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Lucky leans over the map spread out before us, tracking the layout with his finger. “What kind of security?”
Norah exhales. “Armed detail. Ex-military. Twenty confirmed. Likely more unregistered. Motion sensors along the perimeter. Surveillance towers at all four corners. This isn’t some cult compound. This is a fortress.”
Kanyan grunts. “We’ve taken worse.”
Scar straightens. “We take it fast. No time for slow bleed.”
Norah cuts in. “One more thing. The number you called from that burner? It’s only pinged off one other location in the last 72 hours.”
I go still. “Where?”
“Inside the secondary structure,” she says. “Same estate. That phone was there.”
I meet Scar’s eyes. “Maxine. She’s not going to stay in one place for long,” I say. “Not now they know we’re involved and we’re coming for her.”
Mason’s jaw tightens. “That’s our only lead. We need to move quickly.”
I hang up and spread the intel printouts on the table.
“Here’s how we play it.”
47
MAXINE
The walls hum with change.
Something’s coming. I can feel it in my bones—the kind of pressure that settles in your marrow when a storm’s about to hit. The kind that makes animals flee and people pray. The air is too still, the silence too deliberate, like the world’s holding its breath just for me.
I haven’t stopped hoping. Because I have to make it out of here. Not for vengeance. For life. For me. For everything I’ve never had but still believe I deserve.
And Saxon…God, Saxon.
If I close my eyes, I can see him. Not in a dreamlike way. Not like a ghost or a memory. He’s real to me. Anchor and edge and everything in between.
I’ve loved him since that first moment I saw him at Kadri’s palace—undercover, dressed like he belonged there, standing in that marble hallway like he owned the fucking world. I didn’t even know who he was then. But I knew what he was. Danger. Salvation. The calm eye in a storm that could swallow me whole. I didn’t want to trust him. But I did. And now? I love him. I love him with the kind of desperation that keeps me alive inthe dark. The kind that says: I want a life with you, even if I don’t know what that looks like yet. I want to survive for him. But also with him.
I want to go back. Not to who I was—but to who I could be. The girl who laughs without effort. The girl who watches the sun rise and doesn’t wonder constantly if it will be her last. I want a porch with peeling paint and a stubborn wind chime. I want a kitchen that smells like burnt toast and second chances. I want kids. Loud, chaotic, messy love. I want gray hair and soft hands and a garden I can ruin with flowers I never remember to water.
I want peace. Not just escape. Not just survival. Peace.
I want to see the world in color again. Not just shades of fear and blood. I want to look at people and believe they’re good. I want to believe in something that doesn’t come with handcuffs and cages.
I want to stop dreaming of dark places. I want to wake up to light. And if Saxon is out there—if he’s coming for me—I’ll hold on. I’ll fight. I’ll tear my skin apart on these chains if I have to. Because I believe in him. Because I believe in us. Because maybe, just maybe, a 22-year-old girl who’s seen too much can still dream of something better. Not perfect. Just something real.
A porch. A child. A laugh. A hand in mine.
And Saxon. Always Saxon.
Kadri’s Palace.Albania. Then.
The palace wasn’t really a palace. It was a gilded cage with marble floors and velvet drapes. It reeked of power and dirty money—and all the things that evil tries to disguise itself as. I remember the chill of the air conditioning against my bare shoulders. There was an ache in my spine from heels I was forced to wear, and theweight of a diamond collar pressing against my throat like a sentence.
I was supposed to be seen, not heard. I was supposed to keep my head down and my eyes blank. But I looked up anyway. And that’s when I saw him.
He stood near the double doors—broad-shouldered, calm, too quiet for someone surrounded by wolves. His suit was black. Perfect. Understated in a way that didn’t belong to Kadri’s usual crowd. No flash. No gold. Just lethal elegance and contained power.
He wasn’t trying to impress. He was observing. Measuring. His eyes coasting over everything and everyone in the room, as though cataloguing his surroundings.