“The fucking traitor,” Luca growled as his phone vibrated against his hip.
Unknown number.
His gut tightened.
He answered without breaking eye contact with Elias and put it on speaker.
“Luca.”Seraphina’s voice came through the room, hoarse but unbroken.
The space seemed to freeze around the call.Kaiser stopped mid-step at the door.Slayer’s shoulders went rigid and Cypher’s head lifted a fraction, his attention narrowing.
“I needed to thank you,” Seraphina said.“All of you.”
Her breathing was audible.Controlled.Managed.
“No need to thank us, Seraphina,” Luca said, holding his woman a little tighter at the thought of what these other women had had to endure.
“We’re safe.Medical’s underway.I’m organizing rotations—food, sleep, counseling.Some of us won’t sleep alone.Some of us won’t sleep at all.We’ll need time.”A pause.Then, carefully, “And I wanted to ask about the retribution you promised me.”
Kaiser turned back slowly, something flickering across his face that Luca couldn’t name.“That’s a little bloodthirsty, don’t you think?”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then Seraphina detonated.
“You don’t get to judge me,” she said, voice sharp as broken glass.“You didn’t watch them line us up.You didn’t feel hands on you every night.You didn’t count the seconds and wonder if this was the one where you stopped being a person.”
Her breath shook once.Then steadied.
“These men stepped into hell to pull us out.They promised justice.If you think that makes me bloodthirsty, you can go fuck yourself.”
The line went dead.
No one moved.
Kaiser stood frozen, devastation written across his face so stark it bordered on violence.Not anger.Something colder.Something that settled deep.
Slayer’s jaw flexed once.Cypher’s eyes went flat, unreadable.
“We’ll handle the traffickers,” Kaiser said quietly.“Leave it to us.”
No debate.No negotiation.
They were gone a moment later, the door closing behind them with lethal finality.
Luca exhaled slowly and looked at Elias.“Will they?”
Elias nodded once.“Yeah.They will.Believe it.”
The silence that followed pressed in, heavy with implication.
“The contract,” Luca said finally.“Why Mara?”
Elias considered it, gaze shifting briefly to her before returning to Luca.“Because she’s seen us.Because she was here.Havelock worked with the traitor.If he was inside Havelock’s offices, he’d know who mattered.And it is very likely that Mara saw the traitor too”
Understanding slid into place, ugly and precise.
Mara looked up at him, a smile on her face.“We might be closer to the answer than we thought.”
