LOGINJasmine’s POVI was still running on the tension of the evening when we reached the private suite.Only after the door closed behind us did the control begin to loosen. My hands were shaking slightly—not from fear, but from the aftermath of holding myself together for so long. It was the specific physical cost of performing calm when every instinct underneath it had been working at full speed. Marshall’s face at the door. The empty bargaining. The safe house emptied before the syndicate could use what he sold. Marc’s hands around mine on the drive. All of it stayed in my body after the work was done.I turned toward Tristan and placed both palms against his chest.His heart was beating steadily beneath my hands.I felt the curse before I looked down. The marks beneath my fingers were beginning to recede, the darkness withdrawing from his skin in the gradual, visible way I had learned to recognize since the gym—since the vault, since the six hours of clean hands that did not hold. The
Jasmine’s POVMarshall opened his apartment door and the blood drained from his face so rapidly it was almost involuntary.For one second he simply stared at me, then at Tristan standing behind me. His hand tightened around the edge of the door frame as his body performed a battle his legs were already losing. He knew why we were here. He knew what we knew. The only question left was how much of it we knew.I spoke before Tristan did.My voice was entirely calm, there was no anger in it, no raised volume, no satisfaction at the fear appearing on his face. The absence of heat made it more frightening than anger would have been. Anger has edges. It gives a person something to push against. My calm had no edges. It was flat, complete, and left nowhere for him to place himself except directly in front of what he had done.I told him what we knew, I told him about the communication, the timing, and what his decision had exposed. I did not exaggerate or threaten him. I gave him the facts wi
Jasmine’s POVMarc followed without complaint.He had been through enough of these moves to understand the protocol: the speed, the bag he kept packed, the adults moving with purpose, and the particular look on Jeff’s face that meant this was real and not a drill. He did not ask unnecessary questions or slow anyone down. He simply took my hand and kept it.He held it with both of his hands throughout the journey to the new location.I did not tell him to let go so he could carry his bag. I carried it myself. The hand was more important than the bag, and neither of us needed to say why. Tristan’s vehicle stayed ahead of us on the secondary route. Wade’s channel remained quiet on the last check before we left—no second message from Marshall, no confirmed movement on the old coordinates in the window we still had. That window was not comfort. It was the difference between moving on our terms and moving because someone else had already arrived.Marc’s fingers stayed tight around mine. He
Jasmine’s POVWade pointed at the flagged communication on his monitor with a serious expression. He walked us through the syntax pattern match quickly, marking the relevant similarities with precise annotations and explaining how the communication fit the same structure we had been tracking. We listened attentively and no one interrupted him. The information was building toward a conclusion, and interrupting only slowed the conclusion down. I stood close enough to the screen to read the timestamp without leaning. Tristan stood beside me. Jeff was already half-turned toward the door.I looked at the timestamp, then I looked at Tristan. The timing was enough.“Marshall already made the call,” I said. “Which means the syndicate already has the location.”The room went quiet.It was not simply a location. It was the new safe house. And the new safe house was where Marc was.I was already moving before the thought had fully settled, but I did not run. Running was the response of someone w
Marshall’s POVI typed the message with the speed of a man who had been rehearsing the decision for two days and knew that if I gave myself another minute, my nerve would deteriorate before I could act.The counter-operation had compromised me badly enough that I understood I was already burned. Tristan’s people knew too much. The syndicate was watching me too closely. There was no clean way back to the position I had occupied before I started playing both sides. Garth’s promised reward was the only exit I could still see, and I had reached the point where desperation was stronger than caution.I finished the message and sent it before I could reread it. Rereading would have forced me to look too closely at what I was actually doing, and tonight I did not need that kind of honesty.The words left the screen and entered the channel. Location. Access. Timing. Everything I still had that might be worth something to the people who had been using me since the day I showed up at Jasmine’s d
Jasmine’s POVWe started had an argument after Abe left us alone.Tristan did not follow me immediately when I left the workroom. He gave me enough time to reach the adjoining room before he came after me, and when he entered, he was no longer speaking as an alpha giving an order or a man making a decision for a room full of people. He was speaking to me directly, and every argument he had started was organized around one fact: the procedure could hurt me.He told me that the risk was not theoretical. My amulet was already fractured. The first stage had only given us six hours of relief. The remaining stages would require my silver energy continuously. If I lost consciousness during the procedure, Abe might not be able to stabilize the process quickly enough. If the silver surged through a damaged suppression system, they did not know what that would do to my body. If something went wrong, there was no guarantee that the procedure could simply be stopped without consequences.I listen







