19. Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Reaper
We file into the basement like a storm front, silent, heavily charged with everything we’re holding back.
The concrete walls are cold, but it’s not the temperature that makes the space feel brutal; it’s the memories.
I clock the steel chairs, the chains, the blood that still stains the floor from last time.
And the two waiting for us, who look like they already regret everything.
Max leans against the far wall, arms crossed, a jagged tension radiating off him.
Torque, Wrecker, Elias, Riot… they’re all here, forming a perimeter like wolves circling prey.
It’s Wrenley who commands the room. Her presence cuts sharper than the dagger spinning lazily around her fingers.
She hasn’t said a word yet. She doesn’t have to.
The man in the chair tenses as I step forward and crouch in front of him.
“Remember me?” I ask calmly. He nods. I tilt my head, nodding toward Wrenley. “Remember her?’
His eyes dart nervously toward her. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t even flinch. Just spins the dagger faster.
“You say anything she doesn’t like…” I lean in, letting the promise settle between us. “Well. You know how that’ll end.”
The woman seated next to him, barely more than a girl, looks like she might piss herself. I glance at her next. “Use your imagination.”
She nods, eyes wide and glassy.
I step back and let Wrenley take her place in front of them. She’s a queen wearing the weight of war in her bones. No mercy. No hesitation.
She plants herself in front of the man. “Name.”
“Matthew,” he answers quickly.
Wrenley shifts her eyes to the girl. “And you?”
“Jessa,” the girl whispers.
Wrenley nods once and tilts her head, a slow, terrifying smile creeping across her lips.
“Good,” she says, low and dangerous. “Now let’s talk about why you decided to walk into my world.”
Matthew clears his throat. “Look… when Sebastian approached me, I thought it was about money. Said his sister stole from the wrong people, and he needed help making it right.”
Elias snorts from the back. “Clearly, you’re not very good at this. Your forgery work is amateur.”
Matthew winces. “I was sloppy on purpose. Once I started seeing what he was actually about, what he really wanted, I left a paper trail. I’ve been waiting for you to find it.
If you hadn’t found all of that, and the questions it raised, you wouldn’t have let me in here.
You would have killed me on sight. But you want answers, and I… I need help.”
Wrenley eyes him carefully. “Hmm.”
I move again, stepping toward Jessa. “And you?” I ask. “Where do you fit in?”
Her voice trembles. “I was… I do work at the House of Silk?’
Wrenley narrows her eyes. “And what does that mean?”
Jessa takes a shaky breath. “It’s not just a brothel anymore, not since Sebastian came around.
It’s a breeding and sex slave house. Rich men go there…
not just for sex, but to create offspring.
They pick girls for their looks, their intelligence, and their family lines.
It’s…sick. It’s about control. Legacy. And… ” her voice trails off.
Max’s voice cuts in from the wall, low and deadly. “And what? What does that have to do with my wife?”
Matthew and Jessa share a look. That makes every inch of my spine go rigid.
“SPEAK!” I bark, the sound cracking like a whip across the room.
Matthew jolts. “The night after the accident, when we took the bodyguard, I helped Sebastian drag him off. I thought… I thought maybe he wanted information. But then…”
He swallows hard.
“He started carving into him while he was still alive. Said he wanted to take Wrenley to the breeding house. That she was just like him. That she belonged to him. He said…” Matthew’s voice drops.
“He said she’s the only one who could carry his legacy.
That she doesn’t know it yet, but she wants him too. ”
Max growls from the shadows, stepping forward. Wrecker has to stop him with a hand across the chest.
Wrenley moves fast, slicing the dagger across Matthew’s chest. Standing taller with it still in her palm. “That’s for working with that son of a bitch. I’m still debating on killing you for Donnie.”
Matthew sucks in a breath and nods. “After that… I knew I needed out. He’s not sane.
He’s not even human. I’m supposed to meet him in Lisbon in three weeks with a full report.
He wants details on how the family is breaking down, your alliances, and your weaknesses.
That was my job. But now? I’ll feed him whatever you want me to say. ”
Wrenley locks eyes with Jessa. “So tell me, what do you want?”
Jessa’s voice cracks as she tries to speak again, tears slipping down her face, mascara smudging beneath her eyes. “I just want out. I want to get them all out. The girls, the ones still trapped. I know where they are. I know how the shipments move. I can help.”
Wrenley tilts her head, her expression unreadable, like she’s weighing the girl’s soul on a scale only she can see. The dagger still dangles from her fingers like a silent promise.
“Help us how?” I ask, my voice low and controlled, but the rage behind it is simmering.
“I was… I was assigned to track her cycle,” she whispers, looking straight at Wrenley but unable to hold her gaze, “Sebastian offered me money and my sister's freedom if I helped because I work at her gynecologist's office. He wanted to know when she’d be fertile. He talked about her bloodline to make something stronger. Called her his queen and said she’d be the first.”
Max lets out a harsh breath behind me. The room shifts. Wrecker stands taller, Riot curses under his breath. Torque doesn’t move; he just stares, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth.
Wrenley steps forward, slow and calm, lifting Jessa’s chin with the tip of her blade. “He wants to breed me?”
Jessa nods.
“And you helped him track my body for that?” she spits, digging the tip a little further into her chin, until a drop of blood falls.
“I didn’t know what it was at first.” She says quickly. “I swear, I just thought it was a medical log—”
“You don’t get to swear anything to me.” Wrenley cuts in. Her voice is like ice wrapped in velvet. “You’re lucky I don’t carve my initials into your ribs.”
I reach out, gently brushing my fingers across the small of her back. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away. She just breathes, slow and steady.
Matthew clears his throat. “I don’t want any part of this anymore. I’ll go to Lisbon. I’ll feed him whatever you want me to say. Just get me out of this.”
Wrenley turns, looking at me. Her eyes burn, not with tears, but with cold, righteous fire that says we don’t run, we retaliate.
She faces Jessa again. “You give us everything. Every name. Every location. Every man who stepped through those doors. You want protection, you earn it.”
Jessa nods rapidly, crying again. “Yes. Yes. Anything.”
I step forward again, crouching low between them. “You’re going to tell us every fucked-up thing he said. Every twisted plan. Every place he touched down since he left. If you lie once—”
“I won’t,” Matthew says quickly. “I promise. I want to burn it all down.”
“Good,” Wrenley says, turning her blade slowly in her hand. “So do we.”
This safehouse is remote. Reinforced doors, multiple exits, cameras linked to a private server only Elias can touch. We don’t take risks when it comes to loose ends.
Torque finishes running a security check while I lay it out for Matthew and Jessa. They sit stiffly on the old leather couch, hands clenched, eyes darting to the armed Serpents stationed around the room.
“You don’t leave here unless we say so,” I tell them, my voice low and even. “There will be someone with you at all times. No solo errands, no phones unless cleared. If you breathe without permission, someone will see.”
Jessa shifts like she might cry again, but I don’t have it in me to care.
“When do we start?” she asks softly, like she’s eager to make amends.
I lean forward, resting my hands on my thighs. “You don’t. We will decide the next steps. And if... if we need your help, we’ll come to you. Until then, you sit, you wait, and you stay useful by staying the hell alive.”
She nods quickly. Matthew doesn’t speak. Smart man.
When we’re back in the car, Torque takes the wheel, his hand drumming against it in a restless beat. He’s been quiet since we walked out. That makes two of us.
After a few miles, I speak. “We need something good to happen. Balance the scales for a minute.”
He glances at me, then back to the road. “What are you thinking?”
I smile, small and quiet. “I already texted Max. The others are setting things up. Margot’s keeping Wrenley distracted.”
Torque lets out a low hum. “You’re doing it, huh?”
I nod, “It’s time.”
He grins, one of the rare genuine ones that says he’s been waiting for this for as long as I have. “You’re going to offer vows to Wrenley. Finally.”
I look out the window, thinking of her laugh, her fire, the way she looked with blood on her hands and still somehow untouchable.
“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”