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“Do you have a death-wish, Adriana? Your plan involves walking into public view and accusing police commanders, judges, businessmen and bishops—to name a few—of trafficking women.”

“If their names are in those files, I will accuse every one of them.”

“You think the truth makes you untouchable?”

“No.”

“Then understand what happens next.” His voice lowered. “They will not send another representative to negotiate. They will break every finger in your hands before they even ask the first question.” Demitri stepped closer, as though willing his proximity to drive his point home. “And when you refuse to answer, they will move to your teeth. Then your ribs. They will keep you conscious because pain is useless when the victim can’t speak.”

“Enough,” Atlas barked.

“No,” Demitri replied without looking away from me. “If she wants to step into their line of sight, then she needs to understand what men like this do for sport.”

I held his gaze, though nausea turned beneath my ribs. “I understand, very well, what these men are capable of.”

“No, you just understand the words. You have not watched a man make another human being beg to die because death is the only mercy left.” Demi’s composure cracked. “They will kill you, Adriana.”

I stood opposite Demitri with the desk between us.

“They’re going to kill me, anyway, Demi.”

“Then don’t make it easier for them.”

“What’s the alternative, hmmm?” I asked. “Do I spend the next fifty years behind Cavalho walls while armed men decide whether I’m permitted to cross a courtyard?”

“If that keeps you breathing, yes.”

“What happens to the women in these records?”

“We’re going to destroy the network.”

“How?”

Raze answered before Demitri could.

“We seize their shipments. We take their routes, their drivers and their records. Then we work upward until every man connected to the operation is dead, missing or too frightened to leave his home.”

There was no bravado in his voice. It was a plan. A damn good one. But how long would it be before another similar organisation rose for the ashes and took its place?

Atlas set the pages down.

“We have six confirmed storage sites, two transport coordinators and the name of the man arranging police escorts. By tomorrow evening, at least four of those locations will no longer exist.”

The cold practicality of the answer should have frightened me. Instead, it clarified the choice before us. Their solution was blood. Mine was exposure. Both carried consequences.

“My father made every decision for me,” I told him. “He chose what I was allowed to know. He chose what I carried, then put that drive around my neck without telling me men would slaughter me to retrieve it.”

Demitri’s eyes dropped to the empty place beneath my throat.

“He left me to survive the consequences of his own stupid decisions.” I held his gaze. “I will not let another man decide what I am permitted to do with the truth.”

“I am not your father,” Demitri reminded me.

“Then stop behaving like him.”

Raze turned toward the map, granting Demitri the dignity of not watching his reaction. Atlas gathered the pages and carried them to the windows, creating the illusion of privacy without leaving us alone.

Demitri’s face closed. For one second, regret pressed against my anger. Then I remembered the girls who were waiting to be rescued.