Luca held his gaze.“She’s not expendable.”
For a moment, the room went very still.
Then Elias nodded.
“Good,” he said.“Then we proceed.”
Mateo leaned back.“We tell her about the Covenant?”
“Enough to get her to trust us,” Elias replied.“But not everything.”
Kol’s head tilted.“She’ll have questions.”
“She’s already asking them,” Luca said.
Elias’s mouth curved slightly.“Then, Luca, give her the truth that matters.”
Mara was awake when they came looking for her in her bedroom.
She was sitting up in bed, mug of water balanced carefully in both hands, pain etched into the tightness around her eyes but her spine straight.
Luca stopped just inside the doorway.
“You ready?”he asked.
“For what?”she replied.
“For some pain medication and some answers.”
She wrinkled her nose in a way that Luca refused to find adorable.“Can I skip the medication and go straight to the answers?”
Luca was already shaking his head.“No chance in hell.Why hurt when you don’t have to?”
Mara sighed.“Because they make me a little fuzzy.I want my head clear for this.”
Luca looked at her for a long moment.“Take the medication, we’ll keep it brief and to the point.”
Mara huffed a soft laugh that ended in a grimace.“Yeah, because the three of you are Chatty Kathy’s at the best of times.But, yeah, okay, let’s get the medication in.I hurt like hell.”
They moved to the small dining table.Mateo pulled out a chair for her without comment and Luca handed her the medication before sitting down opposite her.Kol stayed near the wall, as if distance were a choice rather than a habit.
“There’s something you need to understand,” he said.“About who we are.”
Mara didn’t interrupt.
“We belong to an organization called the Iron Covenant,” Luca continued.“We’re not law enforcement.We’re not vigilantes looking for medals either.We do commit crimes and we operate in the spaces where the law fails.”
Mateo crossed his arms.“We don’t traffic women.We don’t touch kids.We don’t sell people.Ever.”
“And if someone does?”Mara asked.
Kol answered.“They don’t get to keep doing it.”
“You said that you broke laws,” Mara asked something that had been bothering her since the night they all met.“And that the crime you all committed was organized.That screams Mafia to me.Is that what you are?”
Luca sensed that Mateo and Kol shared a look, while he just gave her a small smile.“Short answer?Yes.But there is a long answer to that question as well.”
Mara frowned.“And that is?”Luca knew this was not the time to get into all of that.“You know, I’m on the run and the man I have been working for over the past 18 months has been trafficking humans for reasons that absolutely turn my stomach, and I have nothing but a strong desire to not think about all of that in any detail, so I am up for story time.Trust me when I tell you, I can handle the truth.”
