Jen didn't give anyone time to breathe.
The moment Arlo's acceptance settled over the room, she moved,no pause, no ceremonial nonsense, just action.
Jen's order
She stepped away from him, heels ticking on concrete, and turned slightly so both Arlo and Reed fell into her line of sight.
"Good," she said, voice smooth. "First order of business: bring me your doctor and your devoted brother‑in‑law."
Her tone made the titles sound like pieces on a board, not people.
Arlo's eyes flicked, almost involuntarily, toward the hallway where Ariel had been dragged and locked away. The memory of the heavy door slamming, her muffled cries cut off, flashed through his mind.
"Why?" he asked, keeping his voice level.
Jen arched a brow.
"Optics," she said. "If Halo is folding into my empire, I want all the key parts where I can see them. And if they're going to hate you",her mouth curved into a small, sharp smile,"they might as well do it to your face."
Reed chuckled, delighted.
"I do enjoy a good family reunion," he murmured.
Arlo swallowed down the instinctive protest, leave them out of this, because they were already in it. Reed knew they existed, Jen knew they mattered, and pretending they were invisible wouldn't protect them.
He nodded once.
"I'll make the call," he said.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, fingers steady through force of habit, and dialed one of the secure numbers. To Chris and Mara, it would sound like an urgent rendezvous for intel on the buyer, on Reed,a standard "we've got something, get here fast."
He didn't let anything in his voice betray that the ground had shifted under his feet.
"New location," he said. "We've got a lead on the buyer. Bring whatever you have. Time's tight."
He hung up before Chris could ask too many questions.
Chris and Mara arrive
The wait felt shorter than it was.
Twenty‑five minutes later, the door at the far end of the room buzzed and swung open.
Chris walked in first, shoulders set, eyes already cataloguing exits, faces, weapons. Mara followed, her med bag slung cross‑body, her gaze sharp and tired but focused.
They took three steps into the room and stopped dead.
Jen was in the chair at the center, posture loose but regal, one leg crossed over the other. Reed lounged off to her left, casual menace in human form.
And to Jen's right,half a step behind her shoulder, at the place reserved for lieutenants and heirs, stood Arlo.
Not bound. Not on his knees. Not bleeding.
Standing beside her.
Like he belonged there.
Chris's face went from alert to stunned to furious in the space of a heartbeat.
"Johnson," he said, the name coming out flat with shock.
Mara's mouth tightened. She didn't speak yet, but her eyes narrowed, and that was worse.
Reed's smile brightened.
"Welcome," he said warmly. "You're just in time. We were talking about legacy. You two are part of that, apparently."
Chris ignored him completely.
"Where is she?" he demanded, eyes locked on Arlo now. "Where's Ariel?"
Arlo opened his mouth, but Jen lifted her hand first.
"Show them," she said.
A guard at the side door turned the handle partway, enough to reveal a narrow concrete corridor stretching away. From somewhere down that hall came a muffled sound,distant, indistinct, but human.
Chris's blood ran cold.
"Ariel!" he shouted, trying to push past the nearest guard.
A rough hand shoved his chest, halting him.
Reed laughed softly.
"She can't hear you," he said. "Soundproof enough for our purposes, though I do hope the vents carry a little of it. The way she pleads is… artistic."
Chris spun on him.
"What did you do?" he snarled. "What did you—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
His gaze snapped back to Arlo, taking in the position, the lack of restraints, the silent neutrality on his face.
Understanding hit with brutal clarity.
"What did you do?" Chris spat at Arlo, voice cracking. "You said she'd be safe with you. You said—"
He took a step forward, fists already clenching.
Jen lifted two fingers.
The room moved before Chris could.
Reed's men shifted in, but they weren't alone. A second wave stepped up,Halo muscle, men Chris recognized from late‑night operations and briefing tables. There was hesitation in some of their eyes, but not in their hands.
They grabbed him the moment he lunged.
Chris drove his shoulder into one chest, elbow into another throat, pure reflex and rage. For a second, he almost broke free.
Then a larger man caught him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Two more piled on, shoving him back.
"Let go of me!" Chris roared, struggling. "You're supposed to be on our side!"
"Orders shifted," one of the Halo men grunted, breathless.
"Orders," Chris spat. "From him?"
He jerked his chin at Arlo.
"You piece of—"
Mara moved forward, only to feel cold metal press against her ribs as another guard slid in beside her, gun low but very present.
"Don't," the guard murmured.
She held up her hands a fraction, not in surrender but in acknowledgement, eyes never leaving Arlo.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet and lethal.
"You handed her over," she said. "Didn't you?"
Arlo's throat worked.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Reed answered for him, laughter bubbling up, delighted.
"Oh, you should've seen it," Reed said. "Your fearless king, standing right where he is now while my men took your girl down the hall. He pried her hands off his arm himself and nudged her my direction. It was almost sweet."
Chris went very still in his captors' hold.
For a second, the fight drained out of him, replaced by pure, nauseated disbelief.
Then it came back twice as hot.
"You gave her to him?" he shouted, voice cracking. "After everything? After the warehouse? After you promised—"
His voice broke on the last word.
He lunged again, pulling three men a step forward by sheer brute force.
"Chris, stop," Mara snapped, not because Arlo deserved the mercy, but because she could see where this was going,three broken ribs and a concussion before he even reached Reed.
"Don't tell me to stop!" Chris yelled, eyes never leaving Arlo. "He used her! Again! He used her pain in that chair, and now he's using her like cargo!"
His chest heaved, breath tearing in and out.
Mara's own anger finally spilled.
"You asked me to build that device," she said to Arlo, words precise and cold. "To hit her chip. To weaponize her nerve endings. You told me it was the only way to find her. I believed you. I said yes. And now you stand there and hand her over like she's just another lever?"
Her voice dropped, thick with contempt.
"You're not a strategist," she said. "You're a butcher with better vocabulary."
Something flickered in Arlo's eyes at that, but his face stayed carved.
Jen took in the tableau, almost purring with satisfaction.
"Lock them up," she said lazily. "Opposite wing from Ariel. Would be a shame to waste so much righteous fury. We might need an audience later."
Two guards moved in on Mara. She didn't fight,one doctor against four armed men wasn't a fight, it was a statistic—but the look she gave Arlo as they took her bag and pinned her wrists behind her back could have cut through steel.
"You really chose the throne over all of us," she said. "Didn't think I'd live long enough to see you become a cliché."
Chris was still thrashing as they hauled him toward the corridor.
"Don't touch her," he snarled. "Don't you touch her, Johnson! I swear, if she has one more bruise when I see her—"
He twisted, wrenching his shoulder, ignoring the flare of pain.
"If she dies because of this," he shouted, voice tearing, "I will spend the rest of my life making sure your empire burns with her. I will make it my only job."
The guards shoved him through the side door. Mara was pushed after him.
The door slammed.
Locks engaged, heavy and final.
The echoes of Chris's last words hung in the air, vibrating through Arlo's ribs.
"Spirited," Reed said, almost fond. "You always did pick interesting company."
Jen leaned back in her chair, eyes on Arlo.
She took her time speaking, letting the silence do some of the work.
"Well," she said at last. "That clears the board. Your sunshine in one box, your conscience in another, your would‑be brother sharpening his hatred down the hall."
She smiled, small and cutting.
"Congratulations, little brother," she said. "You've successfully alienated every person who might have pulled you out of this mess. Looks good on you. Fits the monster story nicely."
Reed snorted a laugh.
Arlo didn't respond.
On the outside, he looked exactly like she said,a man who had chosen the throne, standing at the queen's right hand while the people who mattered to him were dragged away.
On the inside, he could feel the walls closing in,not just of the safe house, but of the persona he'd built.
King. Monster. Buyer's ally.
He had stepped into the role for a reason.
But watching Chris and Mara get hauled off like that, hearing the words dead to me and butcher spill from mouths that had once trusted him, he realized something he hadn't accounted for in his plan:
Even if he got Ariel out.
Even if he found a way to turn this room inside out and put Reed and Jen on their knees.
There might not be anything left of their version of Arlo Johnson to bring back to her.
The cell was small enough that Chris could touch both walls if he spread his arms.
Concrete. A narrow bench bolted to one side. A dim strip of light humming overhead. The air smelled faintly of metal and damp, the way every bad holding room did.
The door clanged shut behind them, bolts sliding into place with a finality that settled in Chris's bones.
Mara stood still for a second, listening to the locks engage, counting them out of habit.
"One deadbolt, two slide bars, electronic lock on top," she murmured. "Overkill for two unarmed people."
Chris didn't answer.
He was in the middle of the cell, chest heaving, hands still clenched like he was braced for another swing.
The adrenaline that had carried him through the fight in the main room drained all at once, leaving something raw and shaking behind.
He turned in a tight circle, like he could somehow see through the walls if he looked hard enough.
"She's here," he said, voice hoarse. "In this same place. With him. And he—"
The words snagged in his throat.
Mara watched him, taking him in the way she took in patients,posture, breathing, color.
He looked… shattered.
"Chris," she said quietly.
He shook his head, fingers pressing into his hair.
"I should've stopped her," he choked. "When he laid that plan out in the kitchen, I knew it was insane. I knew there were a thousand ways it could go wrong. And I still just… stood there. I didn't tell her to go. I didn't tell her to stay. I let her make the call because I didn't want to be the one to take away her choice again."
His voice broke.
"She trusted him," he said. "Not me. Not my judgment. She looked at Arlo and decided on her own to go, and I let it happen because a part of me wanted to believe he'd finally pick the right side."
He let out a rough, humorless laugh.
"Some protector I am," he said. "My sister walks into the wolf's den because she thinks the wolf has grown a conscience, and I just… watch."
Mara's own throat tightened.
"You didn't push her," she said. "You didn't sell her on the idea. She's not a puppet. Ariel's stubborn as hell. Once she decided to trust him, nothing you said would have kept her from that car."
He dragged a harsh breath in.
"She's my sister," he whispered. "My baby sister. I spent years not even knowing if she was alive, and then I found her, and then Reed took her, and now—" His voice fractured. "Now I'm locked in a box while she's down the hall with him, and the only person she chose to trust is standing next to the people who want to break her."
His shoulders shook.
"I don't know how to sit here," he said. "How to breathe, knowing she's there because she believed in the wrong man and I couldn't give her a better option."
Mara's eyes burned.
She didn't tell him to be strong.
Didn't tell him it would be fine,because it might not.
Instead, she moved to the bench and sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed, and waited a beat to see if he would pull away.
He didn't.
He trembled.
"You're allowed to be angry," she said softly. "At him. At Reed. At yourself, if you have to. But don't twist it into some story where you marched her to the door. She walked because she's brave and reckless and believes there's something worth saving in people like Arlo. That's on him for proving her wrong, not on you for not chaining her to a chair."
A broken sound tore out of Chris.
He bowed his head, hands coming up to cover his face.
The first sob shook through him like it had been waiting behind his ribs all day.
Mara's chest squeezed.
She slipped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him sideways until his head found her shoulder.
For a second, he resisted,pride, habit, stubbornness.
Then he broke.
He turned into her, shoulders shaking, one arm wrapping around her like he was afraid she'd vanish too if he didn't hold on.
Mara tightened her hold, one hand coming up to the back of his head, fingers threading gently through his hair.
"Let it out," she murmured. "You're allowed to break down. The room already did."
He cried then, really cried, the kind of gut‑deep sobs that didn't bother to be silent.
The sound bounced off the concrete, filling the small space.
She held him through it,through the choked apologies to Ariel he couldn't say to her face, through the curses at Arlo's name, through the moments where he tried to pull himself together and then collapsed again.
Her own tears slid down, silent, soaking into his shirt.
She was angry too.
At Arlo. At Reed. At the whole twisted system that had turned people into products, siblings into enemies, doctors into accomplices.
But right now, her job wasn't to solve any of that.
Right now, her job was to be a shoulder.
A steady heartbeat.
A reminder that someone in this building was still on his side.
Eventually, the sobs tapered, his breathing hitching less with each inhale.
He didn't pull away yet.
Didn't try to joke it off.
Just stayed there, leaning into her, exhausted.
"We'll get her back," Mara said quietly into his hair. "I don't know how yet. I don't know what's left of Johnson to work with on the other side of that wall. But we are not leaving her in this place. That's non‑negotiable."
Chris swallowed.
"You promise?" he asked, voice small in a way she'd never heard from him before.
She tightened her arm around him.
"Yes," she said. "I promise."
He closed his eyes, letting himself believe it for one fragile moment.
In a building full of locks and lies, in a family war that had turned love into a weapon, Chris Smith cried into Mara's shoulder, and she held him like she could absorb some of the weight. It didn't fix anything, but it kept him from falling apart alone.
The room they shoved Ariel into was colder than the hallway.
Concrete walls, concrete floor, a single narrow cot bolted to the ground. No window, just a vent near the ceiling that hummed faintly. The door slammed behind her with a heavy thud, locks grinding into place one after another.
The echo of it shook something inside her.
For a moment, she just stood there, breathing hard, wrists aching where Reed's men had held her.
Silence settled, thick and humming.
She stumbled backward until the backs of her knees hit the cot and sank down, palms flat on the edge to stop them from shaking.
Her chest was already tight from crying, throat raw, but the tears kept coming anyway, hot and relentless, blurring the room until it was all just smears of grey.
"Why," she whispered to the empty walls. "Why, why, why…"
There was no answer.
Only the faint buzz of the light and the memory of his voice.
The buyer. You said you'd give me the name if I handed her to you. I've handed her. Talk.
He'd sounded so calm.
So… professional.
She pressed her fingers to her forehead, trying to steady herself, but the scenes kept crashing over her in jagged pieces.
Arlo prying her hands off his arm.
The shove that sent her toward Jen instead of behind him.
Reed's fingers on her face, the way Arlo had stood there, a statue, while it happened.
The locks turning when they dragged her down the hall.
"Stop," she muttered. "Just stop."
Her body didn't listen.
She curled forward, elbows on her knees, and let her head drop into her hands.
It felt like the warehouse all over again,strapped down, no control, pain not just physical but threaded through everything that had ever felt safe.
Only this time, the worst damage wasn't from electricity or metal.
It was from the way he hadn't looked at her. From the way he'd let her scream his name and answered with silence.
Her mind, desperate for somewhere else to go, snagged on an older hurt.
The car.
The wildflower by the roadside. Her father's easy smile as he'd pulled over, her mother's laugh floating through the air.
The screech of tires. The crash. Glass and metal and the world ending in a single, brutal second.
All these years, she'd carried the guilt like a stone,that if she hadn't begged them to stop, if she hadn't wanted that one small, bright thing, they might have lived.
She'd always told herself it was irrational.
Tonight, locked in another box she hadn't chosen, it didn't feel irrational at all.
It felt like a pattern.
Every time she reached for something,love, safety, a wildflower on the side of the road—someone bled for it.
Someone died for it.
Someone betrayed it.
Her stomach twisted.
Her past, the accident, the grief,none of it felt anchored anymore. It was all just floating pieces, and now this betrayal had crashed into them and scattered everything again.
Ariel's fingers curled into fists in her hair.
"I was never a choice," she whispered. "Just a problem to move. A thing to use."
The thought hollowed her out.
Trust, which had always come so easily to her, now felt like a bruise she'd been pressing on for too long.
She saw Arlo again, softer this time,on her couch, holding a mug of hot chocolate, his voice gentle as he said, You have me now. You're not alone.
She'd believed him.
She'd believed him when he listened to her stories about the crash, when he held her through the nightmares, when he told her she wasn't leverage.
She'd believed him in the kitchen when he laid out the crazy plan and didn't push her, just said the risks and let her choose.
She'd chosen him.
On purpose.
A raw sound tore out of her.
"I'm so stupid," she choked. "I'm so—"
The word didn't come.
Stupid didn't feel right. Naive didn't, either.
She had seen his darkness. She knew what he was capable of. She'd watched him hurt people, including her.
And still, she'd wanted to believe he could be better.
Because he'd been better with her. Because he'd shown her a version of himself that felt real.
Had that all been performance too?
Or had he meant it,meant every soft word, every protective reflex,and still somehow chosen this?
The door was solid, but she turned toward it anyway, staring at the blank metal like it might answer her if she glared hard enough.
"Are you out there?" she whispered. "Are you even thinking about me at all? Or is it just numbers again?"
Her voice bounced back, small and thin.
She thought, suddenly, that she heard something faint through the walls,like a distant shout, a thud, another door slamming.
Chris.
For a second, hope surged.
"Chris?" she called, louder, even though she knew the soundproofing would swallow her voice.
Silence answered.
She sank back onto the cot, shoulders trembling.
The thought of her brother in the same building helped and hurt at once.
He was here.
He knew.
He'd be tearing the walls down with his bare hands if he could.
And he was just as trapped.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, not sure if she meant it for Chris or for herself. "I'm so sorry."
She lay down slowly, curling on her side, facing the wall.
The concrete was unforgiving under her shoulder, the thin mattress doing almost nothing to soften it.
Arlo didn't move until the last lock slid home on Chris and Mara's door.
The echo of the metal carried down the hall and into the main room like a closing bracket.
Reed exhaled, satisfied, and dropped back into his casual lean against the table.
Jen settled deeper into the central chair, one leg crossed over the other, fingers drumming a thoughtful rhythm on the armrest.
For a few seconds, no one spoke.
Arlo used the silence.
He took a quick mental inventory, the way he always did after a deal went sideways or a firefight ended:
Ariel: locked, alive, Reed's orders keeping everyone else off her—for now.
Chris and Mara: secured, furious, but not dead, which meant they were still leverage, still potential allies if he could get back to them.
Jen: buyer, architect, wounded child turned weapon.
Reed: opportunistic predator, enjoying the show but not the one driving the deepest knife.
His first plan was dead.
No nameless buyer to shoot, no clean extraction in the chaos.
But the board wasn't gone.
It was just… different.
Jen watched him, eyes bright.
"Well?" she said at last. "Now that your attachments are safely stored, we can talk like adults."
Reed smirked.
"Assuming he's ready for that," he said lightly. "He looked a bit… rattled."
Arlo let out a breath that could pass for a humorless laugh.
"You lock a man's assets in three separate boxes, expect him not to look rattled and you're the one who's never done business," he said.
It was the kind of line Old Arlo would have thrown out without a second thought—dry, pragmatic, a little cruel.
Jen's mouth twitched.
"There he is," she murmured. "My brother, the realist."
Reed's eyes narrowed, amused.
"You've got what you wanted," Arlo went on, shifting his weight as if settling into the new role. "My network. My people. Me at your side instead of at your throat. So what's the next move, your Majesty? You going to tell me the long‑term plan, or do I just keep smiling and catching the knives you throw?"
He let the challenge in on purpose.
Not enough to sound like rebellion.
Just enough to sound like the man she'd grown up with—the one who never signed anything until he'd seen the fine print.
Jen tilted her head, studying him.
"You really want to know?" she asked.
"If I'm going to sell what's left of my soul for a place in your empire," he said, "it would be nice to know the product line."
Reed laughed.
"I'm starting to see the family resemblance," he said.
Jen's gaze flicked briefly toward the closed doors that hid Ariel and the others, then back to Arlo.
"The short version?" she said. "Reed keeps doing what he does best,finding, breaking, distributing. I do what I do best,buying, arranging, redirecting. You do what you do best,making sure everything runs so smoothly no one ever sees the blood until it's dry."
"And Halo?" Arlo asked. "Obsidian, the ports, the fronts?"
"Absorbed," Jen said simply. "Re‑branded. I'm not going to burn your work down, Arlo. I'm not our parents. I don't destroy useful things. I repurpose them."
Reed's jaw twitched at the our parents line, but he said nothing.
"And Ariel?" Arlo asked, letting her name sit there like an afterthought and hating himself for how easily he made it sound that way.
Jen smiled faintly.
"Our favorite variable," she said. "Original sin and delayed delivery all in one. She's leverage, obviously. Bait, if we need to pull certain old ghosts out of hiding. And.depending on how cooperative she is,maybe something more long‑term. A redemption project. People love a reformed princess."
Arlo's fingers tightened behind his back, out of sight.
He pictured Ariel hearing that word,leverage,from Jen's mouth and flinched internally.
But this, too, was useful.
Jen liked narratives. Redemption arcs. Symbols.
Symbols could be moved.
"Redemption project," Reed echoed, amused. "That's one way to describe your therapy."
Jen gave him a look that was almost fond.
"If you didn't enjoy the show, you'd have left by now," she said.
Arlo let their exchange play out, watching, filing away the subtle balance of power between them. Jen held the long‑term vision. Reed held the enforcement. Neither fully trusted the other.
That was something.
He turned toward the nearest wall, as if examining the layout, then spoke casually.
"You've doubled the guard presence since I walked in," he said. "Three on the main exit, two at the service door, rotation on the roof. Hall cams are older models,Reed's brand, not yours. And the wireless mesh in here is noisy enough to hide a small war."
Jen's brows lifted, amused.
"Already counting men and cameras?" she asked. "You really don't know how to rest, do you?"
"Resting gets you shot," Arlo said. "I'm just making sure I know which way the bullets will travel if this place goes loud."
Reed's smile sharpened a fraction.
"You planning on it going loud?" he asked mildly.
"Planning on being ready if it does," Arlo said. "You want me here as your operations head, you let me do the job. That starts with finding your weak points before someone else does."
He met Jen's eyes deliberately.
"Like the fact that your entire current leverage pile is on the same floor," he added. "Ariel, Chris, Mara. Me. Reed's ego. One fire in the wrong hallway and you lose your favorite toys in one shot."
Jen's eyes cooled, considering.
Reed snorted.
"Subtle," he said. "You offering to redesign the dungeon for her now?"
"I'm offering to make sure your enemies don't get a two‑for‑one special," Arlo said. "You wanted my brain. This is how it works."
It sounded like pure logistics.
Underneath, it was mapping.
Distances. Doors. Guard count. Response time.
He memorized the rhythm of the guards' boots outside, the faint buzz of the cameras when they panned, the soft mechanical tick of the main lock cycling.
A new plan curled at the edges of his thoughts.
Not fully formed. Not clean. But there.
He couldn't kill the buyer.
Not yet.
He couldn't walk out with Ariel under his arm.
Not yet.
But he could do what he'd always done best,get close, find cracks, and wait for the moment everyone else stopped paying attention to the smallest piece on the board.
He turned back to Jen.
"You want this to work," he said, "you're going to have to trust me with some autonomy. I can't command if everyone in this building knows I'm on a leash."
Jen smiled slowly.
"Oh, you'll get your autonomy," she said. "Lines of credit. Men. Rooms full of toys. I'm not interested in keeping you on a short chain, Arlo. I'm interested in making sure you never want to leave."
He let a matching smile ghost across his face.
"Then give me something to build," he said. "And I'll make sure no one tears it down."
Reed watched them both, eyes half‑lidded, like a man enjoying a play in a language he didn't fully speak but liked the explosions in.
"Careful, Jen," he murmured. "Give a man like him too much room to build, and he might decide he likes demolition better."
Jen waved a hand.
"If he does, he knows who taught him," she said. "And he knows how quickly I can take it all away."
Her gaze locked with Arlo's for a long, measuring beat.
He held it.
Didn't flinch.
On the surface, it looked like acceptance.
Underneath, behind the practiced calm, something shifted.
For the first time since he'd walked into the room, Arlo stopped thinking like a man trying to survive someone else's game.
And started thinking like a man who was, very quietly, preparing to steal the board.
Jen studied Arlo's face for a long second, then nodded once, decision made.
"Fine," she said. "You want something to build? You can have it. This floor is yours to restructure—security, holding, operations. I'll expect reports, not excuses."
She stood, smoothing an invisible crease from her jacket.
"I have calls to make," she added. "Some of our overseas friends will want to hear the good news firsthand. Don't embarrass me while I'm gone."
Reed pushed off the table lazily.
"You really leaving him unsupervised on day one?" he asked, half‑teasing, half‑serious.
Jen's smile was thin.
"He knows what happens if he confuses freedom with a head start," she said. "Don't you, little brother?"
Arlo's expression didn't flicker.
"I'm still here," he said. "Aren't I?"
Jen's gaze lingered on him one heartbeat longer, then she turned and walked out, two of her own people falling in behind her. The door closed with a soft, decisive click.
Reed stayed.
He watched Arlo like a man trying to decide whether the snake in front of him was venomous or just pretty.
"So," Reed said, folding his arms. "Showtime, King. What does 'rebuilding' look like in that sharp little head of yours?"
Arlo scanned the room, then the mental map he'd been building since he arrived.
"First," he said, "we fix your leverage problem."
He jerked his chin toward the hallway.
"Three separate lockups means three separate guard posts, three separate routes for an enemy to hijack, and three times the manpower," he said. "We centralize."
Reed's brows rose.
"You want them all together?" he asked. "Sunshine, doctor, brother, plus anyone else we pick up?"
"Yes," Arlo said, without hesitation. "One reinforced unit. One door. Inside layout split if you're worried about them conspiring. But from our side? One choke point, one guard team, one response protocol. Easier to defend. Easier to gas or flood if something goes wrong."
He let the last part hang there, ugly and plausible.
Reed's eyes narrowed, weighing the logic against his instincts.
"That also means," he said slowly, "that if someone gets to that one door, they get everything at once."
"Not if the door's mine," Arlo countered. "You want to trust me with this empire, you let me design the vault. Otherwise, you might as well keep doing it your way and hope Jen doesn't notice every gap."
He turned slightly, raising his voice toward the cluster of Halo men and Reed's guards lingering by the wall, waiting for orders.
"You," he said, nodding to two of his own. "Take a team. Clear the cell at the end of the south corridor—the one we passed on the way in. I want Chris and Mara moved there. And whoever's on Ariel's door, you bring her there too. No stops. No detours. I want eyes on her the entire time."
One of Reed's men opened his mouth, hesitation obvious.
Reed cut in before he could.
"You heard him," Reed said. "If we're testing the new arrangement, we do it properly. Move them. I want them under his key."
The guards exchanged looks, then nodded and headed for the hall.
Arlo watched them go, masking the flicker of relief under a professional squint.
One unit.
One door.
One place he'd need to break into later, not three.
"We'll need structural changes," he added, turning back to Reed. "Camera angles adjusted, blind spots removed, or at least moved where we decide. Reinforced hinges on that central cell. And I want my tech people scrubbing your feeds,half of these systems are older than the shoes on your men."
Reed snorted.
"You think you can do better?" he asked.
"I know I can," Arlo said. "Jen just gave me permission to prove it."
He walked toward the whiteboard mounted on one wall,a relic from before this place turned into a dungeon,and uncapped a marker.
In quick, efficient strokes, he sketched a rough layout of the floor: corridors, rooms, current lockups, cameras.
Then he drew a new box—larger, double‑outlined.
"Central hold," he said. "Here. Close enough to the main room that we can get there fast, far enough that any breach doesn't spill bodies directly into your face."
He marked an X at the door, another where he knew an old maintenance shaft ran behind the walls.
Reed's gaze flicked to that X and back.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Old vent," Arlo said smoothly. "I saw the grating in the hall. Could be a weakness if someone finds it. I want it sealed or rerouted. We'll use it later if we want to pipe things in."
He let the wording stay just vague enough.
Reed watched him draw, doubt still there, but dulled by the way the lines made sense.
"You're either very committed," Reed said, "or you're building a very pretty trap for someone."
Arlo capped the marker.
"Both can be true," he said. "The point is, whoever walks into it won't be us."
Reed huffed a low laugh despite himself.
"Jen's right," he said. "You are useful."
He pushed off from the table.
"I'll give you rope, Johnson," he added. "Just know I'll be watching to see if you build with it…"
His smile thinned.
"…or hang yourself."
He left on that, following the path Jen had taken, one of his lieutenants falling in beside him.
The door shut.
For the first time since he'd stepped into this safe house, Arlo was alone in the main room.
Alone, but not unwatched—he could feel the cameras' glass eyes and the occasional glance from guards in the hall.
He dropped his gaze to the whiteboard.
One central block for the prisoners.
One critical door.
One maintenance shaft marked as a "weakness" he wanted sealed.
He tapped the marker lightly against that small X.
"Not yet," he thought. "First, get them in one place. Then figure out how to open the door without bringing the roof down."
It wasn't freedom.
It wasn't even a plan he could fully trust.
But it was a starting point.
And in a building full of cages, Arlo Johnson had just convinced his enemies to help him build the only one that might someday double as an exit.
The cell they shoved Chris and Mara into was bigger, but it didn't feel like an upgrade.
Concrete walls again. A thicker door. A vent near the ceiling humming the same low, indifferent note.
What made it different was the person already inside.
Ariel was sitting on the narrow bunk, knees pulled up, fingers twisted in the edge of the thin mattress.
Her head snapped up at the sound of the door, eyes wide and red‑rimmed, shoulders flinching like she expected Reed or one of his men.
For a second, they all just stared.
Chris saw the tear tracks first, stark on her cheeks.
Ariel saw the split in his lip, the bruise shadowing one cheekbone, the way his shoulders were squared like he was holding himself together by force.
Then the recognition hit.
"Chris?" her voice broke on his name.
He moved before he thought.
"Hey, hey—Ariel." His feet were already crossing the space, his hands reaching out like he was afraid she'd vanish if he blinked.
Mara stepped aside automatically, back to the wall, giving them the path without a word.
Ariel scrambled off the bunk, the first step almost a stumble.
By the second, she was moving fast enough that when she collided with him, it was all momentum and shaking breath and the sound of a choked‑off sob punching out of her chest.
Chris's arms closed around her like a reflex.
He pulled her in, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other locked across her shoulders, holding her as if the room might try to rip her away again.
Ariel fisted her hands in his shirt and buried her face there, the fabric going damp under the rush of tears she'd been holding back alone.
"I thought—" she tried, voice shredding. "I thought you were still out there, I thought he—"
"I'm here," Chris said into her hair, the words rough, almost hoarse. "I'm here, kid. I've got you."
His own eyes burned, a pressure building behind them he refused to let fall yet, not when she was shaking this hard against him.
Mara looked away for a moment, jaw tight, throat working.
She let herself take one slow breath, then stepped closer, resting a steadying hand between Ariel's shoulder blades, the contact firm, grounding.
"You're not alone," Mara said quietly. "Not in here, not anymore."
Ariel nodded against Chris's chest, the motion small, desperate.
The reality of the concrete, the locks, the betrayal still crushed her, but the familiar weight of his arms and the calm pressure of Mara's hand cut through the worst of the panic, enough that she could breathe without gasping.
For the first time since the door had slammed her into this nightmare, Ariel Smith wasn't just a girl locked in a cage with her heartbreak.
She was a girl locked in a cage with her family. And for one fragile moment, that changed everything, even if nothing outside the walls had.
Ariel's breathing had calmed, but only on the surface.
Her fingers were still knotted tight in the fabric of Chris's shirt, like she didn't quite trust the room not to change if she let go.
He eased back just enough to see her face.
"Ariel." His hands framed her shoulders, thumbs brushing absent circles without him thinking about it. "Tell me what happened."
Something in her expression cracked.
"You were right," she whispered, then shook her head sharply, correcting herself. "No. Worse than you thought."
Her eyes filled again, anger and hurt fighting for space.
Mara stayed close, arms loosely folded, watching Ariel's face like she was cataloguing every new bruise that wasn't on her skin.
"Start from when you left," Chris said, voice low but steady. "You got in the car with Arlo. Then what?"
Ariel let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
"He took me to another safe house," she said. "Said we were going to 'meet someone.' Wouldn't answer straight. Just kept driving like everything was fine."
She swallowed, jaw trembling.
"There was a woman there. Jenifer. Sitting in the middle like she owned the place."
"She started talking about deals, about handing me over, like I was,like I was stock. And Arlo just…stood there."
Chris's face went flat.
"He what?" The words came out clipped.
"He didn't deny it," Ariel pushed on, the memory scraping her raw. "Jen talked about giving him a buyer and an empire, and he just stood there like it was a business meeting. Like I was part of the negotiation."
Her voice rose, shards of the earlier breakdown cutting through.
"I was crying, begging him to think about you," she said, chest heaving. "I told him you once stepped in front of a bullet for him, that you almost died because of him, that he couldn't do this to you again."
Tears spilled over, hot and furious now.
"He wouldn't even look at me, Chris," she choked. "He just…stared past me. Like I wasn't there. Jen called him mean, called him a monster, and he just stood there and let them drag me away."
Silence slammed into the room.
Mara's hand curled into a fist at her side.
Chris's fingers tightened on Ariel's shoulders, not enough to hurt, but enough that she could feel the tremor running through him.
"Johnson did that?" he asked quietly.
She nodded, helpless. "He didn't say a word. Not one. Not to me."
Something in Chris's expression shifted,past hurt, past disappointment, straight into something cold.
"You stepped in front of a gun for him," Mara said, voice edged. "You dragged him through hell more than once, and he—"
"I'm going to kill him," Chris said.
He didn't raise his voice.
Didn't shout. The promise landed heavier because of it.
Ariel flinched, not away from him but like the words hit some already‑bruised place.
"Chris—"
"No." His jaw clenched. "He sold you. He stood there and let them put their hands on you and talk price and empire while you begged him to remember you're a person, not leverage."
"That's not a mistake. That's a choice."
Mara stepped in closer, her gaze hard.
"He made his side clear the second he let them lock you up," she said. "If Chris doesn't get to him first, I will."
Ariel shook her head, tears slipping down again.
"I don't want you to die for him again," she whispered. "I don't want you to become what he is just to get even."
Chris drew a breath that sounded like it scraped his lungs raw.
"I'm not dying for him," he said. "Not this time."
"If I put a bullet in Arlo Johnson, it won't be for his empire. It'll be for you."
He pulled her back into his chest, one hand on the back of her head again, holding her like he could shield her from what he'd just promised.
Over her shoulder, his eyes met Mara's.
There was no joke there now, no easy deflection.
Just a sharp, lethal focus that said if Arlo walked through that door, family history or not, Chris Smith was done treating him like anything other than a target.
Reed leaned back against the edge of the table, arms folded, eyes on the fresh layout projected across the wall. The old maze of scattered cells was gone; in its place, Arlo's central block of lockups sat like a dark heart at the center of the floor.
"So," Reed said lightly, "our king has been busy."
Arlo stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back so Reed couldn't see how tightly his fingers pressed into each other. On the surface, he looked calm. Inside, every line of the map was a calculation pressed against a countdown.
"You wanted streamlined control," Arlo said. "You have it. Fewer choke points, faster containment, cleaner camera coverage." He nodded toward the new central cell. "Anyone gets stupid, you don't have to chase them across the building."
Reed's gaze slid from the map to Arlo's face and lingered.
"You always this generous when you think you're losing?" he asked. "Feels…devoted, even for you."
Arlo met his eyes, deliberately steady. "You told me to stop playing small," he said. "This is what not‑small looks like."
Reed watched him in silence for a beat too long, tracking every micro‑twitch,the slight tighten of Arlo's jaw, the shift of weight in his stance, the way his gaze never once flicked toward the corridor where the lockups were.
Finally, Reed's mouth curved.
"Relax," he said. "If you were lying, you'd be doing something with your hands. Picking at your nails, straightening your shirt, some little tell to bleed the pressure." He tipped his head. "You're either very honest or very trained, Johnson."
"Or very done wasting time," Arlo replied. "You wanted a fortress, not a museum. This is it."
Reed laughed, low and pleased.
"Fine," he said. "Let's see how your new design holds up when we start filling it."
Jen stepped closer to the projection, heels ticking on concrete, the light from the map painting her in cold blue and white. Her eyes moved quickly, absorbing corridors, doors, control points—until they stopped.
"What is that?" she asked.
Near the outer edge of the centralized block, a small red X sat by a narrow line labeled "maintenance ventilation access." It was almost nothing, a notation in the margin,but it was the only mark Arlo had left on the map that wasn't a standard icon.
Arlo felt the hit of her question like a hand to the throat.
He didn't let it show.
"That," he said, stepping closer like he was proud of it, "is the weakest vent connection on this floor. Too close to the lockups. Too easy to exploit if someone gets creative." He glanced at her. "I flagged it so your people seal it properly. Last thing you want is some idiot crawling through ductwork and choking out a guard from above."
Jen's eyes stayed on his profile for a moment, weighing.
"Interesting," she murmured. "You didn't flag any of the other vents."
"Because the others don't open anywhere useful," Arlo said smoothly. "They dump into secured maintenance closets or dead space. That one sits right over the new central block." He gave a faint, unamused smile. "Your assets are too expensive to lose to creativity."
Reed's brows lifted.
"Listen to him," he said. "Already talking about people like line items."
Jen's fingers brushed the X on the wall, nails tapping the painted surface.
"Seal it," she said finally. "Reinforce the grate, log the work, and route a camera to cover that section of the corridor. If anyone so much as breathes near this spot, I want a notification."
She looked back at Arlo.
"And if this turns out to be you building yourself a back door," she added pleasantly, "I'll throw whoever you were planning to sneak out through it first and make you watch when it fails."
Arlo held her gaze, forcing the smallest curl of a predator's smile.
"If I wanted a back door," he said, "you wouldn't see it on a map."
Something in her eyes brightened at that,admiration, or the thrill of knowing her monster might actually be worthy of the leash.
"Good," Jen said. She clapped her hands once, brisk, verdict delivered. "Now. Go show our guests their new cage. I want to see how your 'centralized control' performs when the doctor, the loyal brother‑in‑law, and our little ghost of a girl are all inside it."
The walk to the centralized lockup felt longer than it was.
Arlo moved with purpose, stride even, expression set in that neutral, bored authority he'd perfected years ago. Cameras tracked him from the ceiling, quiet eyes he'd helped install, their feeds now routed to Jen's screens upstairs.
Outside the new main cell, two of Jen's men straightened.
"Orders?" one asked.
"Stand by," Arlo said. "Door stays closed until I say otherwise. If anyone inside so much as touches the bars, you announce it on comms before you react. I want to see how they move in there."
The man nodded, stepping aside.
The slit in the door gave Arlo his first glimpse: concrete room, single bench, vent high near the ceiling,reinforced already with fresh bolts,and three figures clustered in the middle of it.
Chris and Ariel were still locked in a half‑embrace, her hands balled in his shirt, his chin resting briefly against her hair. Mara stood just behind, shoulder slightly forward, her body an unconscious shield between them and the door.
Arlo keyed the panel.
The door clanged as the locks disengaged, heavy and loud in the narrow hall. Inside, all three heads snapped toward the sound.
When he stepped in, the air changed.
Chris's arms dropped away from Ariel, not because he wanted to let go, but because his body chose rage over anything else. His entire posture shifted,shoulders squaring, weight coming forward, hands curling into fists.
"You," he said, the word flat and vicious.
Mara moved half a step in front of Ariel without thinking, her hand going out behind her in a small, protective gesture that brushed Ariel's hip, like she was reminding her: stay back.
Ariel didn't stay back.
She stared at Arlo like someone had ripped open the same wound twice. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks blotched, but beneath the raw hurt there was something else now,knowledge. The betrayal had settled, hardened into something that looked a lot like recognition of exactly what he'd chosen.
For a heartbeat, the room held still.
Arlo made himself step inside fully, letting the door shut behind him with a solid, echoing thud. The cameras in the corner hummed softly, little red lights winking to remind him Reed and Jen were watching every angle.
He arranged his face into what they expected: cool, controlled, faintly impatient.
"Comfortable?" he asked, voice even.
Chris laughed once, sharp and humorless.
"You sold her," he said. "And you have the nerve to ask if we're comfortable."
Ariel flinched at the word sold, but didn't look away from Arlo.
"Tell him," she said, her voice hoarse but clear. "Tell him how you stood there while they talked about buyers and empires and what I was worth, and you didn't say a single word."
Mara's gaze cut between them, reading every micro‑expression,the slight tightness at the corner of Arlo's mouth, the way his hands stayed loose at his sides instead of curling into fists, the fraction of a second his eyes dipped toward Ariel's wrists before he yanked them back up.
Outside, in the monitoring room, Reed leaned forward in his chair, smiling.
"Here we go," he said to Jen, watching Arlo stand in the cage he'd designed, surrounded by the three people whose opinions of him could still break something he hadn't admitted was there.
Inside the cell, Arlo met Chris's eyes first.
"If I wanted you dead," he said, tone ice‑calm, "you wouldn't be in the most secure room on the floor."
Chris stepped toward him, Mara's arm shooting out across his chest on instinct.
"Don't dress this up as protection," Chris snapped. "You're not our savior, Johnson. You're the reason she's in chains."
Arlo could feel Ariel's stare burning through his profile, like she was trying to find even one crack in the mask and coming up empty.
On the outside, he looked exactly like what Jen had asked him to be: executioner, warden, king of a cage.
On the inside, every noise from the vent, every bolt in the reinforced grate, every camera angle he'd mapped pressed against the single, impossible question he'd built all of this around:
Could he turn this room—the one they'd trusted him to design as a prison—into the only exit they might ever get?
And if he did, would any of them still want to walk through it with him?
Chris opened his mouth, ready to spit something that would get him shot or worse.
Ariel's hand shot out, fingers gripping his wrist.
"Don't," she said.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the charge in the room. Chris looked down at her, already shaking his head, but the way she was holding on,white‑knuckled, desperate—made him swallow the rest of what he'd been about to say.
"Ariel—"
"Please." She squeezed once. "Let me."
Mara's eyes narrowed instantly.
"Ariel, no," Mara said, stepping a little in front of her again. "You don't owe him anything. You don't have to talk to him. Let him stand there and pretend we don't exist."
Ariel stepped sideways, out from behind her.
Mara caught her forearm.
"Ariel."
Ariel didn't pull hard; she just looked at Mara, really looked, and there was something in her eyes,wrecked, yes, but steady,that made Mara's grip loosen.
"I have to hear him say it," Ariel whispered. "Or not say it. I just…need to know what's left."
She slipped free and took two slow steps forward.
"Look at me, Arlo."
He'd been holding Chris's gaze like a shield. At her words, his eyes flicked to her and stayed there because not looking at her would say more than anything he could control.
He felt it the second their gazes locked,the hit of what he'd done, mirrored back at him in the shine of her eyes and the way her mouth trembled, like every word was standing on broken glass.
He forced his face still. Pushed every instinct,reach for her, apologize, explain,down into the same locked box where he kept the sound of her screaming his name.
"Ariel," he said, making it flat, neutral. "This isn't—"
Her tears came faster, tracking hot down her cheeks.
"I started falling for you again," she said.
The sentence left her like something torn loose.
"After everything. After the lies, after the running, after the way you kept pushing me away and then pulling me back, I still…" She sucked in a shaking breath. "I still chose you. Again."
Her shoulders shook.
"Please tell me it's something else," she whispered. "Not this. Tell me you're playing them. Tell me this is another plan, another mask, anything but what it looks like."
For one dangerous heartbeat, Arlo almost let it show.
His weight shifted the tiniest bit, a fraction toward her. His throat worked once. His hands flexed like they wanted to reach out and catch the tears before they fell.
Upstairs, Reed and Jen watched the live feed, waiting.
Arlo felt the cameras like crosshairs on the back of his neck.
So he did the ugliest thing he knew how to do.
He took a step closer, letting the distance between them shrink until he could see the fine tremor in her lashes, the rise and fall of her chest. Then he let his mouth curl into a small, deliberate smirk—one corner lifting in that asymmetrical way that never reached his eyes.
"You?" he said softly, almost amused. "You wouldn't be any good in bed, Smith."
The words dropped between them like poison.
He let out a low, dismissive laugh, not big and theatrical, just a short, cutting sound that said he'd already judged her and found her lacking.
Behind her, Chris went dead still.
Mara's breath hissed between her teeth.
Ariel didn't move at first.
Shock hit her slower than pain,a cold, hollow bloom in her chest, followed a heartbeat later by a hot rush that burned all the way up her throat. For a second, she just stared, wide‑eyed, as if she hadn't heard him right, as if the man who had once held her like she was fragile and terrifying at the same time couldn't have just reduced her to a joke.
Then the sound in her ears changed.
The buzzing snapped into a sharp, high ring.
Her hand moved before the rest of her caught up.
The slap cracked through the cell,clean, sharp, all the words she didn't have landing in that one, vicious arc of her palm across his cheek.
Arlo's head snapped to the side with the force of it. Heat bloomed where her hand had struck, skin stinging, the metallic taste of blood blooming faintly where his teeth caught the inside of his cheek.
He didn't raise a hand to his face.
Didn't block.
Didn't step back.
He just stood there, jaw tightening once as he straightened slowly, turning his head back to face her.
Ariel's palm still tingled, her fingers buzzing. Her chest heaved, breath coming fast now, each inhale a shudder.
There were no words for what had just broken.
So she let the silence say it for her, tears cutting new tracks down her face as she stared at the man she had just slapped and realized, with a clarity that hurt more than anything Reed could do to her, that whatever part of Arlo Johnson she'd started to fall for again…might have just died right there, at her own hand.
Mara moved before the echo of the slap had even finished bouncing off the walls.
"Are you out of your mind, Johnson?" she snapped. "What the fuck are you saying?"
Her voice hit like a thrown bottle,sharp, shattering, cutting straight through the stunned silence. She stepped in closer, putting herself half between Ariel and Arlo, eyes blazing.
"You think this is funny?" she went on. "You think degrading her makes you look powerful? You're talking about the girl who dragged herself through hell for you. The girl who trusted you when no one else did."
Arlo's cheek still burned where Ariel's hand had landed.
Something inside him twisted, a split second of naked, ugly hurt,but he strangled it before it could reach his face. The cameras hummed. Reed and Jen were waiting for any sign of softness to carve out of him later.
So he reached for the cruelest thing left.
"She smells like antiseptic," he said.
His tone was almost bored now, as if he were giving a clinical report rather than dismantling what was left of himself.
"How am I supposed to have any fun in bed with that, Mara?" he added, turning his head just enough to look at her. "Cold hands, hospital soap, trauma and guilt. That's not a lover. That's a sedative with a pulse."
For a heartbeat, even the air seemed to drop.
Ariel's brain didn't process the actual words first. It caught fragments,smells like antiseptic, fun in bed, that's not a lover,and tried to stitch them onto the man who had once stood between her and a gun like he didn't care if it blew straight through him.
The pieces didn't fit.
Her chest clenched so hard it knocked the breath out of her. The room tilted, concrete floor rushing up and away at the same time. Her knees loosened without permission.
She stumbled back, the world smearing at the edges.
Chris lunged, arms already up.
"I've got you," he gasped, catching her as her legs buckled. Her back hit his chest instead of the wall, his hands locking around her ribs and shoulder, anchoring her to something solid while her mind tumbled.
"Ariel, hey—hey, breathe. Look at me," he urged, voice breaking. "Don't you dare give him your knees on top of everything else."
She couldn't look at anyone.
The words kept replaying, each loop hitting harder,him taking the most vulnerable parts of her and twisting them into something cheap and filthy. The girl who smelled like antiseptic. The body he'd reduced to a joke.
Something in Chris snapped with it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he exploded, the leash gone. "You sick, empty bastard. You think you're some kind of king now? You're just a fucking coward with a god complex and a dirty mouth."
Mara didn't even try to stop him this time.
"You talk about her like that again," Chris snarled, pulling Ariel in tighter with one arm while jabbing a finger toward Arlo with the other, "and I swear to God, cameras or not, I will tear your throat out with my hands."
Ariel's fingers clutched at his shirt again, but this time it wasn't just fear,it was the instinctive grab of someone trying to stay conscious in a world that had just shifted under her feet.
She heard her own heartbeat roaring in her ears.
Heard Mara's ragged breathing.
Heard Chris's curses, each one flung like a weapon at the man in front of them.
Arlo stood there and let it all land, eyes flat, mouth still curved in the faint ghost of that earlier smirk.
On the outside, it was the performance Reed and Jen wanted: the monster with nothing left to lose, burning his last scraps of humanity in front of the only three people who had ever seen it.
On the inside, each word he'd just thrown at Ariel felt like a blade turned backward, cutting through whatever was left of Arlo Johnson and making sure that if he ever did find a way to get them out of this cage, there would be nothing of him they owed a single piece of their hearts to.
He let Chris's threats, Mara's fury, and Ariel's ragged breathing hang in the air for one more beat, then gave a small, contemptuous snort and turned toward the door.
"We're done," he said.
He didn't look back as he keyed the panel. The lock disengaged with a heavy clack, the door grinding open like the building itself disapproved.
He stepped out without another word.
The door slammed between them, bolts sliding home with brutal finality.
Inside, the echo pressed against Ariel's eardrums until it felt like the sound had lodged under her skin. Outside, Arlo stood very still in the corridor, eyes shut for one second longer than was safe, jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
"Sir?" one of Jen's men asked cautiously.
Arlo opened his eyes, the mask snapping back into place.
"You so much as crack that door without my order," he said quietly, "and I'll use you to test how soundproof the new walls are. Understood?"
The guard swallowed and nodded.
Arlo walked away, each step measured, controlled. Only the slight stagger at the end of the hall—quickly corrected,betrayed that his knees had almost given out in the same way Ariel's had.
Upstairs, the screens flickered with multiple angles of the cell: Ariel crumpled against Chris, Mara pacing like a caged storm, all three of them radiating a hatred that almost seemed to heat the air.
Reed whistled low.
"Well," he said, leaning back. "If there was still any doubt about where his loyalties are, that scene took care of it."
Jen didn't answer immediately.
She watched the replay in silence,the slap, the words, the way Arlo hadn't defended himself against the hit, the microscopic flinch he'd failed to hide right after Ariel's hand connected.
"There's something off," she murmured.
Reed arched a brow. "Off? He humiliated her, made the brother want to gut him, and turned the doctor into a loaded gun. That's not 'off,' Jen. That's useful."
Jen's fingers tapped against her thigh.
"Useful and honest," she said. "He didn't look away once. Didn't stumble. No stammer, no guilt tells. But…" She squinted at the paused frame of Arlo's face right after the slap. "There. That. The eyes."
Reed shrugged. "Residual sentiment. You don't scrub out that kind of history overnight."
Jen smiled, thin and sharp.
"Then we make sure whatever sentiment is left breaks cleanly," she said. "Double the watch on the central block. Reroute one camera to the vent with that pretty little X. And keep audio recording every word they throw at his name in there."
Reed's grin widened.
"You planning to let him hear it?" he asked.
"Eventually," Jen replied. "Everyone works better when you let them listen to the wreckage they caused."
Back in the concrete room, Ariel was still half‑collapsed against Chris, his arms locked around her like he was trying to keep her from dissolving completely. Her breaths came in short, uneven pulls, like each inhale had to fight through something heavy sitting on her chest.
Mara paced once, twice, then stopped abruptly and dropped to a crouch in front of them.
"Ariel," she said, voice rougher than usual. "Hey. Look at me."
It took a moment, but Ariel's gaze lifted,slow, disbelieving, eyes glassy.
"What he said about you," Mara went on, "isn't real. It's not truth. It's a performance. A filthy, vile one, but still a performance."
Ariel let out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.
"Does it matter?" she whispered. "Real or not, he chose those words. He chose to make me feel like that. Like I'm…" Her throat closed. "Like I'm something you have to endure, not someone you could ever," The sentence broke before she could finish it.
Chris tightened his hold.
"Don't finish that," he said sharply. "You hear me? Don't you dare let his bullshit rewrite what you are."
He swallowed hard, anger and hurt mixing in his voice.
"You're the one who walked into Halo and made half the ghosts in my head shut up for the first time in years," he said. "You're the one who kept me breathing on nights I didn't want to. You're not antiseptic, Ariel. You're the only thing in this mess that still feels clean."
Mara's jaw flexed.
"And if he thinks mocking you makes him stronger," she added, "then he's more broken than I thought. Which is saying something."
Ariel blinked fast, tears slipping out anyway.
"I just…" She dragged in a shaky breath. "I knew he was dangerous. I knew he was capable of terrible things. But I really thought…" Her voice thinned. "I thought the worst of those things would never be pointed at me."
Chris rested his forehead lightly against the side of her head.
"Then that's on him," he said. "That's his rot, not yours. He wants to be the monster in this story so badly?" His jaw hardened. "Fine. Let him. But monsters don't get forgiveness just because they cry about it later."
Mara exhaled slowly, then stood.
"Okay," she said, some of her clinical tone creeping back in, the one she used when triage took over. "We do this in steps. One: Ariel sits. Chris holds. Two: breathing. In for four, out for six. Three: we stop talking about him like he's in the room. He's not. We are."
She moved to the bench, patting it.
"Come on. Sit down before you pass out, and let me check your pulse before I have to add fainted in a cell because of a man to your chart. I refuse to write that sentence."
It earned the smallest, broken huff from Ariel's throat.
Chris helped her over, keeping a steady arm around her as she sat. Mara's fingers closed gently around Ariel's wrist, counting beats, eyes tracking her breathing, anchoring her with practical touch where words kept fracturing.
Outside the door, the corridor stayed quiet.
Somewhere above them, Arlo walked the halls of a fortress he'd redesigned, the sound of Ariel's slap and Chris's curses replaying in his head on a loop he couldn't shut off. Whatever plan he'd once had,to turn this place into an exit—now had to find a way to work around the simple, brutal truth:
Even if he opened every door in this building, the people in that central cell might never choose to walk out with him again.