Chapter 28

Chapter 28: The Interrogation

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The man was bleeding from the nose.

Vi didn’t flinch as she crouched in front of him, her leather gloves clean despite the crimson smeared across the tiled floor. The room smelled of fear. And rust. He was zip-tied to a chair, ankles shackled to the bolts Vi had installed just days before.

“You’re going to tell me everything,” she said, voice calm—almost kind. “Because if you don’t, I’ll start with your fingers. Not because I enjoy it. But because it works.”

He spat blood.

“Bitch.”

Vi smiled. “You’re going to regret that.”

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Upstairs, Isla could hear the muffled screams through the floorboards.

She didn’t flinch.

Christopher had gone silent, pacing the perimeter of the room, gun holstered at his hip. The files from her father’s drive had been spread across the table, every detail red-flagged and bookmarked.

Isla leaned against the wall, arms folded. “She’s taking too long.”

“Vi doesn’t rush. She dissects,” Christopher replied. “Give her time.”

Isla’s eyes drifted to the window. The city below looked calm. But she knew better.

Calm was just the silence before the storm.

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Downstairs

The man’s breathing had turned ragged. Sweat pooled at his temples. He was trembling now.

Vi crouched beside him, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of her glove.

“See? Now we’re getting somewhere.”

His eyes twitched. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

“I know you’re scared,” Vi whispered. “And I know Victor Kane doesn’t protect pawns. So you tell me, what’s worth dying for? Or better yet—who’s worth dying for?”

His lip quivered. A crack in the armor.

Vi leaned in.

“Talk.”

And finally, he did.

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The Revelation

“He’s moving locations every two days now,” Vi reported upstairs later. “Using aliases tied to defunct shell corporations. The money comes from a vault bank in Zurich. The orders? From someone called The Widow.”

Isla blinked. “The Widow?”

Vi nodded. “That name came up twice. Once connected to a fire in Copenhagen. Another time linked to a boy’s orphanage in France. Both destroyed. Both hiding illegal child labor contracts.”

Christopher stiffened.

“She’s not just a handler,” he said. “She’s the queen. Victor’s just the face.”

“Exactly,” Vi confirmed. “He’s the monster, but she’s the one who raised him.”

Isla’s throat tightened.

Her father had written about “a shadow older than the Kane family legacy.” Could this be who he meant?

“I want to meet her,” Isla said quietly.

Vi raised a brow. “Meet her? You’re not ready.”

“I don’t care,” Isla whispered. “I want to look her in the eyes and make her regret ever breathing.”

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Later That Night

The storm came with a vengeance.

Thunder cracked across the skyline, and lightning illuminated the corners of Isla’s soul she’d tried to hide. Sleep wouldn’t come. So she went to the balcony—barefoot, soaked by the rain.

Christopher found her there.

“You’ll catch a fever,” he said softly.

“I already did,” she murmured. “A long time ago. It’s called obsession.”

He joined her, pulling her gently under the overhang. They stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the storm rage.

“You’re changing,” he said. “Harder. Colder.”

She looked up at him.

“You made me this way.”

He didn’t deny it.

But when he kissed her—slowly, with pain and hunger wrapped into one—she didn’t pull away.

She clung to him like a drowning woman to a wreck.

Because he wasn’t her salvation.

But he was all she had left.

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