Page 78 of Betray Me
“Not completely.” Erik’s voice carries that calm authority that once made him Luna’s anchor during her darkest moments. “We’ve been developing contingencies. Alternative contacts, off-the-grid resources. Your warning came just in time.”
The burner phone crackles with static as Max adjusts our signal booster. Outside, wind rattles the hunting lodge’s windows like skeletal fingers demanding entry. Everythingabout our situation feels precarious, temporary, borrowed time that could run out at any moment.
“Luna,” I say, needing to hear her voice again, needing proof that she’s genuinelythere. “Are you okay? I mean, really okay?”
A soft laugh that holds no humor. “Define okay. We’re alive, we’re together, and we’re not in their gilded cage. But Belle, I’ve been getting messages too. Similar to what you described. Photos, threats, references to things I can’t remember.”
My heart sinks. I’d hoped the targeting was limited to me, that Luna’s testimony against her parents might have bought her safety or a fucked up version of respect. “What kind of messages?”
“Surveillance photos going back weeks. Pictures of me and Erik at therapy appointments, at the grocery store, at the coffee shop where we have our Thursday meetings.” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper. “The latest one came with a note saying I was meant to be the first offering, but my parents convinced them to marry me off instead.”
Janet Wilson. The pieces get confirmed one more time with sickening clarity. Luna was the original target, but Sebastian and Eleanor Queen somehow negotiated a substitution. A senator’s daughter instead of their own. And when that ritual was interrupted, punishment unfulfilled, and the debt went unpaid, it transferred to the next available offering.
Me.
“Belle?” Erik’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. “You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Just processing.” I look at Max, seeing my grim understanding reflected in his expression. “Luna, has anyone tried to approach you directly? Phone calls, personal contact?”
“No, just the messages. But Belle, there’s something else. Something my mother told me during one of her final visits before sentencing.” Luna’s voice grows smaller, younger. “She said this wasn’t over. That there were people above her and my father in the hierarchy, people who would never forgive what we’d done to expose the network.”
“She gave you names?”
“One. Someone called ‘The Architect.’ She said this person had been planning our family’s operations since before we were born, that everything—our training, our abuse, even our rebellion—was part of some larger design.”
The Architect. The mysterious figure from Harper’s threats, from the documents we’ve been analyzing. Hearing the name from Luna’s lips makes it real in a way that files and financial records couldn’t.
“Max found references to this person in my family’s records, too,” I tell her. “Financial connections, operational orders, systematic planning that goes back decades. Luna, I think we’re dealing with someone who’s been orchestrating events from the beginning. Not just reacting to our testimonies, but anticipating them. Using them.”
“Using them how?”
Before I can answer, Erik’s voice cuts through the static with sharp urgency. “Jesus Christ. Belle, Luna, you need to see this.”
I hear the sound of a television being turned up, the familiar cadence of breaking news coverage. The reporter’s voice carries clearly through the phone:
“—An attempt on District Attorney David Stone’s life occurred early this morning outside his Boston residence. Sources confirm that Stone, who has been leading the prosecution of several high-profile trafficking cases, was targeted by what appears to be a professional assassin. Stone is currently in critical condition at Massachusetts General Hospital…”
The world tilts around me. David Stone—Erik’s brother, the prosecutor who gave Luna and me the chance to tell our stories, who believed us when no one else would. He’s fighting for his life because of what we set in motion.
“This is my fault,” I whisper, the words scraping raw against my throat. “If I had turned myself in yesterday, if I had honored Harper’s ultimatum—”
“Don’t.” Luna’s voice cuts through my self-recrimination like a blade. “Belle, don’t you dare take responsibility for what these monsters do.”
“But David wouldn’t be in the hospital if—”
“David is in the hospital because he chose to prosecute criminals,” Erik’s voice joins Luna’s, steady and implacable. “Because he believed justice mattered more than his own safety. You didn’t put him there, Belle. They did.”
Max reaches across the table, his hand covering mine where it grips the phone. His touch is warm, grounding, a reminder that I’m not facing this alone.
“Erik’s right,” he says, loud enough for the others to hear. “This is exactly what they want—for us to feel guilty, to blame ourselves, to turn ourselves in thinking we can save people by surrendering. It’s psychological warfare.”
“Then what do we do?” Luna asks. “Because sitting here feeling helpless while people we care about get hurt isn’t sustainable.”
I close my eyes, forcing my mind past emotion and into the strategic thinking my father drilled into me. The same skills I used to survive my family’s manipulation, to gather intelligence, to stay one step ahead of threats I couldn’t see coming.
“We stop playing defense,” I say finally. “They want us reactive, scattered, making decisions based on fear. But we have something they don’t expect.”
“Which is?”
