Page 49 of Savage Reckoning
I duck east, using the sculpted bushes as cover, my blood rushing in my ears. One toe-heel step at a time. The eastern perimeter is a tall, sensor-wired fence. As I approach, I scan for the blinking red lights. Nothing. Conveniently disabled.
I freeze at the fence line. This is it. One stray glance from a guard and it’s over. I take a breath and grab the chain links. The climb burns my arms. I straddle the top, dodging the spikes, and then I let go, dropping hard on the other side, the impact jarring my teeth. I scramble into the cover of the pines, my back to the cage, the uncertain darkness ahead.
I’m out. Beyond Nico’s immediate control.
But not safe. I move through the trees, following my mental map to the old service road. I spot the dirt path, nearly swallowed by nature. I head east, putting distance between myself and the lake house.
After what feels like an eternity, I see it. A black sedan, waiting at the edge of the woods, engine and lights off. I approach slowly, ready to bolt.
The driver’s window slides down. A middle-aged man with hard eyes. “Ms. Song?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Get in. Quickly.”
I slide into the back. The car pulls away before my door is fully shut, tires crunching on gravel before finding pavement. As weaccelerate away, a hollow ache opens in my chest. I picture Nico returning to find me gone. The cold fury. The look in his dark eyes when he realizes I’ve outplayed him.
“Where are we going?” I ask the driver.
“Somewhere safe,” he replies, his eyes on the road. “Ms. Vega is waiting.”
The drive takes us towards the city, away from the lake. We plunge into a landscape of decaying factories and the bones of industrial remains, the city’s forgotten underbelly. The neighborhoods grow bleaker; the streets lined with chain-link and concertina wire. The air itself feels thick with grit.
Finally, the car slows, turning down a cracked, weed-choked lane. Ahead rises the silhouette of a colossal structure against the bruised twilight: Sterling Steel, The Mill. A mountain of rust and shattered windows. The driver stops before a massive, rusted gate hanging open.
“End of the line,” the driver says, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview. “They’re waiting for you inside.”
They?
He escorts me through the gate and points to a smaller service door. “Straight through. You’ll see the lights.” He retreats to the car, leaving me alone in the oppressive quiet.
My pulse jumps. I push the heavy door open, its screech resounding in the cavernous space. Inside, the factory is a tomb for titans. The frames of long-dead machinery stand like silent, rusted beasts.
Ahead, a harsh glare cuts through the darkness, spilling from a glass-walled foreman’s office raised above the factory floor. It’s a makeshift command center in the decay’s heart.
But it’s not the office that stops me. It’s the two figures waiting inside.
Isabel Vega is perched on a battered metal desk, a glass of amber liquid in her hand, impossibly elegant in a black pantsuit. A panther at ease in the ruins.
And leaning against a steel support beam, arms crossed, is Dante Moretti, Nico’s sworn enemy.
The air evacuates my lungs. My brain stalls, refusing to process the scene. Moretti. Here. With Isabel. Not as rivals, but as partners. I’ve walked from one cage straight into another.
“Ah, there she is.” Moretti pushes himself off the beam, a smile spreading across his face that doesn’t reach his predatory eyes. “The woman of the hour.”
I take an instinctive step back. There’s nowhere to run.
Isabel slides off the desk, moving toward me with liquid grace. “It’s quite simple, darling. Dante and I share certain… interests. Chief among them, removing Nicolás Varela from his throne.”
“You two are in cahoots,” I say, looking at Isabel. “You’ve been playing both sides.”
“Let’s call it a business deal,” Moretti says, his laugh rough and grating. “Isabel runs her smuggling business, and I handle drug distribution. We both want to expand. We need your fiancé gone.”
“And my role in this?” I ask, my gaze shifting between them.
Isabel steps closer. “You, Lea, are the key.” She reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from my face. I force myself not to flinch. “You’re the only one who has gotten close enough to matter. The only one who can lead him exactly where we want him.”
“Into a trap,” I say flatly.
