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The fucking assholes. No, I’m going to kill them. I’m going to stab them inverycreative ways.

I grind my teeth so hard my jaw aches.

Looking back to the snake in the room, I see the shift in his focus. The calculation. The possibility.

Legacy.

Fucking hell.

I couldseeit in his face—the moment the scales tipped. The moment I became less of a threat and more of a pawn.

Javier chuckles, low and dangerous, but he doesn’t lower the gun. “Nowthat... changes things.”

He steps back, smiling as if we’re all just sitting down to brunch, but his gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it sharpened.

“If that’s the case,” he murmured, almost indulgent now. “Maybe I won’t shoot you in the face today. Maybe keeping you close is exactly what I need.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“To keep my son in line.”

Bodhi steps forward. “You’re not taking her.”

Javier doesn’t even glance at him. Just moves.

The back of the pistol cracks against Bodhi’s cheekbone so fast it sounds like a firecracker.

The sound echoes—sharp, brutal, final.

Bodhi staggers back a step, blood blooming where the metal splits his skin, and for half a breath I see red. Imove.

But I don’t make it far.

Marcus is already there, stepping in smoothly, the cold steel of his own gun now pressed against the base of my throat. His eyes are dead calm, glacier-blue and unforgiving, like he’s not looking at a person—just a problem to be neutralized.

“Don’t,” he says simply.

Javier turns back toward me, smug now. “Good girl,” he purrs. “Let’s go.”

I don’t have a choice. Marcus forces me forward, the gun never leaving my skin, his grip a vice around my arm. I stumble across the cold tiles and out through the open front door, still half-expecting Bodhi or Matteo to charge after me. But they don’t.

I don’t hear anything. Not a word. Not a single step.

The betrayal festers like rot.

Outside, the afternoon air slaps my skin. Two black SUVs near the treeline, the other men climbing in the lead car.

Marcus shoves me into the back of the second one.

The layout catches me off guard. There are three rear facing seats facing the three forward facing. I’m dumped into the rear-facing row, no restraints, but that doesn’t matter.

Javier slides in after me, cool and unhurried, taking one of the forward-facing seats across from me. Marcus drops into another forward seat, gun in hand, barrel resting casually against his thigh but aimed squarely at my chest.

Another man climbs into the front seat, wordless, engine rumbling to life. The other SUV pulls out ahead of us, taking point.

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t bang on the fucking glass.

There’s no point.