Chapter 29

VICTORIA – 

The cold, strategic part of my mind claws its way to the surface, pushing the storm of betrayal aside. We need a thread to pull, something Jason wouldn’t think to monitor.

“The work phones,” I say, turning back to Darius. “We issued them to everyone on the inner circle. They’re supposed to be secure, for our eyes only.”

Darius’s eyes narrow, following my train of thought. “The tracking is dormant unless we activate it. A failsafe.”

“A failsafe Jennifer would never expect us to use on her,” I confirm. “She carries that phone like a lifeline. She trusts it.” The word tastes bitter now. “If we activate the tracking, we can see her every movement. Who she meets. Where she goes when she thinks no one is watching.”

It feels like a violation. It is a violation. But the woman I trusted is either a traitor or in mortal danger, and the man I called a friend is a snake weaving a trap. Decency is a luxury we lost the moment Jason walked in here.

Darius is already turning to the secure terminal embedded in his desk. His fingers fly across the screen, pulling up the administrative controls for our private network.

“Her number?” he asks, his voice all business.

“Four-seven-one,” I reply without hesitation. The digits are etched in my memory, part of a dozen emergency contacts I thought I’d never need.

He inputs the command. A moment later, a map of the city blooms on the large screen mounted on his wall. A single, pulsing red dot appears, moving slowly through the downtown core.

“There she is,” he says, his voice grim.

We both watch the pulsing red dot on the screen, a digital ghost of a woman who holds our fate in her hands. It moves steadily, not with the erratic pattern of someone evading capture, but with a clear, chilling purpose. It turns a corner, and the street name resolves on the map.

My blood runs cold.

It’s not just any street. It’s a tree-lined, residential block I know intimately. I’ve parked my car there. I’ve walked its sidewalk, my hand in another’s.

The dot stops. The address is unmistakable.

“Avery.”

The name tears from my lips, barely a whisper, but it echoes in the silent room like a gunshot.

I’m on my feet before the second syllable fades, my chair scraping harshly against the floor.

Darius looks up, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Victoria? What is it?”

I don’t have time to explain. I don’t have the breath to form the sentences that would make him understand the sheer, terrorizing significance of Jennifer being at Avery’s doorstep.

My mind screams one thing: The threat isn’t just theoretical anymore. It’s at her door.

I’m already moving, my hand snatching my keys from the desk and the compact, weighted shape of my pistol from the top drawer, tucking it into the back of my waistband.

“Jennifer is at Avery’s,” I snap, the words sharp and frantic as I stride for the door.

I don’t wait for his response. I don’t look back. The only thing that exists is the pulsing red dot on a map and the paralyzing fear that I am already too late.

***

AVERY –

Rage simmers just beneath my skin. I know I should be terrified, but the fear is buried under layers of exhaustion and a heartbreak that still feels fresh and stupid. I am just so tired. Tired and angry.

She doesn’t lift the gun again. That, for some reason, makes everything feel more dangerous.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Jennifer says, her voice calm, as if that simple statement erases the fact she held a gun to my head. “Or Victoria. I just… I need her to stop. To take a step back from all of this.”

A short, bitter laugh escapes me. “You’re insane if you think Victoria will ever stop doing what she does. You know her.”

“She’s killing the wrong men,” Jennifer snaps, her composure cracking for a second. “Powerful ones. Men we need in our pockets. Their money keeps certain people quiet. It keeps doors open. Victoria is slicing through that web with a goddamn scalpel, and she’s going to get us all killed.”

“And you think that’s a bad thing?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest, a feeble attempt to shield my racing heart.

“You don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head with a frustrating pity. “If she doesn’t back off… things are going to get ugly. And fast. They’re already watching her. Waiting. She’s marked. I’m trying to stop that from happening. I don’t want her dead. I love her, Avery. She’s like a sister to me.”

My mouth goes dry. There’s something terrifying about hearing love twisted like that–turned into justification.

“Okay,” I say slowly, buying time, trying to think. “Let’s say I believe you. What does any of this have to do with me?”

Jennifer studies me for a long moment, and then, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, she says, “Because of the way she looks at you.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve changed her,” she continues, her gaze intense. “I’ve known her for years. I trained beside her. I bled beside her. She never let anyone in. Not until you. You make her hesitate. You make her vulnerable.”

“So now this is my fault?” My voice cracks, torn between disbelief and a fresh wave of anger.

She shrugs one shoulder, a gesture that looks almost regretful. “No. But you might be the only person who can get through to her. Before it’s too late. You have access now. She trusts you.”

“She won’t even look at me,” I interrupt, the words sharp with my own pain. “You think I can ‘get through’ to her? I’m nothing to her.”

Jennifer’s lips twitch. It isn’t a smile. “That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t hide what she’s feeling in her eyes, Avery. Not from someone who’s been trained to read them. She pushed you away to protect you.”

I feel the breath catch in my lungs. My throat burns. “And what exactly is coming?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

Jennifer doesn’t answer at first. Her expression dims, shadowed by a knowledge she clearly wishes she didn’t possess.

She exhales slowly, then stands. “Take what you need. Clothes. Anything you’ll want while you’re gone. You won’t be coming back for a while.”

My blood turns to ice.

Gone? I stare at her, uncomprehending. “You think I’m going anywhere with you?”

She reaches into her coat, and I flinch—but it’s just a phone. She taps the screen once.

And then—

The door slams open so hard the hinges scream.

And she’s there.

Victoria. Her body is coiled like a predator’s, her eyes burning with a cold fire, locked directly on Jennifer. The gun in her hand is raised and perfectly steady.

“Step away from her,” Victoria says. Her voice is low, calm, and utterly lethal. “Now.”

Jennifer raises both hands slowly, palms out in a gesture of surrender.

“I’m not here to hurt her, Vic.”

“I know,” Victoria replies, her aim never wavering. “Because I’ll shoot you before you can even think about it.”

I don’t know whether to breathe or cry or run into her arms. But I don’t move. I just stare at Victoria—my Victoria—and my heart shatters all over again, wondering if she has any idea what she just did to me by walking through that door.

***

VICTORIA –

Jennifer raises her hands in that slow, calculated way she has, as if the gesture alone could stop me from putting a bullet through her skull. I can already picture the spray of blood on Avery’s floor.

“I’m not here to hurt her,” she says again, her voice carefully calm. Almost pleading.

But my focus is a laser. My finger rests against the trigger. She has no idea how close she is to never leaving this room.

“You sold me out,” I say, the words cold and flat.

She meets my gaze, and I can’t decide if I want to shoot her more for her calmness or for the profound sadness in her eyes. She doesn’t reach for a weapon. She just stands there, as if she’s been waiting for this moment.

“I didn’t,” she insists quietly.

“I kept them off your trail for six months,” she adds, a desperate edge creeping into her tone.

“Who’s ‘them’?” I demand.

She ignores the question. “Please, Victoria, you have to trust me–”

“Trust you?” The laugh that escapes me is hollow and sharp. “You’re the reason Jason was almost killed.”

She doesn’t deny it. She just stares, her expression unflinching. “True,” she says finally. “I wanted Jason dead. But not for the reason you think.”

I narrow my eyes, the barrel of my gun unwavering. “You’re one of them.”

“No.” Her voice wavers, just for a fraction of a second. It’s the first crack I’ve seen. “I’m the crack in their wall. I’ve been feeding them dead ends, stalling, misleading. They don’t know half of what they think they do because of me.”

I take a step closer. The space between us crackles with tension. “Why, Jennifer?”

She exhales, a long, weary sound. A beat passes, and then the truth spills out. “Jason is the one who crossed over. He’s working for them. For the powerful, corrupted men you’ve been targeting. I saw him exchanging documents with one of them. He saw me seeing him.” Her words come faster now, tumbling out. “Of course I told him I would expose him, but he was smarter. He blackmailed me. Made me his pet. I couldn’t refuse. He threatened to kill my family. My daughter. You. Avery. Everyone.”

Her words land like a physical blow, hitting a part of me I’d locked away.

“You should have come to me,” I say, the anger in my voice warring with a dawning, sickening understanding.

“If I had, he would have known. They monitor everything. One wrong word, one moment of weakness, and they would have killed me. Or worse, gone straight for Avery.”

I stare at her, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. “You put a target on her anyway.”

“To make you run!” she insists, her eyes glinting with a desperate fire. “To get you both somewhere safe. You are on their list, Victoria. They will not stop until they stop you.” She looks at me, and I see it now—not betrayal, but a terrible, grim resignation. “Do you think I wanted this? I’m not the villain. I’m just the one who stayed behind to make sure you had a chance.”

I don’t speak.

The silence that hangs between us is thick and heavy as blood.

My arm lowers. Just an inch. Not all the way. But enough.

“You have three seconds to get the fuck out of here, Jennifer,” I growl, my voice pure, cold steel. “Before I put a bullet in your head.”

There’s a pause—just long enough to make my finger twitch against the trigger—but then she nods. Slow. Deliberate. The regret in her eyes isn’t for what she’s done, but for the storm she knows is coming. She turns and walks out, leaving the door gaping open behind her.

I lower the gun only when she’s gone from my sight.

Then I move.

In two urgent strides, I’m in front of Avery. My hands are on her face, her arms, her sides—checking, confirming, reassuring myself that she’s whole. “Are you hurt?” My voice breaks. It’s a sound I haven’t heard from myself in years. Soft. Frantic. Terrifyingly human.

Avery shakes her head, her eyes wide and glistening. “No–I’m okay. I’m fine–”

But I don’t hear the rest. I pull her into my arms, holding her so tightly I fear I might break her. I crush her against my chest and breathe her in. That scent. That warmth. That presence that makes me believe, against all odds, that things might be okay.

I kiss her. It’s hard and fierce, but not rough—never rough with her. It’s desperate and warm, a surrender to everything I’ve been fighting since the day I walked away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against her lips, again and again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought I had to. I didn’t know what else to do–”

Her hands wrap around my waist, and she melts into me. A sob shakes her frame, the sound of it finally shattering the last of my defenses.

Her tears are hot against my neck as she buries her face in my shoulder.

And I hold her. I hold her as if I will never get another chance.

Because I’m not letting her go.

Not again.