Everything in him tightened.
“Kaiser,” he snapped.“Report.”
“There’s been a development,” Kaiser said.“And you’re not going to like it.”
Luca’s blood went cold.“Is Mara safe?”
A beat.
“She’s exactly where I said she’d be,” Kaiser snapped.“No one’s touched her.Don’t fucking insult me.There’s a contract out on your woman.Dead or alive.”
The traitor had just stepped closer.
“Lock her down,” Luca ordered.“Full perimeter.”
“Already done,” Kaiser said.“See you at the house.”
Luca looked back at Seraphina.
“We have to leave,” he said.“We’ll get you somewhere safe and get you all some medical assistance.”
She gripped another woman’s hand, steadying her, unbroken.
The Covenant disappeared into the night with five lives saved—
—and a war had just escalated.
Chapter Thirteen
“Mara.”
Luca’s voice came out rough, scraped raw by adrenaline and the kind of fear he refused to name.
The safehouse door closed behind them with a muted thud, seals engaging automatically.The house was warm.
Not just temperature—alive.Lamps cast low pools of amber light across wood floors and steel fittings.The scent of coffee lingered faintly, mixed with antiseptic and the clean, neutral smell of a place designed to be scrubbed of evidence fast.Outside, unseen sentinels melted deeper into the perimeter as the Covenant arrived, shadows sliding back into shadow.The system accepted them without protest.
