The muzzle left the back of Harper's skull, and for one fractured second the world let go.
Heat and pressure bled from her spine as Brock's weight shifted away—force she hadn't realized she'd been fighting until it vanished. His knee dragged off the small of her back, leaving her ribs to flare wide in a desperate, broken gasp. Air tore in like glass, punishing her lungs, as if she'd surfaced too late and too hard from drowning. The inhale snagged halfway, body refusing to trust the space it had been given. Her shoulders sagged, arms spilling useless into the dirt, nerves shrieking as blood surged back in. Gravel pressed hot against her cheek, sweat and blood in her hair, her pulse a thunder in her ears. The silence he left behind pressed louder than the gun ever had.
Then, his fist locked in the back of her vest and wrenched her upright, precise as machinery. No wasted motion, no breath between. Her boots scraped, knees folding, until his grip hauled her forward in one clean drag. A grunt tore from his throat, rough and low—pain answering the twist of his own ribs—but he never slowed.
The fence took her like he'd planned it. Steel rattled sharp, chain biting into her cheek while her shoulder struck the post hard enough to jar bone. Pain spiked white, vision fracturing. A broken cry tore loose before she could choke it down—thin, raw, breaking into stutters as her breath rasped against metal.
His weight never faltered, even bleeding. One hand crushed her wrists into the small of her back, tendons straining, while the other anchored the base of her skull, hot and immovable. His palm pressed her cheek harder into wire, strands of hair catching and tugging with every shallow gasp.
He didn't move. Just held her there, unyielding, while her body buckled against the restraint. Her chest hitched too fast, each breath rattling thin in her ears. Sweat streaked through blood until it burned in her eye. Her pulse slammed wild against her ribs. She stayed still, jaw locked, not daring to shift beneath him. The weight at her neck never eased—constant, final, threading down her spine like a current.
He held his silence, steady as his grip, seconds stretching heavier than time. The yard was alive only with breath and gravel and the copper taste heavy on her tongue. Each beat pressed tighter, as if he were weighing something inside himself.
Then—
"Check her," Brock said. Low. Clipped. Not to her. Like she was already tagged and catalogued. Just another asset to process.
Silence.
Boots shifted behind her, gravel grinding under weight.
"Brock," Knuckles murmured. Just his name. Quiet. Careful. And wrong. Not resistance—hesitation. Like he'd seen something he didn't quite know what to do with.
Harper didn't move. Didn't breathe. The pause stretched—long and unnatural, heavy in the air. The kind of silence that made your skin crawl. That warned you something wasn't following protocol.
"Just check her for fucking weapons, Knuckles," Brock snapped. The words landed hard, flat and final, but not clean. Pain dragged beneath them, rough in his throat, his breath catching on the tail. Authority wasn't in the volume—it was in the weight, the refusal to let strain sound like weakness. Like he'd bleed out before he let hesitation take root.
She felt the change first. Brock's grip eased at her skull, sliding lower to her neck as he dragged her back half a step from the fence. It wasn't release—only adjustment. Enough space for Knuckles to work. Her cheek came free of the chain-link, raw and burning, air cooling the scrape. His fingers clamped firm, pressure without pain. A tether.
The movement cost him. She heard it in the rasp under his breath, the low grind of a sound torn out when his ribs stretched wrong. His hand flexed tighter, reminding her the hold could become a choke in an instant.
Knuckles moved in. She felt it in the shift of air, the creak of gear, boots grinding gravel close. Then hands—broad, steady—swept over her sides. Clinical, practiced, efficient.
Still, her body locked, muscles strung tight as wire. Every nerve flared. Air hitched shallow in her chest.
Knuckles worked the belt first. Fingers stripped spare mags clean, the weight vanishing from her hips one by one until she felt naked without them. A pocket turned. Metal clinked—the last round she hadn't fired, gone now. His palm slid down, swept once, and something harder lifted free. Her phone.
Her stomach clenched. He pocketed it without a word. A lifeline stolen like it meant nothing.
"Vex said no prisoners," Knuckles muttered, voice low as his hands moved down her legs. Careful. Efficient. Measured. "You sure about—"
"She's got value," Brock cut in, before the question finished. "Voss blood buys loyalty. Keep her breathing and the crew shows, or she cracks and hands us their base."
His tone didn't waver. No hint of mercy in it—only math.
Knuckles' hands moved slow and certain, sweeping along her inner thighs—clinical, practiced, never gentle. Her breath hitched. Not from pain, but exposure. The sheer helplessness of being searched like cargo while Brock's grip bent her forward and held her fixed made her body lock tight.
Brock's fingers pressed harder at her neck, a sudden squeeze. It didn't hurt; it only reminded her who held control.
She tensed. He corrected. That was the rhythm now.
Her mind slipped anyway—an instinct, a shield—sliding straight back into his voice, into the weight behind his words. She wasn't breathing because she'd earned it. She was breathing because she was useful. A name. A symbol. Something they could bleed for answers. Bait to dangle in front of the ones who stayed behind. The ones who didn't know. Didn't see everyone go down. Didn't hear the screaming.
They were still out there—waiting on a call that would never come. And she was already being turned into a message.
"Got something," Knuckles muttered.
The words hit like a slap, yanking her back into her body. He crouched low, fingers hooked around her boot. A second later, he drew the blade free—her blade. The same one she'd trusted, tucked tight into the seam.
Knuckles didn't even look at it. He tossed it aside. It clattered against gravel, spun once, then skidded out of sight. One more piece of her stripped away, gone without ceremony.
Brock let her arms go—just enough for them to fall limp at her sides. His hand stayed clamped on the back of her neck, firm and final. Still holding. Still anchoring.
She didn't move. Didn't even breathe deeper. The weight at her neck said everything—don't test it.
Knuckles leaned in again, checked her sleeves, then slid his hands down each arm with smooth, unhurried efficiency. When he reached her right, his fingers brushed across the torn edge of her bicep—just a pass, nothing deliberate. But pain ripped up her arm like a live wire.
A sound broke out of her before she could swallow it—thin, involuntary, half breath, half whimper.
His touch stilled. Then, strangely, lightened. Not mercy. Just the smallest slack in pressure, a flicker of acknowledgment before it vanished again.
"She's clean," he said, quieter now. Then after a breath: "And for what it's worth… Vex might actually back this. Taking her in alive. Makes a statement."
He drew his hand away, reached for his comm.
"Mason, report," Knuckles said, voice flat.
Static cracked, then a voice came back: "Just missing one. Everyone else is down. We are sweeping for the straggler."
The words slammed into her harder than the fence had. This crew—every face she'd run beside tonight, every voice she'd fought to keep alive—gone. No stragglers crawling free. No second chances. Just her, caught and breathing because they wanted her that way. The others would never even know what happened here.
Knuckles keyed his comm again. "We've got the one. Stage the trucks by the gate, we are bringing her in alive and loading out."
Harper barely processed the words before she felt Brock shift behind her. The clamp at her neck eased—not release, just enough for his weight to shift.
Plastic pressed cold against her skin. Zip ties.
Knuckles must have handed them off; she caught the faint scrape of gear, then Brock's grip forcing her wrists together. One loop, then a second—tight, fast, impersonal. The bands cinched down with a harsh zip, biting into skin already raw from gravel. Her fingers twitched, numb and useless.
The sound of it stayed in her ears—final. Like sealing a bag.
Brock didn't say a word. His hand left the back of her neck, closing instead around her forearm, fingers biting just above the fresh cinch of plastic.
With a sharp yank, he hauled her off balance. Her boots skidded over gravel, knees buckling, until his grip wrenched her upright again. He didn't look down. Didn't speak. Just held her steady, her arms bound, her body reduced to weight in his hand.
Then he started walking—no warning, no command. Just forward pressure at her arm, firm and inescapable.
She moved stiffly, every step jarring through her knees, her rhythm broken, body aching with each forced motion. The zip ties bit deeper with every stumble, plastic sawing against raw skin.
Brock's pace never faltered. His hand stayed locked around her forearm, steady, his grip tightening whenever she lurched. Breath rasped low in his chest, but his stride kept even, eyes forward—like she wasn't worth the effort of attention.
Knuckles fell in beside them without a word. His stride was calm, composed, like this was routine. Like hauling someone out of blood and wreckage was part of the job.
They followed the fence line in silence. Gravel shifted underfoot, the chain-link dragging endlessly beside them—dark, high, impenetrable.
Up ahead, the security gate loomed—the same one the Viper van had rolled through at the start. Back when it was just a job. Back when the crew was still whole. Before the ambush. Before the rifle fire tore the air. Before the silence turned into aftermath.
Shapes broke the gravel farther along the fence line. At first she thought it was debris—scraps of canvas, gear blown wide in the fight. But the shapes didn't shift. Didn't flutter. They were still. Slumped.
And then they resolved.
Two bodies lay just off the path. One curled against the fence, knees drawn in, legs twisted wrong beneath him. Blood had soaked through his jacket and dried black, a sheen that looked poured on, permanent. The other had fallen farther out—face down, arms flung forward, fingertips stretched toward a rifle just beyond reach. Like he'd tried to crawl. Like even with the rounds in him, he hadn't stopped fighting.
Kade and Juno.
Perimeter detail. They would've heard the first gunfire, heard the screams. And they hadn't run. They'd held their ground. Bought seconds with their lives.
Her boots slowed without meaning to. Air caught hard in her chest, sharp and solid, like something lodged under her ribs. The ache came fast—too fast. No shock, no denial. Just the brutal recognition of faces she'd trained with, bled with, now reduced to stillness in the dirt.
Brock didn't stop. His grip clamped harder on her arm when her stride faltered, and when she resisted for even a breath, he shoved her forward. Past them.
No pause. No words. Just bodies cooling on the gravel and a path that refused to bend for the dead.
Voices filtered through the dark—low, clipped, just out of reach. Engines idled nearby, steady and calm, a mechanical patience that set her nerves on edge. Shapes emerged as they drew closer: black-clad figures moving between vehicles just beyond the gate. Three SUVs stood lined up in the spill of light—two unmarked, black and faceless, standard Syndicate issue.
But the third had plates.
Her stomach dropped, sharp and cold.
It was the same SUV. The one she'd clocked on the way in—half in shadow, sitting wrong, like it was watching. Plates. Dark tint. Out of place. She'd seen it. Felt it twist in her gut. And she'd let it slide.
Now it was here, parked like it had always belonged. Not just present. Planted.
She didn't need to guess. Didn't need to think. This wasn't revelation. It was confirmation. A stamp on the instinct she hadn't trusted.
She hadn't been wrong.
She just hadn't done a damn thing about it.
Brock led her through the gate, out onto the street. The air shifted—wider now, open and exposed, but no less suffocating.
A tight formation of Syndicate enforcers lingered near the curb. Some loaded gear into SUVs, others adjusted vests or wiped blood from their hands with quiet, methodical focus. No rush. No chaos. Just precision, like this wasn't aftermath but routine.
She counted fast—maybe a dozen. Fifteen at most. All armed. Most already watching.
As Brock stepped forward with her in tow, conversation cut off mid-sentence. Heads turned. Eyes tracked. The attention hit like static crawling down her bones. Not alarm. Not surprise. Just collective focus, sharp and heavy.
Knuckles had already called it in—alive, bring her in. They knew. And that was the part that hollowed her out. Because knowing didn't spark a single question. No one stepped forward. No one challenged. They just accepted.
Their stillness wasn't shock—it was order. Obedience.
Brock didn't explain himself. He didn't need to. The weight of his choice carried through the formation without a word, and they absorbed it like doctrine.
That was power. Not just rank. Not just command. Power you didn't argue with.
Brock's voice cut through the silence—flat, commanding. "Load up. We're done here. Cleanup crew'll be through in an hour."
Cleanup.
The word hit like a punch to the gut. Not medics. Not backup. Cleanup.
They'd sweep the yard for bodies. For blood soaked into seams of gravel. For casings and teeth ground under boots. For the shreds the rifle fire tore too fine to name. For the pieces of her crew still clinging to the dirt—scraped up, bagged, erased.
Knuckles stepped forward, opened the driver's door of the plated SUV, and slid behind the wheel without a word.
"Move it," Brock snapped.
The rear door on the middle row swung open—Mason reaching from inside, the hinge groaning. A shove to her shoulder sent Harper stumbling toward it. Mason caught her arm and yanked her in, rough but controlled, dragging her across the seat like dead weight. She hit sideways, knees knocking hard, wrists bound and useless.
Dark. Tight. Airless.
The interior reeked of heat-soaked vinyl, blood, and gunmetal. The space felt smaller than it was, compressed by silence and stifled breath. Mason shoved her upright against him, his bulk crowding the left side, shoulder blocking the window.
Vale climbed in after her, sliding into the far seat on her right. He didn't look at her directly, but she leaned his way all the same. Not trust. Not safety. Just instinct—because his face, younger, softer, seemed the least likely to turn cruel. Vale swung the door shut behind him, sealing them in.
The front passenger door opened. Brock lowered himself into the seat with a grunt, breath dragging rough with the effort. One hand braced on the dash as if the shift had pulled at his ribs.
"You're bleeding through your shirt," Mason muttered low, not for her. "Bad."
Brock didn't answer. Didn't even turn his head. His silence carried the weight of dismissal.
The rear hatch lifted. Hinges groaned. She flinched at the first thud of boots—then another. Briggs and Jenson climbed into the third row, gear brushing her seat as they wedged in close. The hatch slammed, jolting the SUV.
Wedged tight between Mason's quiet bulk and Vale's steadier frame, shoulders locked, wrists biting raw against plastic, Harper stayed rigid. Her pulse slammed in her ears, loud enough she swore the whole SUV could hear it.
Noise died. The SUV was full. Packed with armored men, silent tension, and weapons she couldn't see. The air turned thick, hot, stale.
Harper's lungs stuttered, her legs drawn tight, wrists screaming beneath the bite of plastic. Her right bicep throbbed with every heartbeat, searing and hot. Her opposite shoulder ached where the graze had burned flesh, each jolt of motion sending sparks through the joint. Blood had slowed tacky on her cheek where the fence had kissed bone, but her nose still leaked steady, copper warm on her lip, sliding to stain her collar.
She could feel the eyes. Not all of them. Just enough. It didn't matter. She was surrounded. Pinned between monsters.
The SUV lurched into motion—smooth but heavy—tires grinding over gravel as the convoy rolled from the yard like a funeral procession with no mourners. No eulogy. Just movement. Final. Inescapable.
Harper didn't speak. Didn't move. She forced her breaths slow, even, like if she got the rhythm right she could vanish into the seat. The hum of the engine filled the silence, low and steady, a mechanical heartbeat far too calm for the slaughter it carried. Around her, armor shifted, rifles brushed against knees, Velcro rasped soft in the dark.
Her shoulders burned, muscles screaming from being wrenched back. Her jaw ached from clenching, her teeth grinding until her head pulsed. A muscle twitched in her cheek, betraying her, and she clamped down harder. She drew herself taller, inch by inch, spine rigid against the bind.
Her pulse hammered in her chest, raw and uneven. She was terrified. And she refused to let it show.
Her head stayed low, but her eyes lifted—drawn like a magnet to the mirror above the dash. Brock's reflection sat framed in the glass, pale and rigid in the passenger seat, one shoulder pressed stiff against the door. He wasn't looking at her. Not yet. But she watched anyway. Too long.
Something in her stare must've landed. His eyes flicked up, met hers in the mirror. A beat. Two. Then she dropped her gaze, fast. Like it burned.
On her left, Mason shifted—barely a nudge, his knee bumping hers as he adjusted in the tight space. The contact was rough, unintentional, but her muscles braced all the same. She didn't flinch. Didn't move. Everything already ached.
Harper tipped her head back against the seat, eyes slipping shut for a moment too long. The material stuck tacky to her skin, sweat and grit binding together. Blood ran the wrong way now, back into her throat, hot and metallic. She swallowed hard against it, choking down copper she couldn't stop.
The SUV rumbled on, tires humming low beneath them, steady as a pulse. No one spoke. No one moved. Just the drone of motion and the press of bodies packed too close.
Streetlights cut through the tinted glass in intervals—gold, then shadow, then gold again. Buildings slid past in quick succession. Wrong buildings. Not the warehouses and frontage roads she remembered on the way in. Narrower alleys now. Empty lots. Residential blocks with windows blacked out.
Her sense of direction faltered. Landmarks blurred, rearranged, refused to hold shape. Every few blocks, the SUV took another turn—not abrupt, not hurried. Just enough to spin the compass in her gut.
They weren't just driving. They were circling. Masking the route. Making sure she'd never know how to trace her way back, even if she got free.
Minutes blurred. Time collapsed. Each bump in the road jarred her wrists against the plastic cinch, sawed her shoulders deeper into the seat. Her heartbeat thudded behind her ribs, slow and uneven.
The route was meaningless. Every turn only carried her closer to the same end. What mattered wasn't where—it was what waited when the doors finally opened.
The drive shifted—less a stop than a bleed of momentum that sank into her bones. Tires hissed against new pavement. The hum beneath her feet deepened. The SUV eased to a crawl. Ahead, a gate loomed—twelve feet high, matte black, flanked by two guards in Syndicate gear. Helmets. Rifles. No signals. No words. Just the mechanical groan of hinges opening on their own, like the metal already knew what it was letting in.
Harper's wrists pulsed with the motion, blood thrumming against plastic. She sat straighter without meaning to, chest tight, lungs caught between breath and hold.
Out of the corner of her eye, Vale's head turned. Just a flick, a glance that brushed her and then moved on. He didn't say anything. Didn't shift closer. But the weight of that moment—of being seen—hit harder than the rifles outside.
Floodlights carved the lot into jagged white strips. Cameras pivoted on silent hinges. Motion sensors blinked like waiting eyes. No logos. No signage. Just steel, concrete, and order—security layered thick as armor.
Then the compound rose into view.
Not a bunker. Not a ruin. That was the worst part.
It looked like a corporate headquarters—six stories of brutalist glass and steel that didn't reflect anything back. Window after window stretched black across the façade, endless and empty, like whatever was inside wasn't alive. Or if it was, it wasn't human.
No doors. No entrance she could see. No welcome.
This wasn't a hideout. It wasn't an outpost. It was a stronghold—surgical, deliberate, built to erase.
Uniformed enforcers patrolled the perimeter in silence, rifles cradled, steps perfectly timed. Precise. Like parts of a system. Like they didn't need orders to respond. They were the order.
Her throat closed. This wasn't where you got held. It was where you got kept.
The SUV dipped down into the garage, the angle steep enough to press her weight into the seat. Concrete walls rose on either side, fluorescents buzzing overhead, the air shifting heavy with oil, exhaust, and rubber—thick enough to taste.
Rows of black vehicles stretched out inside, identical and immaculate, their sleek chassis gleaming under the harsh light. Not a scrape or fleck of dirt. Just the sterile quiet of machines waiting for orders.
Her pulse skittered as the SUV slowed. Each roll forward felt like the last. And when the brakes finally caught, the jolt shot through her chest like a verdict.
Doors opened one after another, boots striking concrete with purpose. Movements crisp. Rehearsed. Few words exchanged.
On her left, Mason shifted first, dragging the door wide. His hand clamped around her upper arm with cold certainty and yanked her out. Her body lagged, boots scraping hard against the garage floor before she found her balance. Vale climbed out behind them, closing the door with a hollow thud that echoed through the bay.
Heat hit like a blow. The air was humid and stagnant, thick with diesel and sweat and the ghost of too many bodies that had passed through this place before. It clung to her skin, soaked into her lungs, made her feel smaller just for breathing it.
No sky. No sound but the ordered rhythm of footfalls. Just cement walls and rows of spotless black vehicles. No path forward but the one they chose for her.
Brock was already outside, posture rigid beside the other two SUVs. His voice carried—low but cutting clear across the garage: "Clean work. Get yourselves cleared and checked. Debrief in the morning."
One of the enforcers—Gunner, by the set of his shoulders—hesitated, eyes flicking to the blood soaking Brock's shirt. "Sir. Med bay should see you first."
Brock didn't break stride, didn't even look at him. "Later." Final.
The formation held while he spoke, Mason's grip still locked on her arm. When Brock stepped closer, he took her without a word—his hand firm, unyielding, replacing Mason's like the exchange had been rehearsed.
Then the others peeled away in twos and threes, gear clattering, boots fading into side corridors until the garage swallowed them. The noise ebbed to silence, leaving only Brock and Knuckles at her back.
Brock didn't pause. He walked, and she went with him—or was dragged, her boots scraping in shallow resistance. Fluorescents buzzed overhead, harsh and sterile, beating against her skull with every step.
Ahead loomed a steel door—tall, windowless, reinforced. No markings.
He stopped short, shifted his grip. Fingers raked into her loose hair—sweat-slick, tangled, matted with blood—and fisted hard at the crown. Her chin snapped up, throat bared, face dragged into the glare. It wasn't neat. It wasn't measured. It was violent in its simplicity—pain as a handle.
With his free hand, he keyed the pad and pulled the door open. It hissed—hydraulic, controlled, the sound of containment. Built to seal things in.
Beyond the threshold, the corridor gaped like a maw—polished concrete stretching wide, fluorescent light bleeding pale over black tactical vests and gloved fists. Enforcers lined both walls, shoulder to shoulder, unmoving. Silent. Summoned not for the mission, but the aftermath. For her.
Harper—bloodied, zip-tied, dragged by her hair—was the proof Brock brought back. His trophy. His leverage. His message. And every single one of them saw it.
He kept moving, shoulders square despite the blood soaking his shirt, every step dragging a faint hitch from his ribs. His fist never loosened, her scalp burning where he twisted tight, chin wrenched up, blood drying tacky at her throat. Her nose had almost stopped, but residue crusted dark beneath one nostril, humiliation raw on her skin.
She stumbled with the pull, knees weak, body wrecked from impact and loss. Every jolt sent fire through her torn bicep and grazed shoulder, wrists biting deeper with each imbalance. Sometimes she caught herself, boots dragging, but mostly his fist hauled her upright. Knuckles shadowed them close, silent, cutting off any escape.
"Look what I caught," Brock called out, voice cruel and carrying. "A Viper bitch who thought she was untouchable."
Sound fractured. Heads turned. A low whistle cut the hush. Someone muttered a curse. Boots shifted as men adjusted their stance for a better look. She felt it in the air—teeth bared, eyes narrowing, judgment scraping over her skin.
They didn't touch her. They didn't have to.
The hall pressed tighter—heat, breath, sweat pressing from all sides. Then Brock wrenched her higher, his fist jerking her hair until her neck snapped back, jaw forced toward the ceiling. Pain cracked white through her spine, breath choking off as her toes skimmed the floor, strung up like a trophy.
"Silas fucking Voss' daughter," he barked, voice rolling down the concrete. "Dragged out of our yard while the rest of her crew bled into it."
The shift was immediate. Murmurs, first—low and ugly, crawling beneath the hum of fluorescents. Then voices cut louder.
"Well fuck—Voss really did drop a cunt in the world."
"Look at her—little spy slut all tied up."
"Bet she squeals like a bitch in heat."
"Should spread her right here, see if she's worth the hype."
"Pussy like that won't last the night."
"Think daddy taught her tricks, or we break her in raw?"
The laughter that followed was thick, wet, gutter-deep. Boots scraped concrete, slow and deliberate, like the sound itself was a promise.
She flinched—but Brock's grip locked her in place, jaw wrenched high. Displayed.
One of the men broke ranks, broad through the chest, scar carved down one cheek like a second grin. His boots thudded slow, heavy, each step an encroachment. He stopped just inches from her, breath hot and sour, gaze dragging down her blood-streaked body like he was already unwrapping her.
"Break her in tonight, boss?" he muttered, cracking his knuckles. "She looks like she'd fight it—squirm real good before she gives."
Brock didn't answer. He didn't need to. His fist stayed tangled in her hair, elbow raised, her skull his anchor. Chin forced high, back bowed, blood crusted at her throat—her face angled up for the room to leer at.
The silence that followed pressed in thick, heavy with hunger.
Then she moved—violent, reckless, all instinct. Her knee drove up into the enforcer's inner thigh, bone smashing into muscle with everything she had left. The impact tore through her wounded arm, fire streaking down her side, but she didn't stop. He staggered back with a guttural curse, hand flying to his holster. Boots shifted. Weapons angled. The air thickened—but no one fired.
Brock struck first.
He wrenched her forward by the hair and slammed his fist into her gut—deep, merciless, controlled. Air ripped from her chest in a silent choke. Her body folded around the blow, ribs screaming, stomach knotted hard as stone. Her knees buckled, vision flared white, but he held her up, suspended between his grip and the pain ripping through her core.
She couldn't scream. Couldn't breathe. Just convulsed in his hold, blood slick in her mouth.
"No one touches what's mine," Brock barked. His voice cracked through the corridor like a gunshot, cold and final.
The crowd stilled. The scarred enforcer froze, fury in his face—but he didn't advance. He spat near her boots, muttered filth under his breath, and melted back into the line. Smaller. Put back in place.
Brock's gaze never left her. He leaned close, his breath hot against her cheek, voice low, venomous. "Keep testing me, Viper. I'll break you apart. Make the floor drink you dry."
Then came the second hit.
Calculated. Precise. His fist drove into her ribs, just beneath the first blow. The strike split her wide inside, pain bursting like a fault line. Her spine snapped forward with a ragged cry, stomach seizing, fire surging through her core. Blood flooded her tongue. The world buckled sideways.
He still didn't let go.
She spat thick at his boots, chest wracked, each breath a stabbing ruin. His face hovered inches from hers—mocking, intimate, almost tender in its cruelty.
"Still got that bite?" he murmured. "We'll see what's left once I strip it down."
He yanked her chin higher. Her neck screamed. Her scalp tore at the roots. But her eyes locked on his—wild, wet, burning. Refusing to drop.
Brock's fist unclenched, and he shoved her off like she'd burned out her use. Fingers tore free of her hair, leaving her head to drop under its own weight. Pain screamed down her neck, shoulders snapping forward—and her knees hit concrete before she could stop them. For a breath she stayed there—head bowed, body folded, air ragged in her throat.
The crowd muttered low, the sound crawling like heat over her skin.
Knuckles moved in fast, grip locking under her arm, no gentler than if he were hauling wreckage. Her legs stumbled, boots scraping, her bound wrists biting deep as he dragged her upright.
Brock stood over her a moment longer, chest heaving, blood darkening the back of his shirt in a spreading bloom. His eyes flicked once to Knuckles.
"Take her to holding," he said, voice rougher now, scraped raw by breath and blood. "Lock it down. I'll deal with her after med."
Knuckles gave a single nod, silent, tightening his grip as Harper sagged against the pull.
Brock turned then, limp dragging at his stride, shoulders rigid as he forced motion through pain. The stain spread with every step, shirt clinging dark and wet where her strikes had landed.
Good. Let it sting. Let it follow him. Let it remind him with every step that she hadn't gone down clean.
Knuckles didn't speak. He moved her forward, hand locked around her arm, grip vice-tight, steering from behind whether her body cooperated or not. Her boots skidded, legs threatening to fold beneath the raw ache in her gut and the fire in her ribs. Every breath scraped. Every step jarred.
They turned a corner. Overhead fluorescents buzzed, casting harsh light on bare concrete. The wide corridor funneled narrower, branching into shadow. He shoved through a steel door with his shoulder—then another. No signs. No markers. Just reinforced seams and silence.
Then came the stairs.
She faltered at the edge, body refusing before her mind caught up. Knuckles didn't pause. His grip hitched higher and he shoved her forward, leaving her no choice but down.
The first step tore a sound out of her throat—thin, involuntary. The second sent her knees buckling, boots slipping on the lip. She pitched forward hard. For a split second it felt like she was going to crack her skull open on the concrete—until Knuckles' grip wrenched her back, his other hand clamping briefly at her side to steady her. Just enough to keep her from breaking herself before he could push her on.
"On your feet," he muttered, almost under his breath, the blunt edge of someone tired of watching her collapse.
Then he forced her down again. One stair. Another. Grinding, unrelenting. Her body jolted with every drop, lungs crushed against the bruised cage of her ribs. Sweat burned her eyes. Her pulse thundered hollow at her temples. By the bottom, her legs shook, her throat was raw, her vision a blur at the edges.
He still didn't let go.
At the base, a steel door waited—flush with the wall, no handle, no window. Only a black scanner pulsing faint green. Two fingers pressed. A blink. The hiss of a hydraulic seal breaking. The door shuddered, then opened like an old lung exhaling.
Beyond wasn't a cell. It was a box. Barely five feet wide. No cot. No toilet. No vent. Just four stained walls, a rust-caked drain in the center, and a bulb swaying on a bare wire, flickering sickly yellow like it couldn't keep itself alive. The air hit like a slap—wet, sour, stinking of bleach and old blood.
Knuckles didn't enter. He shoved her through. Hard. Her boots skidded on the slick floor, no traction, and her knees slammed down with a crack that sent pain jolting up her spine. Her bound arms dragged behind her, useless, leaving her to pitch forward uncontrolled. Her face nearly struck the concrete—close enough to taste rust and old blood—before her shoulder took the hit and stopped her short.
Knuckles lingered a breath longer. Long enough for the silence to settle like dirt falling into a grave. "Pray he makes up his mind fast," he muttered. Not cruel. Just tired.
Then the door slammed. The bulb above blinked once. Twice. Then drowned in black.