Page 140 of Creed

Then it clicks.

This death ring sounds horrendous. One so horrendous that if someone gave their own flesh and blood to the ring—paid a blood debt—that would be considered favorably. It would be highly valued.

The sick motherfucking fucks.

Ortez had connected Morales and Salome together for the purpose of supplying victims to the death ring. Once their source became compromised, rather than find a new source, they wanted to rise higher in the power structure, and Ortez giving his daughter will do that.

In my gut, I know this is the play—he plans to sacrifice his own daughter to rise in power within the ring.

Len is grim. “They would rise straight to the top level of power with Ryn as a Champion.”

Champion…

Christ Almighty fuck.

Visions of people—Champions—fighting for their lives and getting that label because they killedmultiplepeople in order to survive…

Visions of Sophie, either killed—ripped apart by man-made animals—compete with visions of her being the one who is forced to become the killer. No option is better than the other; they both make me shake with rage.

No…Fucking…Way.

Neither Sophie nor Severyn are being delivered to that fucking godforsaken ring.

“The plan?” Tag grits, on the same wavelength of impatient urgency as me.

“You guys need to get to this island, and Tag, I need you to set up,” Len orders.

“For what?”

“I’m getting to that,” she snaps and paces. “We need two boats, both fast, one that’s quiet, so I can approach the stalled yacht they're on. I have the explosives from Jones—”

Jones cuts in, “But the detonators from this batch have been faulty.”

“You want me to take the shot to make the boat explode, if that’s the case,” Tag surmises.

“Make such a pretty fireball, brother,” Jones says, his eyes alight.

I step forward. “I’m going on the boat with you, Len, to get Sophie and Ryn.”

“No,” she says flatly.

“You could run into trouble with the extraction,” I try to reason and remain calm.

“Rolf or Nexin will be with me.”

“Both,” Tag and I say in unison, not willing to let anything go wrong with getting our women off that fucking boat.

I want to be the one in the middle of the action, not moored on some goddamn island where I’m the support person to the sniper if he needs to take the shot to send all the bastards straight to hell. But I won’t let my needs and ego slow us down with arguing.

I’d seen Nexin and Rolf fight,kill, behind Electric. Severyn—AKA Ryn—is important to them. They’ve been searching for Sophie to help her. Len is ex-CIA. Even fucking Adamus Jones is involved. This team is legit, battle scarred and capable. I need to trust them with the one thing that is the most precious to me.

My angel.

They’ll bring her back to me. Or they’ll live the rest of their numbered days running from a man consumed with black hate, using both worlds’ resources to hunt them down.

But somehow, my trust-hesitant self is trusting them, especially Tag.

He meets my eyes over the laptop and nods, almost like he’s in my head and reading my dark thoughts.

---