Lena and I were natural partners. She fit easily at my side, watching, listening, and learning.
Knox rarely came down to the workshop anymore, preferring to leave us to the interrogations. Even though he trusted us to handle things our way, occasionally he would wander downstairs. Not to interfere, but to check in and to make sure we hadn’t disappeared too far into the violence of it.
Yesterday, we picked up an Arca Resistance Rebel from the jail. He’d been working for the Northern Shifters, supplying them with goods, weapons, and even smuggling shifters out of New Arca. Exactly the kind of operation AIED was prioritizing now that the criminal underworld had settled.
Command's focus had shifted north.
There was a war brewing.
And I was fairly certain Command would transfer our unit soon, likely to the Northern Borderlands where Arca needed us most.
Lena was…exceptional.
Sharp, methodical, and unnaturally good at seeing patterns where others missed them, pulling answers from places most people didn’t know to look. We had learned a lot from each other, but with her in our unit, we weren’t just effective anymore.
We were invaluable.
Arca knew it.
They wanted us on the front lines.
I watched her now, awe running through me as she brought a blade down in one clean, decisive motion, separating our interrogatee’s pinky without hesitation.
No flinch. No pause.
Just precision.
Beautiful.
Behind her, three pieces of the past hung mounted in frames along the wall, dried and preserved.
Yuri’s pinky finger hung in the first, darkened and shriveled with time. Marco’s payment only got him so far. Once the money ran out, Knox had no trouble finding him and making him pay for his betrayal.
Luca’s tongue was mounted in the second, puckered and withered, something I had taken myself.
The third and final frame held Marco’s nipple, carved free by Lena, preserved as a reminder of his debt to her, settled in flesh.
Trophies.
Proof that even men like them could be reduced to pieces.
For hours, Lena had carved her revenge into Marco. Then when exhaustion had worn her down, and I sensed she had satiated all her rage, I placed the screwdriver in her hand and let her finish it.
After that, Knox and I fucked and knotted her, right next to Marco's corpse,as promised.
And when we were finished…
That was the end of Marco.
No legacy.
No power.
Just a small, puckered piece of flesh mounted to our basement wall.
When it was finally over, I felt it through the bond, the shift in her. Something heavy had finally lifted.
Relief.
