Page 102 of Dominion’s Collar

"Cole mapped every exit in the building," I say. "Remy is already looking for the one you're using. Ezra knows where my signal dropped, and he's guiding them to the dead zone. And Sebastien knows what you do when you realize you've lost control."

His hand comes up. Not toward the panel. Toward me.

He moves faster than I expected. The arm goes around my throat from behind, locking across my windpipe with a precision that tells me he's done this before. His other hand catches my wrist and pins it against my side. My back is against his body. My face is toward the panel.

He positions me between himself and the only entrance.

The pressure on my throat is measured. Not enough to crush. Enough to control. The same careful calibration he used with Claire's staging, the same clinical knowledge of how much force a body can absorb before something breaks.

I know this because I've studied it for five years.

And now I'm living it.

Claire knew this. In Étienne's room, with Gaudet's hands arranging her, my sister felt this same unhurried competence against her throat. The certainty of a man who has done this before and knows precisely where the line falls between control and damage.

Claire had no one coming for her.

Above us, the impacts against the wall are louder. Closer. Gaudet's arm tightens.

"They'll come through that panel," he says against my ear. "And the first thing they'll see is my hand on your throat. That changes their calculations."

He's right. The corridor is too narrow for anyone to come at him from more than one direction. Anyone coming through the panel walks straight into him with me as the shield.

Except Gaudet made one mistake.

He expected the interviewer. The analytical woman. The submissive he's watched kneel at Dominion.

I drive my heel down his shin. Hard. Not practiced, not graceful. Five years of grief and fury channeled into the one part of his body I can reach. His grip shifts a fraction. I twist, get my elbow free, and slam it backward into his ribs. The sound he makes is the first honest sound I've heard from this man all day.

Claire is in my head. Not a thought. A presence. My dead sister's face behind my eyes while I fight her killer with the only weapons I have. My body. My rage. The absolute refusal to die in a corridor that smells like old concrete and dust.

The panel explodes inward.

Sebastien comes through first.

Not Cole. Not Remy. Sebastien.

The man who sat in a booth for five years blaming himself for having missed something he was never meant to see. He sees Gaudet's arm on my throat and doesn't hesitate.

"Take your hands off her."

Five words. Quiet enough to be terrifying.

Gaudet doesn't remove his hands.

Sebastien closes the distance before the echo of his voice fades. His hand locks around Gaudet's wrist and wrenches it from my throat. The separation is brutal. Gaudet twists, tries to drag me back into him, and Sebastien's other hand catches the side of Gaudet's head and drives it into the corridor wall. The sound is wet and hard and final.

Gaudet staggers. He swings. The punch is fast and competent, aimed at Sebastien's jaw. Sebastien takes the hit on his forearm and answers with an elbow strike to Gaudet's sternum that folds him forward. Then Sebastien's hand is on the back of his neck, forcing him down. Gaudet's knees hit concrete. His face follows. Sebastien pins him with one knee between his shoulder blades, both of Gaudet's arms locked behind his back.

Cole comes through next. Then Remy. Cole sees Gaudet on the floor and is beside Sebastien before the echo fades. Sebastien releases Gaudet into Cole's hands and steps back.

The step back costs him. I can see it in every rigid line of his body. But he does it because the legal reality is the same as the tactical one: Rapier contains the suspect, and what happens next belongs to law enforcement.

Cole puts Gaudet against the concrete with professional force. Remy is behind them, phone already connecting to Andy.

Gaudet doesn't struggle. He stands against the wall with Cole's hand on his shoulder, watching me. Blood on his lip where the wall caught him. His breathing is controlled. His composure is back.

I'm going to take it from him one more time.