Chapter 32 - Blood Price

The house was quiet. Too quiet as Raven crept through the hallway of the safehouse, every creak of the floorboards a gunshot in the silence. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she moved deeper, weapon drawn, each shadow on the wall twisting into something monstrous, but it wasn’t the darkness that unsettled her, it was the stillness. Like the whole place was holding its breath.

She hadn't told Jaxon where she was going, not until she had something more concrete to report back to him.

She found the door at the end of the hall, it was reinforced, locked, but she didn’t hesitate. One hard kick and the frame cracked, then another and she was inside.

The room reeked of sweat, blood, and old perfume. A single mattress lay in the corner, and on it, lay Talia, she was alive, only just. On the wall we're chain holders. "This is a fucking torture room," she thought as she scoped out the room. On the floor was a plate of old, untouched food.

“Jesus,” Raven breathed, rushing to the bed. Talia flinched at her voice, eyes blinking open slowly, recognition flickering like a dying flame.

“It's okay,” she whispered. “It’s me. I’ve got you.”

Talia’s body trembled under the thin sheet, bruises blooming like ink spills across her arms and neck. She looked like she hadn’t eaten in days, but she was breathing and conscious. That was enough.

Raven grabbed a bottle of water from her bag, pressing it gently to Talia’s lips. The girl drank slowly, eyes never leaving hers. There was terror in them still, but behind that, a spark that held the tiniest will to survive.

“You came,” Talia rasped. Her voice was like broken glass.

“I told you I would.”

Talia blinked, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “They said… they said no one would come. That Jaxon had forgotten me. That you belonged to them now.”

Raven swallowed hard. “They lied. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“No,” Talia said. “Not yet. You need to know what Zane’s doing. What he’s planning.” She grabbed Raven's wrist with a strength that surprised her.

“I don’t care,” she added, voice sharp now, “if you burn this place to the ground after, but you have to protect me. You promise me that, or I tell you nothing.”

Raven stared at her, heart pounding. She could see it in Talia’s eyes, whatever she had to say, it came at a price, but she’d already paid her own blood for this and Talia… Talia had nothing left but the truth.

“I swear it,” she said. “You’re under my protection now. No one touches you again. Ever.”

Talia nodded, shakily. “Good.”

Then she spoke, voice a hoarse whisper. Names. Locations. Routes. And then, “Zane will be at the port tonight. Dock 17. Midnight. He’s moving a shipment ofgirls. High-value ones. They’re scared he’s getting exposed. He’s trying to push them through before it collapses.”

Rage surged through Raven's chest like fire in dry brush.

“He’ll be there?” she asked, barely able to keep the tremble from her voice.

Talia nodded. “He won’t let anyone else touch this load. It’s too important.”

Raven reached for her phone, fingers shaking as she dialed Jaxon’s number.

He answered on the first ring.

“We have him,” she said. Her voice was low, fierce and burning. Tonight.

A beat of silence on the other end. Then his voice, cold and sharp as broken glass. “Where?”

“Dock 17. Portside. Midnight.”

“I’ll bring the war,” he said.

“No survivors,” she whispered. “We end this.”

She hung up, then, for the first time that day, she smiled, but it was a cold thing, a promise written in blood.

The safehouse was a skeleton of secrets by the time Raven carried Talia out. She was light, too light, and the whole time Raven felt the heat of Talia’s whispered truths burning into her back like a brand. Zane. Dock 17. Midnight. It wasn’t just intel, it was war drums.

By the time she got Talia into the back seat of a stolen SUV she’d parked in the alley, her hands were shaking, not from fear, but from fury and the knowledge that Jaxon would be waiting, already marshalling whatever soldiers he trusted. This wasn’t recon anymore. This was an execution.

She didn’t go to the penthouse. She went straight to the warehouse near the river, neutral ground that Jaxon used when the club wasn’t safe. He was already there, black coat hanging open like a war banner, sleeves rolled, eyes unreadable.

When he saw her, something in his face cracked, just slightly. He didn’t speak as she guided Talia toward the warmth of the building. Two of his men came forward, lifting the girl with surprising gentleness, disappearing with her into a side room where a medic waited.

Only then did Raven speak. “She told me everything.”

Jaxon’s eyes didn’t move from the door Talia had gone through. “Did she name Dante?”

“She said Zane runs the ports himself. Dante’s clean enough not to touch the shipments, but he knows, they all know.”

He nodded once. “And tonight?”

“Dock 17. He’s moving a shipment. High-value girls, she said. Trafficked in, being pushed out fast before the walls collapse.”

Jaxon turned, finally looking at her. No fire, no explosion, just ice. “He’s panicking.”

“Good,” she snapped. “Let him drown in it.”

A silence stretched between them like a wire pulled taut. “I’ll handle the team,” Jaxon said. “This doesn’t go wide. No police. No tip-offs. No headlines.”

She bristled. “We could blow this open.”

“Not if they get spooked and kill the girls first. Or vanish.”

She hated that he was right. Hated that this world required shadow to fight shadow, but she nodded.

His hand came to rest on her hip in a none possessive, but grounding way

“We go in silent,” he said. “Fast, coordinated. Two vans, four shooters, one sniper on overwatch. Dante doesn’t get warned. Zane dies tonight.”

“And the girls?”

“We bring them out. Alive.”

Raven’s throat tightened. Not all of them could be saved. That was the truth behind every operation like this. But maybe tonight, they could save enough to make it matter.

“I’m coming,” she said.

Jaxon’s jaw twitched. “You’re too close to this.”

She met his eyes, steel meeting steel. “Exactly why I have to go.”

He didn’t argue again. Just nodded.

At ten-thirty the warehouse silence pulsed like a heartbeat. Jaxon’s team, ex-military, cartel defectors, men with pasts and vendettas, moved with clinical calm. Raven changed into black tactical gear, the weight of her sidearm familiar now. She slid into the second van without speaking.

Jaxon climbed into the other, his eyes catching hers once through the cracked window. A single nod passed between them. No more words. Just the gravity of what waited at the docks.

Dock 17 loomed like a rusted skeleton against the inky night. Floodlights bathed the pier in a sickly glow, the air heavy with brine and oil. Two semi-trucks were backed into the loading bay. Men milled around, armed and jittery.

Jaxon’s team approached like ghosts, night-vision, silenced weapons, radio comms locked to one channel.

Raven’s heart was a drumbeat in her throat as she took position behind a stack of crates. Through the scope, she saw him.

Zane, he was wearing a leather jacket, cigarette glowing at his side, laughing at something one of his men said. Raven’s breath caught. He looked casual and too carefree, like he wasn’t orchestrating human suffering behind those smiling eyes.

Jaxon’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “Positions. Confirm visual on the target.”

“Confirmed,” Raven whispered. “Zane. Center dock. Surrounded by four.”

“Sniper?”

A second voice cut in, Julian, ex-Mossad. “Wind’s clear. I have a bead.”

“Hold,” Jaxon said.

One of the trucks rumbled to life, a door opened and a girl stumbled out, she couldn't of been older than sixteen. Her eyes were wild, her wrists were bound, she looked liked she'd been drugged.

Raven’s breath caught.

Jaxon’s voice was a razor. “Go.”

Gunfire shattered the air like a scream. The sniper struck first, two guards dropped before their bodies even hit the floor. Jaxon’s men surged forward, weapons precise, not chaotic. This wasn’t a gunfight. It was a culling.

Raven moved with them, ducking low, firing twice, one shot through a knee, another through a shoulder. She didn’t kill unless she had to, but tonight… tonight the line was thin.

Zane bolted, but Raven wasn't having it, she broke from cover, pursuing him down a row of shipping containers. Her lungs burned. He moved fast, like the devil on borrowed time. She saw him cut between shadows, toward a speedboat moored at the end of the dock.

“No,” she hissed, sprinting harder.

He turned once, saw her and smiled. “You don’t have it in you!” he shouted, drawing his weapon.

She fired first. The shot tore through his thigh, dropping him like a stone. She was on him in seconds, gun to his head. He bled, gasping, but the arrogance remained. “You won’t kill me,” he panted. “Not in cold blood.”

She leaned in, voice like ash. “This isn’t cold. This is personal.”

Footsteps thundered behind her, it was Jaxon, his gun was lowered, face carved from stone. “She gets to choose,” Jaxon said.

Zane looked up at her. Blood on his lips, hatred in his eyes.

Raven’s hand trembled.

Then, the butt of her gun slammed into Zane’s jaw. He dropped, unconscious.

“Not yet,” she whispered. “He answers first. Then he dies.”

Jaxon nodded and for the first time in hours, a grim smile touched his lips.

Sirens sounded in the distance, Jaxon’s men calling in their own cleanup, their own doctors for the girls, but the war? The war had changed and Raven? She had just made herself the executioner.