“Magnus and I are inbound,” Alaricsaid.
There was a pause. Street noise bled through the line. Ahorn. Atire squeal. Leif spoke again, lower. “I can sense her.”
Alaric looked at his palm. The lightning bolt held steady, white and clean against skin that had seen too much. “Then move with that,” he said. “Not against it.”
The call ended. Alaric slipped the phone away and walked to the door. Magnus fell in at his shoulder. They pushed out into a corridor that smelled like oil and dust, then down stairs to the loading dock where heat sat in a low layer and made the air seemold.
A black sedan idled at the curb. Alaric slid into the back. Magnus took the front. The driver glanced at the rearview and waited.
“Trinity warehouse,” Alaric said. “Fast without noise.”
The car pulled into daylight. Dallas lifted around them in glass and concrete. They took side streets, then a cut-through behind a bakery that already had a line. Alaric watched the city the way a surgeon watches a screen. For anomalies. For openings. For a glint of something wrong.
“Magnus,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“If Tomas puts eyes on you first, you keep them. If he puts hands on her, you take them.”
Magnus’s mouth went hard. “Understood.”
MARIAH SATstiff in the car seat, every nerve on edge. Tomas hadn’t moved the gun from his lap, though he hadn’t lifted it either. His silence scraped worse than threats. When she finally spoke, it was steady. “Why? Why betray him?”
Tomas’s jaw worked. “Because men like me don’t get seen. Leif never advanced me. Years at his side and he looked right through me. Iwas invisible.” His mouth twisted. “But Rocco saw me. Promised money. Promised I’d matter.”
Mariah swallowed, refusing to flinch even when the muzzle angled closer. “So you’ll sell him out? You’ll sell me out?”
“You don’t belong to him,” Tomas snapped. “You belong to Rocco. Always have. Your brother gave you to him. Leif stole what wasn’t his, and now he pays through you.”
Her wrists ached where he’d bound them, but her voice sharpened. “You’re wrong. I’m not a prize to hand from man to man. And if you think Leif hasn’t seen you, maybe it’s because you chose to stay in the shadows.”
Tomas’s eyes flared, rage hot enough to burn. “Shut up. You don’t know anything.”
She held his gaze, pulse hammering. Her chest grew tight with fear, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching her fold. Tomas’s smirk cut like a knife, one she wouldn’t allowto hit its mark. “You’re wrong. You think I’m just a tool to hurt him, but every threat you make only proves how small you really are.”
“You think this is about you?” he scoffed. “It’s not. It’s about him. Hurting you hurts him. That’s the math. That’s all I need.”
“So I’m just leverage,” Mariah whispered. Her throat went painfully dry. “A way to get at Leif.”
He nodded once. “Too bad for you. Idon’t want to spill your blood, but if it comes to that, I’ll do it. It’s about showing Leif what it’s like to lose something he thinks belongs to him.”
Her heart twisted at the coldness in his tone. “You’re wrong. He doesn’t see me as a thing.”
“Then why’d he leave you with me?” Tomas sneered. “Because he trusted me? Because he thought I’d stay invisible like always? Iwas never his equal. Never his brother. He kept me in the corner while he advanced others. Always others. You think I didn’t see that?”
The knot in her throat tightened. “So this is your revenge?”
“Revenge and survival,” he said. “Rocco promised me a huge payout. Afuture. He wanted you delivered. Now—” Tomas’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me something. Is he dead? Did Magnus finish him?”
She blinked, startled by the raw hunger in his question. “I don’t know.”
He slammed the butt of the gun against the dash, making her flinch. “Don’t lie to me! He has to be dead. That’s the only reason the line’s gone cold. If he’s gone, then I don’t get my final payment, and that means I do this my way. Getting even.”
“You’re pathetic,” she said, her voice trembling but strong. “You think hurting me makes you more visible? It just makes you weak.”
Tomas leaned closer, gun lifting until it brushed her cheek. “Careful. Imight still need you breathing, but that doesn’t mean you don’t bleed.”
Mariah forced her voice steady. “Then what? You drag me to the Trinity like some offering? You think that’ll make you a king?”
