I’m in hell. I have to be. The concussion grenade took me out and I woke up in hell, being tortured by a demon. That would’ve been a better alternative to this. Bane—my old commanding officer, not only alive, but driving his fist into my face until I can barely see him at all through the swelling of my eyes.

Bane isn’t as affected though, wiping his bloody knuckles clean with a cloth as he gives me a disappointed sigh.

“Come on, Helena. You know I don’t enjoy doing this to you,” he sighs.

I swipe my tongue across my bloodied lip, the coppery liquid collecting on my taste buds as I scoff. “Yes you do.”

The punch that follows cracks my jaw.

“Don’t interrupt me.” he says sharply.

I force down a groan. The room tilts, but I hold my ground, glaring at him from under half-lidded eyes. I’ll kill him. I didn’t get the option last time. I’d actually tried to protect him. Not this time. Hell is fucking empty and waiting for him. I only belong to two devils, and he isn’t one of them.

Bane pinches the bridge of his nose, annoyed. “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” he mutters. “I tasked you with finding the Codex, and you became their little whore instead. How do you think that makes me look?”

I keep silent, biding my time, a plan slowly forming behind the throbbing pain. Escape. Piss him off.

“Answer me!” he snaps.

“You told me not to interrupt you,” I mutter, earning another blow.

The room blurs momentarily, and there’s an echo in my ear. It’s soft and warm, but it’s not my dad like I’m so used to hearing. It’s two voices. Two men.

Find a way out, doll.

Stay alive.

Easier said than done.

I spit blood, staring him down. “Why do you care? You have me now. You won.”

Bane’s head falls between his shoulders. “Oh, Helena.” A derisive laugh builds in his chest until his hand snaps out, grabbing my already fractured jaw. “You actually think you’re important? You’re not even close to a threat. You’re nothing without your guard dogs to protect you.”

“You’re delusional,” I mumble.

His brows lift like he’s amused by the thought.

“You think so? Then let’s put that to the test.” He releases me abruptly, throwing me back so hard the chair I’m tied to teeters and I struggle to balance it. When I look up again, his vest is on the ground along with his gun. He spreads his arms wide, baring his vulnerable torso to me. “Go on, then. Kill me.”

It takes everything in me not to toss the chair back and break it just so I can take a chance that he’s not wearing a second plate under his shirt. It would give enough satisfaction even cutting him, but then their voices are in my head again, chanting those lessons in my mind—truth, trust, control, restraint.

They’ll find me, and if they don’t Bane will slip. He’s not the same as when I’d last seen him. His hair is disheveled, his eyes are wide and blood shot and despite the even tone in his voice, I can see the visible tremor in his hands.

I say nothing. I don’t move. I don’t even raise my head in his direction.

“See?” he scoffs. “You can’t even lift your own fucking head.”

My silence only makes him angrier, and each time he speaks, his voice gets louder.

“If you were a bit smarter,” he continues, “maybe you would’ve figured it out sooner. Maybe your father would still be alive.” He shakes his head. “He hated it, you know. He joined Acacia to be away from you. Even when he cried like a little bitch when we killed him, the only thing he cried for was his girlfriend. You weren’t even a passing thought to him.”

The words slice deep, and I know he’s watching for my reaction. He wants me to crack like him, because Bane was the man I cried to after my dad’s funeral. I consoled myself in his murderer, and it takes all my remaining restraint to ball my hands into fists where he can’t see, and remind myself that one of us will break first, and it won’t be me this time.

Silas and Arik were right. Letting go of control doesn’t make me weak, and Bane hasn’t found that out yet. He trained me in his image, and his image is broken.

“You won’t even defend yourself?” he huffs, throwing his hands up as he barks out a laugh. “I knew you were fucking worthless. You can’t even stand up to the one person you’ve been crying about killing.” He crosses the room in several strides, getting in my face so close that I can smell the clear tobacco on his breath that’s matched with his rotting teeth.

Interesting. Bane’s never chewed tobacco before. He was anal about his health, paranoid about anything slowing him down.

“He cried, you know. Begged me for his life. He even offered to trade his life for yours, and he was still stronger than you ever were. You can’t even stand up to me.” Bane spits in my face. “All you’ve ever done is sit there and let people do whatever the hell they want to you. That’s why you became the Codex’s whore. That’s all you’re worth.”

“You’re wrong.”

He stops in his tracks, his eyes narrowing at my comment. “Excuse me?”

I lift my chin, smiling when his scowl deepens. “I said you’re wrong,”

“You think they cared about you?” He barks out a laugh. “They used you to get to me, and from the looks of it—” he yanks down the collar of my shirt, “—they certainly had more than enough fun getting information from you. I’m only sorry I didn’t think of it first.”

I let him prattle and drone on. Every word he speaks makes that vein bulge in his head and I’m not sure if it’s from his anger at my silence or that he’s giving himself a headache from talking so much.

Probably both.

Bane is a loose cannon. That calm facade is gone, morphed into something I’ve never seen, but if it’s anything I learned from the Codex, it’s that blind rage has consequences.

Bane pauses, waiting for me to speak. “Well? Is that all you’re going to say?”

Nothing. Not a single word.

He growls in anger and rips my head up, pulling it painfully by my hair. “You think they care about you?” he hisses. He pulls out my phone and grips my hand painfully.

I couldn’t stop him if I wanted to but it doesn’t stop me from struggling against the ropes as he uses my hand to unlock the biometrics.

“Come on, then. We’ll ask them.” He places the phone on the other side of the room and with a soft ping, it starts recording us both. “I have something for you, Arik.” He steps out of view and I find myself looking at my reflection. I keep my head bowed. I don’t want him to see me like this. There’s nothing he can do. Even if I knew where I was, I couldn’t tell him without Bane knowing.

“Your little toy,” Bane continues. He strolls over to me and I wince when he yanks my head up to face my battered reflection. “Say hi, Helena.”

Kill him, Arik. I can’t keep restraining myself, and his narcissism is pissing me off.

“I made a deal with the Captain here.” He circles me, sliding as he trips under something. I snicker, and he yanks my hair in response, taking a chunk of it with him. He kicks the object hard and I see a book fly out of my line of sight but not before I see the word Ascension carved in front.

The name rings in my head like an alarm going off. The church! No wait—it’s warm in here. Not the church.

“She thinks you’re going to come for her,” Bane drones on. “She thinks you love her, don’t you Helena?”

Ascension.

Two churches?

Bane yanks my head up and he repeats it, spit flying in my face as he orders me again. “Tell them you love them!”

Love. That word sits like a rock in my chest, the same way it had when they came back for me in that school—warm and hopeful. Terrifying.

I’ve never been in love before, but when Bane forces that thought into my brain, it clicks inside me like a piece of me unlocking. I love them. I love Arik and Silas…and Bane wants me to humiliate me by saying it.

Never.

I look up at the camera, biting down the tremor in my lip. I can imagine both of them watching it, and flying into a rage when they realize Bane’s alive.

I glance at the book in the corner of the room and back to the camera, mouthing a single word to the camera and praying they’ll understand.

Ascension.

Bane pulls me tighter, and I groan in pain. “Speak up!” he shouts. “I don’t think he heard you.”

He didn’t need to, dumbass.

But he takes my silence as shame and throws my head forward, laughing maniacally.

“I guess not. Fucking pathetic. Love is a weakness. That’s why you’re here, and I’m standing over you.” He slides his hand over my throat, disgustingly tender as his lips graze my ear, locking eyes with the camera. “He did a really good job of breaking you in for me.” It slides down in a flash and he tears my shirt between both hands. It rips just enough for the cold air to sting on my chest, the cloth resting where it’s connected at my navel.

“The scars,” he purrs. “They’re my favorite. Every. Little.” He grabs my breast painfully. “Scar.”

I wince from the touch, but he doesn’t stop. He squeezes it painfully, like he’s trying to create a fist under my breast, crushing them in his palm.

I want to say more to Arik, to Silas. I want to beg them to find me, but that’s what Bane wants. They wouldn’t want me to break, but when he rips my shirt further and mauls both breasts in his hands, that hope starts to fizzle.

“Is this how you broke her, Arik?” Bane coos. “Did you fuck her until she screamed, or did you send Silas in to do it for you while you cut into her?” His hands finally leave my body and I feel a brief moment of relief. Then I hear the click of a knife, and the hope vanishes instantly.

I flinch when he taps the knife on each breast before trailing it down to my navel.

“I think I’ll find out for myself.” He waves the knife at the camera. “See you soon, Arik.”

Then the feed cuts and I let my head fall.

Bane giggles to himself as he replays the video and then sends it.

Silent tears stream down my cheeks, one trailing the same path as the other and collecting in my lap. I’m not crying from his assault or even the thought that Silas and Arik wouldn’t find me. It’s the disgust from myself for not being able to see this for so long.

My service, my training, Bane groomed me into tolerating his abuse, and all I want is to get my hands free so I can strangle him myself. My therapist was right. I was grieving the person I was, because my brain couldn’t accept the shit it’d been through.

The ropes around my hands are too tight for me to work through, and the friction rubs painfully on the burns marring my wrists. I can’t get free.

Bane finally takes notice, and he rolls his eyes. “You’re pathetic. Is a little sex all it takes to scare you? I haven’t even fucked you, yet.” He leans against the concrete wall, regarding me with annoyance. “Women like you are always weak willed. Did you really think you had a place as a captain? Acting with any kind of authority?”

“What did I ever do to you?” I spit.

He shrugs. “Nothing at all. I don’t need to justify my actions.” His gaze back to me, cold and pitiless. “You were supposed to die on a dozen missions. If Alastor had listened to me, you would’ve died in the mountains, but no—he had to be discreet. Arik and Silas were too cowardly to finish you off, clearly. Cowards.” A twisted grin stretches across his face as he eyes the scar at my collarbone again. “...but cruel cowards. That was Arik, no doubt. He always was obsessed with knives. It was fun watching him punish insubordinate contractors but Silas?” He sighs almost wistfully. “I miss that kid. He was a cruel bastard. I enjoyed the creative contracts we came up with for him, but he always loved to leave more…invisible scars.” He flashes me a knowing look, and I feel sick.

I have to remind myself that Silas wasn’t there by choice, even if Arik was, but the knowledge of those poor people fuels a rage in me for Bane daring to ever put Silas in that position.

His monologue is endless, self-indulgent, and I swear he’s completely zoned out from the memory. “He took videos too, the fucker. I miss him.”

“Clearly,” I mutter. “You’re a horrible shot, even with two tons of dynamite.”

I expect a flash of anger, but instead, there’s something that crosses his eyes, something that almost resembles amusement. “You’re definitely your father’s daughter,” he chuckles, flashing me a toothy grin. “But I didn’t miss him, did I?”

My lip curls, but I force it down.

Oh, I’m going to make you regret saying that.

“How is John anyway?” he chides with a smirk. “Last I saw him, he fell off the cliff and splattered his skull on the dirt.”

“I’m sure he’s going to have fun once he gets to kick your ass,” I snap.

He scoffs, shaking his head. “I think he’s seven years too late for that.”

“You think so?”

I don’t know why I said that. My dad is dead. We all went to the funeral and I cried for weeks. Maybe it was the concussion making my head throb or the cuts and bruises making me delirious. But when I see the twitch of paranoia in Bane’s eye, something in me clicks.

“Your delusions won’t bring him back, Kinsley,” he sneers. “He’s dead.”

I flash him a venomous smile. “Is he, though?”

Another twitch and his lip curls before his hand shoots out, ripping the dog tags from my neck. “The Codex has been a grade-A pain in my ass since they decided to go on their little vengeance mission,” he seethes, his yellowing teeth bared. “Your dad really thought he could break into my encryptions and send in spies. His stupidity was what killed him. My only regret is that I didn’t take my time with him. The Codex is nothing compared to the empire I built.” He flicks open his knife, digging the pointed tip into the soft spot under my chin. “Everything you know is mine—your house, your title, your fucking therapist worked for me. Me! The media, the police, the military. You can’t even shit without my permission! I own everything, and you think you can jeopardize that because you fucked your way into their good graces?”

The media. That’s new.

“I didn’t have to convince them,” I say with a smile. “They hated you more than they hated me.”

“You think you’ll survive this? You’ll end up in the ground like your father, only I won’t make the same mistake as I did with him.” He digs the knife in deeper, drawing a hot red line down my throat. “I’m going to take my time with you and maybe it’ll send a message to the boys that will stick.”

I bark out a laugh that makes him blink in shock. I let it boil into something real, tossing my head back even as he cuts into my throat. He’s giving me shit I didn’t even know and he has no idea.

“You really think it’s just Arik and Silas, don’t you?” I laugh. “I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

His hand falters. “What are you talking about?”

Be smart, doll. He’s a paranoid narcissist. Find a weakness to exploit.

I chuckle darkly, allowing him to watch me while I work my hand against the ropes. “Your files were incomplete. Castor and Baron—leaders, sure, but not the only ones. What do you think they’ve been doing these past seven years?”

He hesitates again before he laughs, though it’s hollow. “You think that’s going to save you? Information?”

“It never crossed my mind.” I let my head fall to the side, sighing in bemused pleasure. “You knew, Anthony, didn’t you? You always knew—that creeping feeling at the back of your neck. There are people out there, always working against you.”

His jaw hardens, his words grinding out under his grating teeth. “Shut up.”

I press him again. “How do you think they always managed to stay ahead? There were always more, hiding. Waiting. Fury was one of your top contractors, just like Castor was. They managed to slip information, quietly dispose of your connections.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know?” I laugh in his face, grinning at the twitch in his eye. “No wonder the Codex outmatched you. You can’t even locate spies in your own company.”

“They did not outmatch me! I own everything!” He points towards the window, his hands trembling with anger. “They’re the ones plastered on every single country’s radar. They’re terrorists. Enemies of the state. I beat them! I’ll kill you right here, and then what will you do, bitch?”

“Someone will take my place.” I lean forward, letting the knife dig into the hollow of my chin. Another twist and three more fingers work free. He’s almost there. One more press.

“You have no control,” I tell him. “No support. It belongs to us now, and we’ll show you what little power you have when you’re on your knees begging for mercy.”

“SHUT UP!!”

His fist collides with my cheek just as I free my left hand. The chair falls back, the bottom shattering from under me. The ropes loosen but Bane doesn’t notice, climbing on top of me and driving his fist into me again and again until blood pools in my mouth.

“You think you control anything, bitch?! You haven’t even begun to see the shit I control.” He presses the knife tightly against my throat. “The Codex, my contractors, your fucking dad. I can kill them all and no one would bat an eye. They’ll treat me like a hero! You’re nothing but a fucking pest! You want to see what we’re capable of? Fine!”

He slashes the knife against my cheek and I cry out as the pain rips through me in a thick, jagged line, but he doesn’t stop, only dragging the knife down hard to my torso, leaving a bloody line down my middle like an autopsied corpse.

“The shit we put you through was fucking child’s play!” He hisses. He digs the knife in deeper, sinking the blade slowly into my stomach.

I can’t stop the scream of pain that follows as he digs it in. He twists it, his face darkening as one scream boils into another. “Remember your training, ‘captain’! Don’t break! Die before you break!!” His free hand reaches up and he pinches my nipple hard between his fingers, pulling it down.

“We had five of them on you,” he spits. “You were a virgin. There was so much blood, it was fucking disgusting. I couldn’t even finish.” He rips the knife out of me, it clattering in a bloody splatter before he shifts his hips on top of me, grinding himself against me in a way that has me wanting to vomit.

Panic rises in me, bubbling in my chest with a plea that I know will only make it worse. My measure breaks and my even breaths turn shallow and rapid. The men had masks during my training. Bane wouldn’t seriously–

Focus, doll. Remember the first rule of combat training. Don’t let a bigger opponent grab you.

A sob breaks free as he twists my nipples under both hands, and when I cry, he only pulls harder. I want to beg. I want to cry and plead and scream from the pain searing in me like needles.

Find a way out, Helena. Get him off you.

“You broke so fucking easily and that was against the rules,” Bane seethes. “Couldn’t even follow a simple order. Every time you begged, it just added another hour. I would’ve used lube if you behaved, but you didn’t fucking deserve that.” He steps off me only for a moment, and then he starts to work my pants down my hips. “No rules now, Captain. Scream like you did in your training.”

I scramble against his hands, crying frantically as I try to kick him off me, but his hand comes around my throat, forcing my head down as he rips my pants from my legs. “Shut up!” He squeezes around my throat and I gag, only thrashing harder when his other hand moves to his belt. “You let them do it to you,” he says, working his belt free. “You might grow to like me. Maybe after a few rounds, you’ll be as submissive to me as you are to them.”

His lips come down onto mine, instantly forcing his tongue into my mouth. He growls in my mouth when a sob falls free, and then a twist of my bloodied wrist finally slips through the ropes.

Now, Helena. Fight!

I clamp down on his lip as hard as I can, and it comes apart with a flood of blood and tissue.

Bane screams in pain and throws himself off me, along with the piece of his lip that was bitten off. His hand flies to his face but not before I work my legs out from under him and drive my elbow into his face.

Bane stumbles back, falling onto the floor. “What the—”

I climb to my feet, chest heaving with adrenaline. “Who said I was submissive?” I snatch his knife, slashing across his face in the same place he forced onto me.

He howls in pain as blood pours from his cheek and I just watch him. That coldness settles in my chest—that void. I was scared of it before, but that numbness is like a warm hug; something Bane never offered me.

“I think you misunderstood what happened in Austria,” I say, taking a single step closer. “Sending me into those mountains was the best thing you ever did for me.”

Bane scrambles back, his trembling hand raised in surrender. “Wait, wait—”

I see something I hadn’t before from Bane. Panic. Desperation. Fear. He’s afraid, backing against the wall like a wounded animal, begging for mercy.

Pathetic.

I plunge the blade into his eye with a scream, sinking it until the resistance of his skull stops me and he falls lifeless against the wall.

I watch him for a moment, watching the blood drip from his face like a mask of red but it feels like I’m looking in the mirror. Like I’m finally seeing who Anthony Bane really was. All I’ve seen is a shade of red since I walked into the mountains, and now it’s coming to a halt. Acacia dies with Bane.

It’s over.

I throw my pants back on and tie a knot around my sliced shirt so it covers the bloodied hole in my stomach.

That’s when I hear something. A drum. The faint sound of a rock song playing, steadily getting louder and louder. It’s accompanied by the rumble of an engine that’s barreling towards the warehouse.

I leap out of the way just as a truck hurtles through the doors of the building. ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ blares through the speakers as the car screeches and skids to a stop and seconds later, Arik hops out of the car and storms towards me.

He pulls me into a tight hug, his arms wrapped around me and burying his face into my chest as I squeeze him tighter.

“You’re okay,” he whispers against my neck. He repeats it over and over again and I finally let everything loose, crying all the tears I’d kept from Bane. He didn’t deserve them. Arik does.

He pulls me from him, wiping the blood on my cheek with his thumb. “What did he do?”

I shake my head, the memory catching in my throat. “I’m okay. I killed him.” I don’t know if I believe it myself yet, but I need him to. He’s dead and I stopped him.

He takes in my body through my poorly tied shirt, but he doesn’t say anything. He shrugs off his jacket, carefully slipping it over me. The weight and scent of it feel like an anchor. Pine and gun oil. Baron and Castor.

Samara eyes the building warily. “We shouldn’t stay here. Silas might—”

“It can wait,” Arik interrupts without looking back. He cups my face, his touch so different from the brutal surroundings, human and steady like that warm ocean in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“Arik, I’m fine,” I insist, letting my hand fall over his. “He didn’t…do anything.”

I’m sure Arik knows it’s a lie, but he doesn’t press it further, instead giving me a proud smile.

“You were smart, doll. We wouldn’t have found you without your message.”

“I have some information,” I call out to Samara. “Bane said something about the media before he died.”

“We already know he owns Evos,” Samara says. “That will open some doors.”

Arik nods. “If he owns the media too, we can start with the network that broadcasted Alastor. Move up from there.”

I nod in agreement, but a faint chime from his phone catches his attention and his expression darkens.

“What should we do with him?” Samara says, nodding towards Bane’s body.

Arik doesn’t answer at first, his ear pressed against the receiver of the phone.

“We could use him to send a message,” I offer.

Arik’s eyes widen with fear, but before I can ask him what’s wrong, I hear it— a faint rustle, then the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. My gaze darts to the ground, and my blood runs cold. Bane. He’s still alive, dragging himself up, pulling a blade from where it was buried in his eye.

Rage sears my veins and before I can grab Arik’s gun, Bane is there first.

There’s a sickly look in his eyes, crying red as he cocks the gun and that’s when I see the puddle of gas below the car, cracked from the impact into the building.

My eyes widen in horror.

“Get down!”

Arik yanks me behind the wall as the blast roars through the air, taking the entire building in smoke. Arik shields me as the shockwave hits, the heat licking at my skin as it passes over us. When I look up, all that’s left of the car is a cloud of thick, black smoke. But of Bane, there’s no sign.

“No…” I look through the wreckage of the car and the building, searching for anything—a hand, a finger, a body. Nothing.

He escaped again.

“No!” I scream. “That son of a bitch!”

Arik doesn’t answer, pressing his ear against the phone again as his eyes stare blankly at the ground.

“Come on,” I say, grabbing a gun from the ground. “We can still track him. He can’t be far—”

Samara’s hand grabs my wrist, and only when I look back do I see that Arik hasn’t moved from the wall. The message in his phone is garbled from this distance, but I recognize Silas’s gruff voice from anywhere.

I bend down in front of Arik but he doesn’t look at me as I slip the phone from his hand and turn on speakerphone to hear Silas’s frantic voice.

“Arik! They set us up! They were waiting for Samara to leave. They’re going to—”

The message cuts off abruptly, and the phone hangs up.

Finally Arik looks up at me, horror on his face.

Silas.

I stare at the phone, the last few words a fever in my head.

We need to get back to Venice.