The Line They Drew
Flashback (iii) – The Morocco Mission
“Well, this is a surprise,” Kaiden muttered.
He stood at the heavy insulated door of the underground bunker, one hand still on the reinforced handle. The sight before him made even his usually unreadable expression crack.
Kaiden pushed it open the rest of the way.
Warm lantern light spilled out.
It wasn’t a kill site.
It was a sanctuary.
Over fifty women and children filled the massive underground chamber.
Makeshift tents of thick canvas and scavenged tarps dotted the space like a hidden village.
Children ran between them laughing, chasing each other with sticks turned into swords, their voices echoing off the concrete walls.
Women sat in small groups, some rocking babies, others mending clothes or stirring pots over carefully vented fires.
The air smelled of bread, woodsmoke, and something painfully alive.
A few feet away, Kane was on one knee, gently helping the djinn woman and her two sons settle into a new tent. He was still covered in dried blood from the Morocco slaughter, but his huge hands were careful as he handed the older boy a canteen and ruffled the younger one’s hair.
The woman looked up, eyes wide with exhausted gratitude. Kane gave her a small, tired nod.
The contrast was surreal.
Suddenly Rhys moved like lightning.
One second he was standing beside Kaiden. The next he had him slammed against the cold concrete wall, forearm across his chest, claws pressed to the soft skin just beneath Kaiden’s jaw.
“Speak of this to the school,” Rhys whispered, voice soft and deadly, “and I will make you beg for a merciful death. I will take days and I will make you watch while we break every piece of you.”
Kaiden didn’t flinch. He simply smirked, even with razor-sharp claws digging into his skin.
“It’s cool, Rhys. I won’t say a thing.”
Rhys held him there a second longer, searching his face, then slowly released him.
Kaiden rubbed his throat, rolling his shoulders as he looked back at the hidden encampment.
“How long have you been hiding them?”
Rhys turned to look at the encampment. For a long moment he said nothing, just watched a little girl with dark curls hand a flower to one of the djinn boys Kane had just helped.
Then, quietly:
“A few years now.”
He gestured toward the cavern with a small tilt of his head.
“We’ve been killing since we were children. That was what they made us for. But a few years ago… the assignments started including children. Entire families. Villages. We were told to leave no one alive. No witnesses. No loose ends.”
Kane walked over, wiping his bloody hands on a rag, the two little boys now safely tucked inside their new tent with their mother.
“We tried to look the other way at first,” Kane said, voice unusually low. “Told ourselves it was just orders. But after one mission… We murdered five kids by mistake, though they were supposed to die with the rest as ordered.”
Saint appeared silently beside them, arms crossed over his massive chest, eyes fixed on a group of laughing children playing with a ball made of old cloth.
Rhys continued, voice steady but heavy.
“That night changed something. We couldn’t keep pretending. So we started saving the ones we could, mostly mothers with small children. We bring them here when the missions allow it. This place was originally just our private safehouse.
A bolt-hole we built years ago for when we needed to disappear between jobs. Weapons storage. Rest. Planning. We turned it into this.”
Kaiden looked around slowly, taking in the tents, the children, the quiet hope that somehow existed in the middle of hell.
“And the council?” he asked.
Rhys’s smile was small and cold.
“They know we come here after killings. They think it’s just where we clean up and rest but they have no idea we’re hiding survivors. We cover our tracks perfectly. Every mission report says ‘no survivors.’ As long as we keep delivering the required body count and the right targets,
they don’t look too closely.”
Kane cracked his neck. “We still do the work. We still kill when we’re ordered to. But the women and kids… we get them out when we can. Quietly. No traces.”
Saint finally spoke, voice low and rough.
“They deserve better than what the world gives them.”
Kaiden stared at the three of them, three of the most feared, blood-soaked psychopaths in the supernatural world standing there covered in the evidence of their latest massacre, yet quietly protecting the very thing they were supposed to destroy.
A small, genuine smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“So the legendary Triumvirate… has a heart after all.”
Rhys’s golden eyes met his
“No,” he said softly. “We just got tired of only having blood on our hands.”.
“Welcome to the real Triumvirate, Kaiden Black.” Kane said.
From deeper in the chamber, one of the little boys Kane had helped laughed, a bright, innocent sound that cut through the heavy silence like a blade.
Kane closed his eyes for a second, the echo of his own dead brother’s voice flickering behind them again.
And for the first time in years, the pack bond felt heavier than the blood they still had to spill.
*****
Rhys moved deeper into the chamber, his blood-stained boots silent on the stone floor. The scent of cooked rice, dried meat, and lavender soap drifted through the air small comforts the women had managed to create in this hidden sanctuary.
A tall, dark-skinned woman with sharp features and tired but steady eyes approached him. Cia. She had been one of the first they saved three years ago, a rogue wolf whose entire pack had been marked for elimination. Now she quietly ran the day-to-day operations of their secret refuge.
“What are the supplies you need, Cia?” Rhys asked, voice low and calm as always.
Cia wiped her hands on her apron and sighed, glancing around at the women and children before speaking.
“We’re running low on everything, Rhys. The last group you brought in was larger than expected.”
She started counting on her fingers, practical and unflinching.
“Rice and lentils are almost finished, we need at least ten more large sacks if we want to stretch it through the month. Dried meat and fish too. The children need milk powder and vitamins, some of the younger ones are starting to show signs of malnutrition again. Blankets… we’re short on warm ones.
The nights are getting colder up here.”
She paused, then continued more quietly.
“Medicine is critical. Antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, antiseptic. Two of the mothers have infections from the journey. One little girl has a bad cough that won’t go away. And… we need more clothes for the growing boys. They’re tearing through everything.”
She glanced toward the djinn woman Kane had just helped, who was now rocking her youngest son to sleep.
“We also need sanitary pads and lady care products.”
Rhys listened without interrupting, golden eyes flicking across the cavern, the laughing children, the tired mothers trying to smile for their kids, the makeshift school corner where an older woman was teaching basic letters with chalk on flat stones.
Kane walked up beside him, still wiping blood from his arms with a rag. Saint followed silently, eyes soft as he watched a group of toddlers playing with a worn stuffed bear one of the women had sewn.
“We’ll get it all,” Rhys said simply. “I’ll have a shipment arranged within three days. Discreet as always.”
Cia nodded, then hesitated.
“…Thank you. Not many monsters would do this.”
Rhys’s lips curved into a small, cold smile.
“We’re still monsters, Cia. We just chose to be their monsters instead of everyone else’s.”
Kane snorted. “Speak for yourself. I’m still a beautiful monster.”
“We leave for the next supply run in two days. Write the full list and we’ll make it happen.”
Kaiden stood a few feet away, watching the entire exchange with quiet fascination. The legendary Triumvirate, feared across continents for their brutality, quietly funding and protecting a hidden sanctuary of women and children they were ordered to slaughter.
Kaiden turned to Rhys. “You’re playing a very dangerous game. Saving people while pretending to be the Council’s perfect weapons.”
Saint’s low voice rumbled from the side. “We’re not pretending.”
Kane stood up, cracking his bloody knuckles. “We’re just… choosing which parts of the monster we let out.”
A soft giggle echoed from one of the tents as a mother told her daughter a bedtime story. The sound was so pure it felt almost alien in a place built on death.
Rhys looked at the sound for a long moment, then back at Kaiden.
“This stays between us,” he said, not a request. “Or I *will* make good on my earlier promise.”
Kaiden pushed off the wall, silver eyes steady. “I already told you. I won’t say anything.” He glanced around The sanctuary one more time. “Besides… I think I like this version of the Triumvirate better.”
Kane smirked, wiping blood from his jaw. “Careful, pretty boy. We’re still the same monsters. We just have better secrets now.”
The lanterns flickered.
Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed again.
For the first time since meeting them, Kaiden understood something crucial.
These three weren’t just killers.
They were something far more dangerous.
They were men who had decided, in their own broken way, to draw a line.
And they would burn the world down to protect what lay on their side of it.