Cain’s voice turns lethal. “Where is she?”
Matteo doesn’t blink. “Mind your business.” That does not go over well.
Cobra’s hand slides to my hip, guiding me slightly behind him without fully letting me go.
Shadow shifts.
Joker smiles like he’s been waiting for an excuse.
Hammer mutters, “Wrong fucking answer.”
Logan limps forward from near the hallway, one hand braced slightly against the wall, knee clearly hurting even though he’s pretending it isn’t. His voice cuts through the room. “You brought one woman back and kept another?”
Matteo looks at him. “I delivered the woman I was asked to return.”
“That’s not what he asked,” Mac snaps from behind him. Her voice shakes, but it doesn’t break.
Matteo’s eyes flick to her, then back to Logan. “No, it isn’t.”
Carter moves another step forward. “You expect us to stand here while you keep a woman you bought?”
Matteo’s attention shifts again. To Brooke.
Carter immediately angles his body, blocking harder.
Matteo smiles faintly. “Cucciola,” he says, voice softer now, “would you like to put their minds at ease?”
Brooke goes still.
Carter’s entire body locks. “Don’t,” he says.
Brooke steps around him anyway. He catches her wrist gently. Not stopping her hard. Begging without words. She looks at him, and whatever passes between them is old and layered and not mine to understand. Then she shakes him off. Not angry. Firm. Carter lets her go, but he stays close enough to become violent if he needs to.
Brooke faces the room first, not Matteo. “He wasn’t cruel,” she says. No one speaks. Her voice stays calm, but I see the cost of the words in the way her hands curl at her sides. “He could have been,” she continues. “He had chances to be. He wasn’t.”
Carter’s face looks carved from stone.
Matteo watches her with a trace of amusement now.
Brooke turns slightly toward him. “That doesn’t make you good.”
His mouth curves. “No.”
“But it matters,” she says.
“Yes,” Matteo answers. “It does.”
The room doesn’t relax. If anything, it gets more complicated. Nina is still somewhere with him. Another girl. Another survivor. Another person trapped inside the same nightmare I barely escaped.
I look at Matteo. “Is she safe?”
His eyes return to mine. “Yes.”
“Can she go home?”
“No.”
Cobra growls low. “Wrong answer.”
