Chapter 17
SYVANNAH
“Come find me.” The words leave my lips like a prayer cracked in half. They dissolve into the cold air, swallowed by the hum of flickering lights and the faint metallic groan of chain-link fencing. My breath shakes, and for a moment, I shut my eyes, willing the world to stop spinning.
But the world doesn’t stop. It gets worse.
A metal door at the far end of the cold room unlocks with a slow, deliberate click.
The sound slithers along the concrete, sinking into the cages like poison.
Every woman around me tenses. One begins to whisper a prayer to a God who has let us down.
Another one curls in on herself, pulling her knees tight to her chest, hoping they don’t spot her.
I force myself to sit up straighter, fingers tightening around the fence until the wire bites into my flesh.
I already know who it is before he even steps inside.
The footsteps don’t echo, they invade. The air shifts the same way it used to in the motel.
A pressure change, a chill that slides down the spine like a hand that isn’t touching you, but still feels like it is.
My body remembers fear before my mind catches up.
Lattimer enters with an easy stride. He’s taller than I remember.
His tailored dark suit hugs his lean, but not thin, frame.
His dark hair is styled neatly, like he’s arriving for a business meeting instead of a graveyard full of the women he’s broken.
His eyes skim the cages with familiarity, like he’s checking inventory, checking which toys he still owns.
Then those dark eyes land on me. Recognition flashes first. Then satisfaction. Then something colder, like a possession reclaimed.
“Well,” Lattimer murmurs, a slow smile curving across his lips. “If it isn’t Syvannah Blake. My stray who slipped the leash.”
My stomach twists. Old terror claws at my ribs, memories I’ve spent years fighting in therapy, memories of being locked in a dirty motel room beside Nadia and Exleigh. Memories of waiting for footsteps out in the hallway.
I refuse to let him see the crack.
“You remember,” I manage to say in a low voice.
“Of course I remember.” He crouches beside my cage, fingers tapping the chain-link like he’s greeting an old pet.
“You were one of the ones who ran. One of the three tiny miracles the RBMC stole from me. Nadia got herself a biker husband. Exleigh rebuilt her spine. And you…” His head tilts, studying me with cruel interest. “You clung to the biggest savior complex of them all.”
My breath stutters, but I keep my chin high.
His smile deepens. “Yes. Tiny. The gentle giant who thinks he can save anything with a pulse.”
My heart squeezes at the sound of Tiny’s name in Lattimer’s mouth. It feels wrong there. Filthy.
“You know,” Lattimer continues conversationally, “I didn’t expect him to survive my men. Yet here we are…”
I grip the fence until the metal digs into my palms. He notices and leans closer, voice dropping to a soft, poisonous whisper. “But we both know something about Tiny, don’t we?”
I refuse to answer.
His smile sharpens. “He wasn’t there when you needed him the first time. He didn’t come for you then. Red and Trigger stormed in. Bones and Aftermath carried the bodies. Tiny?” A slow shrug. “He wasn’t even one of the men who saved you.”
My heart pounds in my ears.
“He didn’t know us yet,” I whisper.
“Exactly,” Lattimer purrs. “He didn’t know you. He didn’t choose you. And now?” He lifts his brows. “Now he has something to lose.”
He drags a finger along the bars. Once. Twice.
“When Tiny is forced to choose between you and the club, he will choose them. He always will. That’s who he is. That’s who they all are.”
“That’s not true,” I hiss, but my voice betrays the tremor inside.
“Oh, it is.” A quiet, clinical, confident smile forms on his lips. “He’ll save the Bastards.” His eyes lock onto mine, cold and cutting. “But you? You’re the girl he didn’t even know existed when your life first fell apart.”
The words punch through layers of healing.
Old fractures I thought were mended begin to ache again.
For a heartbeat, the room tilts as fear and shame claw up my throat.
My mind flashes to the motel room, the smell of mold, Exleigh’s broken voice, Nadia’s trembling hands.
And I feel that old helplessness trying to drag me under.
But then Tiny’s laugh flickers in my memory. The way he looks at Peanut. The way he looks at me. And the fear doesn’t vanish, but it loses its teeth.
“You escaped me once,” he says softly. “That won’t happen again.” Lattimer stands, brushing nonexistent dust from his hands. “Tiny won’t come for you, Syvannah Blake,” Lattimer says, turning toward the door. “Not before it’s too late. Not before the choice crushes him.”
He steps through the doorway and looks back one last time. “You’re another stray who wandered into traffic. And he’s too far away to drag you out of the road.”
The slam of the door reverberates through the shelter, a vibrating pulse that seems to settle into the bones of every woman trapped here. For a long moment, nobody breathes. Nobody speaks. Fear turns thick enough to choke on.
I brace a hand against the chain-link, grounding myself in the bite of metal against my skin. Tiny’s name buzzes behind my teeth, but I don’t let it out again. Not now. Not in front of Lattimer’s ghosts. I refuse to give him that victory.
A soft whimper breaks the silence.
I turn toward the sound. A girl, maybe nineteen, maybe younger, huddles with her forehead pressed to her knees. Her wrists tremble violently, and every inhale comes in a sharp, panicked burst.
Another woman across the row whispers, “He’s right. He always comes back. He always takes us back.”
“No,” I say softly. “He doesn’t.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel, but the steadiness matters more.
Something in me shifts, finally, painfully.
Lattimer wanted to crack me open. Instead, he reminded me of who I refuse to be anymore.
The girl in the motel room who couldn’t stop shaking, who couldn't breathe unless Nadia counted for her.
I am not her anymore. Not now, not ever again.
Shifting closer to the cage wall, I wrap my fingers around the fence and whisper to the young girl. “Hey… look at me. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re breathing.”
“I… I can’t,” she chokes out. “I can’t do this again.”
Not I can’t do this, but I can’t do this again. The word slices through me.
Lattimer doesn’t collect new victims. He recycles them.
My stomach rolls.
But I keep my voice calm. Slow. Rhythmic. The way my therapist taught me when panic tries to swallow everything. “Match my breath, okay? In… two… three… four. Hold it. Out… two… three… four.”
She tries. Fails. Tries again.
I keep breathing with her until the jagged edges of her panic begin to smooth.
Then another woman leans in her cage. “Can… can we do it too?”
Inside me, something blooms. A small flame of purpose, of hope I didn’t know I still had.
“Yes,” I whisper. “All of us.”
Seven cages. Seven women. Seven rhythms of fear are slowly aligning.
For the first time since Lattimer walked in, I see it. These women are not just terrified bodies in cages. They are survivors, like Nadia, Exleigh, and me. And if I can breathe, they can breathe.
“You’re not alone,” I tell them. “And you’re not dying here.”
A few nod. One cries quietly, but with relief instead of terror. And then the room settles. Not into peace. But into readiness.
Into survival.
I’m about to start another round of breathing when I hear it. A faint scraping sound comes from above my head. Metal shifts in the vent running along the ceiling. Dust flakes fall in a lazy sprinkle. I narrow my eyes. The duct trembles again. A sharp, frustrated cry echoes inside the metal.
My heart stops. “No way…”
Another shove from inside the duct. A louder scrape. Then a tiny black and white paw pokes through one of the loosened vent slats. Then another.
A smudged, soot-covered face squeezes through the gap like a determined little escape artist.
Peanut forces her way through, tail flicking in outrage, and tumbles into my cage with a soft thud.
I gasp. Not with fear, not with panic, but with hope.
“You crazy little thing…” My voice cracks as I scoop her up. “How did you?”
She butts her head under my chin, purring loud enough to drown out the flickering lights.
Up close, I notice her bent whiskers, a tiny cut on her paw, and dust crusted in her fur.
She didn’t wander in here. She fought to get in.
She clawed through vents and darkness, following the faintest trail of my scent and instinct.
If Peanut can track me through this maze of hell, then Tiny can too. Tiny will.
Tears spill before I can stop them, hot streaks falling into Peanut’s dirty fur. She chirps, annoyed at my emotional display, and swats my cheek gently with her paw like I’m the one who worried her.
Laughter breaks through a sob in my chest.
Across the room, one of the women whispers, “A cat? How did a cat…?”
I smile through the tears. “Her name’s Peanut… and she doesn’t quit.”
The younger girl grips the bars of her cage. “If a cat can find you… Someone else can too.”
Someone. But I know who she means.
Tiny.
A low vibration in the concrete makes the rafters tremble. The distant thunder of engines, roaring and growing closer, makes my pulse spike.
I close my eyes, pressing my forehead to Peanut’s, breathing in her dusty warmth. “He’s coming,” I whisper, trying to summon whatever strength I have left. “He won’t stop.”