internal memos. With Langston’s signature.”
“She worked under him,” Reaper added. “Had details on how the kids were tagged. Tracked like inventory.”
My stomach turned. Not from surprise—we’ve seen worse. But from how close we’d come. Two days. She’d almost made it.
“She’s not the first witness we’ve lost,” I said, keeping my voice steady even though I could hear my own heartbeat. “But this one feels like a warning.”
“More like a kill order,” Reaper muttered.
Callum’s chair scraped back, a sharp, angry sound. “We’re waitin’ too long. Crest’s playin’ chess while we’re still setting the fuckin’ board.”
I turned toward him. “We’ve been playing smart. Leaking the right things. Tracking his reactions. If we go too soon—”
“He’s killin’ people, Seraphina!” Callum’s voice cracked, raw in a way I hadn’t heard since that night in Prague—when we were too late to stop the transport.
I stood slowly, met his fire with ice. “And if we move too early, we lose it all. We need more than a dead girl and some redacted memos.”
He stepped closer, eyes sharp. “You still think this ends with proof and press conferences?”
I didn’t blink. “I think it ends with consequences that stick . That don’t disappear when someone throws money at a headline.”
He stared at me like he didn’t recognize me.
“You’re afraid of the fight,” he said.
That one hit. Deep. But I didn’t let it show. Not yet.
“No,” I said, my voice low. “I’m afraid of how far I’ll go once I stop being afraid. ”
He opened his mouth—then stopped. Something flickered in his eyes. Grief? Guilt? I didn’t know.
And then he walked out.
No slam. No final word.
Just the sound of distance stretching between us.
The others filtered out eventually. Reaper muttering about timelines, Emerson digging through encrypted backups. I stayed.
The monitors gave off a soft glow in the dark, the hum of the server rack the only sound left in the room. I sat in the silence, watching the screen, heart numb.
Elena Cardenas. Thirty-two. Payroll manager. Died in a “single-vehicle accident.”
But the time stamp on the last backup from her phone?
It was after she’d been pronounced dead.
A photo—blurry, likely automatic—uploaded thirty-eight minutes after the official report. A glitch? Maybe.
Or maybe someone was covering tracks and missed a thread.
I copied it to a separate drive. Not the shared one. Just mine. Encrypted it. Twice.
No one needed to see this. Not yet.
“You okay?”
Emerson’s voice was soft from the hall. He didn’t sneak—he never does—but his presence always feels lighter than it should. He walked into the edge of the lamplight, arms crossed, gaze scanning the screen behind me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He raised a brow. “That’s not what I asked.”
I exhaled slowly, then leaned back. “He thinks I’m afraid of the fight.”
“Callum?”
I nodded.
“He’s wrong,” I said. “I’m not afraid to fight him. I’m afraid of what I’ll do once I let myself stop pulling back.”
Emerson tilted his head. “That sounds like something you should tell him .”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t know if he’d stop me.
Because if he does , I don’t know if I’d listen.
Because there’s a version of me that doesn’t come back from what I’m planning.
“I just can’t,” I said instead.
He looked at me a long moment. “What happens now?”
I turned back to the screen. “I follow the data.”
“And if it leads somewhere the team’s not ready to go?”
I clicked the backup drive shut. Slipped it into my pocket.
“Then I’ll go alone.”
Emerson didn’t argue.
He just nodded once, quiet.
Like he knew that fracture had already formed.
There was no explosion. No fallout. No betrayal inked in red.
But the splinter was there. The break, hairline and invisible, but growing by the hour.
Crest was tightening his grip. Langston was his dagger. Elena had almost made it through—and now she was ash and memory.
Callum wanted blood.
I wanted justice.
But justice doesn’t come with banners and speeches. It comes in the quiet.
In the data.
In the choices no one else is willing to make.