Page 61 of Monsters Carve Thrones

As I adjusted to a more comfortable position than my knees on the floor, chest rising and falling in sharp bursts, he crouched beside me with a grin so smug I could’ve carved it from his face.

“See?” he murmured, brushing hair from my cheek like a lover. “Itoldyou I’d break you. That fire you had… it’s gone. You belong to me. Every inch. Every breath. I’ve stolen your pretty, perfect little soul.”

I didn’t flinch. I let him think it. Let himfeelit. But inside? I smiled. Because hehadn’tbroken me. He’d just handed me the only weapon I had left–his confidence.

And I’d use it to destroy him.

***

RAFE

Warsaw, Poland

Three weeks since Adela’s abduction

The city was gray with winter, the sky overcast and smeared with clouds that matched the worn stone of Warsaw’s buildings. The streets buzzed with traffic, and pedestrians wrapped in heavy coats. I stood beneath the awning of a modest hotel on the edge of the city center, my hood up andeyes shielded by sunglasses. I scanned the area with predator stillness.

“Hotel’s clean,” Kieran murmured, stepping beside me. “Cameras only in the lobby. No one asked for passports. We’re ghosts here.”

“Good,” I said. My voice was rough from the cold, and everything else. Last week, I realized that we were being tracked. Thankfully, I haven’t seen anyone trailing us in about a week. The fuckers were pretty easy to lose, which was comical. I imagined it stressed Waylon out. I just hoped he wasn’t taking it out on my wife.

Laura came out of the cab behind us, wheeling a single suitcase, her dark coat pulled tightly around her. Nico followed, his gaze darting over nearby buildings before he murmured, “We’re booked under the name Sieradzki. Paid in cash. Nothing links back.”

I nodded once and stepped through the glass doors.

Our suite wasn’t lavish, but it was big enough. Two bedrooms, a kitchenette, and a sitting area with a large table already littered with maps, burner phones, syringes of epinephrine, laptops, and dossiers stained with old coffee and dried blood. A faint scent of gunpowder still clung to my hoodie. I hadn’t washed it since being home.

I sat hunched over one of the maps, dead eyes locked onto a grainy satellite image of a rural estate just outside Warsaw–a place Waylon had once funneled women through years ago. He might have returned to old patterns. Sadists always did.

“We’ve got at least six of Moreau’s old Warsaw contacts still alive,” Laura said, leaning over the table. “Witek, Rafalski, Tomek, Stepan, a few others. One of them either sold him out or helped him set up shop again.”

“And we bleed every single one until they start to talk,” I muttered, jaw clenching so tight it throbbed.

“Jesus,” Kieran said, half under his breath. “You’ve already killed four men this week.”

“Not enough,” I snapped, brushing my hand over a cigarette pack before deciding I didn’t want a cigarette. I wanted something stronger.

I reached into my coat pocket and fished out a crushed baggie of fine white powder wrapped in tissue paper. Oxy. Chewed, snorted, swallowed–I didn’t care. It was the only way I could keep my hands from shaking when I saw her face in the backs of my eyelids.

“Rafe,” Laura said, her voice low but firm. “You need to pace yourself. You’re going to burn out before we find her.”

I gave her a dead look. “Better I burn out than come up empty.”

She frowned and turned back to the map, but I felt her eyes linger on me. They all knew I wasn’t sleeping. Not unless I was high. Not unless my limbs went numb and my thoughts blurred enough to dull the edge of losing her.

***

The pills had kicked in hard by the time we were finally going to bed. Warmth flooded my veins like honey laced with gasoline. It was slow and heavy, sweet and dangerous. My head felt too light for my neck, and my limbs felt like they were underwater. The room around me tilted every so often, but I didn’t mind. I was floating. High enough to forget. High enough not to scream into the fucking void.

There was a soft knock just before the hotel door opened. Laura stepped in quietly, the hallway light catching the anxiety on her face. Her blonde hair was tied back in a messy braid,her skin pale under the yellow cast of the lamp. She looked exhausted. Worn down by grief and fear.

“Rafe?” she asked, voice like an echo underwater. “You okay?”

“Peachy.” I offered her a crooked smile from where I was sprawled across the hotel bed, one arm flung over my face, the other resting on my chest.

“Never better.” She didn’t smile back. She hovered by the doorway for a moment, biting her bottom lip. “I was knocking for a while.”

“Didn’t hear it,” I muttered. “Music’s loud in here.”