Page 125 of The Endless Want

One of the men drags a prisoner toward us—one of the Russians who survived the ambush only because he’d been knocked unconscious at the edge of the road. His face is swollen, lip split, hands zip-tied behind his back. A coward trying to look defiant. A liar already rehearsing his denials.

He’s breathing too easily. He hasn’t begun to understand what comes next.

Liam turns to me as the prisoner is shoved onto his knees. “You’re not going in alone,” he says quietly. “Not this time.”

“I’m not asking permission,” I answer, and my voice is flat enough to make two of the guards shift uneasily.

Liam doesn’t push. He knows better. He studies me for a long second, then gives a sharp nod toward the prisoner. “We need location. Numbers. Security grid. Names.”

“I’ll get them.”

He hesitates. “Declan—don’t lose yourself.” That’s the first foolish thing he’s said tonight. I already have.

We drag the Russian into the back of a cargo truck, metal walls cold and echoing. It smells like diesel, gun oil, and fear. The door slams shut behind us with a finality that feels like dropping a guillotine blade.

I don’t touch him at first. I sit on a crate opposite him, elbows on my knees, head down, letting the silence stretch until it’s unbearable. Silence tells more truth than screaming ever could. He flinches every time I move, and that tells me he already knows I’m not bluffing.

Good.

When I finally lift my head, his gaze skitters away from mine. “Where is she?”

He mutters something in Russian, a curse, then spits blood on the floor. Brave, but not smart.

I don’t hit him. That’s what he expects. Instead, I lean forward, slow, controlled, calm in the way a knife is calm right before it opens skin. “You took a pregnant woman,” I say, voice low enough the metal walls vibrate with the words. “You took what belongs to me. Now I’m going to give you one chance to walk out of this truck with bones intact.”

He says nothing.

I smile without warmth. “Wrong answer.”

The next minutes unfold with the precision of something I’ve done too many times to pretend I’m civilized. He tries to keep quiet, but pain loosens the truth the way steam loosens rust. By the time he screams, he’s already breaking.

Liam’s voice filters in from outside the truck—steady, composed, directing teams, forming a perimeter. A leader trying to hold a kingdom together while its pieces threaten to fracture. I know he hears the prisoner screaming. I know he hates this. But he lets it happen because he knows I won’t fail.

Not when she’s on the line.

Finally, the Russian chokes out the first piece of real information. “Estate… border route… guarded, always guarded⁠—”

“Location,” I demand.

He gives it. A rural estate near the border, disguised as a shipping checkpoint for freight transport. High walls. Fenced courtyard. Surveillance out the ass. Used for trafficking routes when things go dark and they need to move people who won’t be missed.

Not Ailish. Ailish will be missed by everyone who’s ever breathed the same air as her.

I get more—shifts, guard rotations, the name of the man in charge, the layout of the loading bay, where the vans can enter, how shipments are disguised. Not all of it is perfect intel, but enough to stitch a plan together.

I stand, breath heavy, pulse like a hammer beneath my jaw. The prisoner sobs into his shoulder, a broken heap. I consider putting him out of his misery, but Liam steps into the truck doorway at the exact moment the thought crosses my mind. “That’s enough,” he says quietly.

I meet his eyes. His expression is firm but not condemning. He knows why I would. He also knows we’ll need the prisoner alive—for legitimacy, for proof, for negotiation leverage if it comes to that.

I step back and wipe my hands on a rag someone left near the crates. Liam watches me closely, the way one watches someone balancing on the edge of a blade. His voice is steady when he finally speaks.

“What did he give us?”

“A fortified estate. Border corridor. Classic trafficking post. They’re holding her there, probably underground.” My jaw flexes. “They’re planning to move her.”

Liam stiffens. “When?”

“Soon. Hours. Maybe less.”