Chapter Seven: Interrogation

"Absolutely not.”

Griffin didn’t even look up from the map spread across the table, like the conversation was already over before Sloane finished making her request.

“That wasn’t a question,” she said. “I’m going in there.”

“You are not.”

“He looked at me like he knew exactly who I was, Griffin. He said everyone would know soon enough. That means something, and I want to hear what he says when someone asks him directly instead of getting the version you decide to tell me after.”

Griffin finally lifted his head, jaw tight, eyes doing that thing where they went flat and unreadable, the alpha mask sliding into place. “It’s not safe. He’s dangerous, and cornered men say worse things than the truth just to unsettle whoever’s in the room.”

“Then let him unsettle me. I’ve had a rough week.”

Somewhere behind her, Dax made a sound that might have been a laugh if the room weren’t so tense. Cassian didn’t laugh. He watched her with the same calculating focus he always did, like he was already three moves ahead in an argument nobody else had started yet.

“She has a point,” Cassian said.

Griffin shot him a look. “Not helping.”

“I’m not trying to help you win. I’m trying to point out that she’s not going to sit quietly in a back room while we decide what she’s allowed to know. She hasn’t done that once since she got here, and I don’t think starting now works in our favor.”

Sloane crossed her arms and held Griffin’s stare, refusing to be the first one to look away. It had worked on landlords and worse. It could work on him too.

“I’m not asking permission,” she said, quieter now, steadier. “I’m telling you I’m coming. You can walk beside me or you can waste ten minutes arguing about it, but either way I’m walking into that room.”

The silence stretched long enough that she thought he might actually order someone to physically stop her. Instead his shoulders dropped, just slightly, some fight going out of him that she suspected had less to do with her and more to do with exhaustion.

“Fine,” he said. “But you stay behind me. You don’t get close to him. And the second I say we’re done, we’re done.”

“Deal.”

The holding room was colder than the rest of the house, stone walled, a single chair bolted to the floor where the prisoner sat with his wrists still bound, blood dried dark along his jaw. He looked up when they entered, and his eyes went straight to Sloane, ignoring Griffin entirely, ignoring Cassian and Dax trailing in behind them.

“There she is,” he said, voice rough but almost fond, like she was something he’d been waiting to see again. “I wondered how long they’d keep you tucked away.”

“Who sent you,” Griffin said, stepping between them, blocking the man’s line of sight.

The prisoner laughed, low and humorless. “You already know who sent me.”

“Say his name.”

“Why. So you can pretend you’re not already terrified of what he wants?” His gaze slid sideways, finding Sloane again around Griffin’s shoulder. “He’s been looking for you a long time, you know. Longer than you’d believe.”

“Looking for me why,” Sloane said, ignoring the warning look Griffin threw her way.

“That’s not mine to say.” Something almost like pity crossed his bloodied face. “But he’s patient. He’s been patient for twenty years. He can wait a little longer, now that he knows exactly where you are.”

“You don’t know where I am,” Sloane said, though her voice wavered slightly on the words. “You caught me on a street. That’s not the same as knowing anything.”

The prisoner’s smile widened, slow and knowing, and something about it made the room feel colder than the stone walls already had.

“Isn’t it,” he murmured.

Griffin’s hand closed hard around the man’s collar, hauling him half out of the chair. “What does that mean.”

The prisoner didn’t fight it. He let himself be lifted, let the bindings dig into his wrists, and kept his eyes locked on Sloane the entire time, that same terrible calm never slipping.

“Ask her where she sleeps,” he said softly. “Ask her how many locks are on that door. Ask her if she thinks any of it matters.”

Griffin shoved him back down, snarling something Sloane didn’t catch, but she’d already gone cold from the inside out, her pulse loud in her own ears.

The prisoner’s gaze finally slid away from her, satisfied, like he’d said exactly what he’d come to say and nothing else mattered now. He tipped his head back against the stone wall and closed his eyes, done talking, done fighting, done with all of it.

But the words hung in the air long after his mouth went still, low and almost gentle, the last thing he said before he stopped speaking entirely.

“He already knows where she sleeps.”