Chapter 111

**Calum POV**

“So that’s how it will work,” I explain and as a disclaimer, I add, “Theoretically.”
“But it’s working?” Torin asks for confirmation.
I explain, again without trying to sound condescending, because this man has the temperament of a broken trigger—any wrong move can set him off. I expound on the fact that the signal is transmitting, but he’ll get only on strike for an offensive countermeasure because the moment he moves on this. The people who work for Santos will detect the breach in their system and shut me out. So he has one chance to hit him with his own surprise attack like he did with Torin at Moretti’s mansion.
As I’m laying this down for him, I steal glances at Hadassah and she looks shriveled. Colour lost from her dull skin that flakes like the wilting brown of the forest when the season shifts into winter. Her eyes like dying embers with a weight beneath them like her lifeforce is hermoerging, bleeding vitality and leaving behind a withering husk with a hollow stare.
And when a flicker of focus comes to her eyes, it’s when she’s casting frequent glances at the only guard allowed in the room. I don’t know who he is but Hadassha gives him this long-suffering look, begging for eye contact, but he shuns her gaze with his blank stare fixed ahead of him formally.
One thing I find interesting is that his hands are fully bandaged, not an inch of skin visible despite his throat and his rugged face carved in a rough expression.
Torin goes away to consult with the guard, speaking in hushed tones. The guard, with a barren expression, nods when he feels it’s necessary whilst Torin confers with him. I look back at Hadassah and I motion her closer, but her eyes are locked on a random spot past me, staringly aimlessly, absently, like she’s in a trance. My eyes dart to Torin’s back before I slide off the seat to come in front of her.
“Hey, you okay?”
She musters a smile that banishes the grim gloom. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“I love how after all these years you think I can’t read the way I’ve memorized the lines of our favourite Marvel movie.”
She gives me a look and shakes her head with feigned annoyance. “I’m just tired, Calum.”
I cast a furtive look at the conspiring two by the open door. “Who’s the guy Torin is talking to?”
She doesn’t even bother glancing back. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t,” I say with a small wry huff. “But clearly you do. Who is he?”
She shrugs with micro aggression, a touch of aggravation. “I don’t know. He’s just Torin’s head of security.”
“Oh, then why—”
“Hadassah, love let’s go—”
*“Hadassah love*?” I repeat with outrage tightening in my chest.
Torin pivots and strolls closer to us with a threat in his tread. “There a problem?”
“I’m sick of seeing you drag her every which way like she’s your lapdog.”
Torin grins mirthlessly, and he glances at Hadassah, who clamps her eyes shut momentarily like she foresees only chaos coming from me voicing visible brash behavior, both self-asserting and egotistic.
“You call her with the same pitch and purpose as someone expecting their dog to follow at the heel,” I rave on, unable to stop and I don’t want to. “If you can’t treat her right, at least treat her with respect.”
Torin moves his hands to fix them on his waist, brushing his blazer back to reveal the gun tucked away. My eyes dart to the silent warning and they lift back as I crack a defiant smirk, almost careless.
“One thing about your brother is that he didn't need a gun to intimidate someone.”
His usual immoveable composure is rocked by a single comment that erodes the carefully curated mask on his face. A glimpse of the true Torin that is nearly just as terrifying. He lurches for me, but Hadassah once again impedes his path, blocking him from me. She doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t have to—the mute command from her eyes alone is enough for him to send me a loathsome glare before he recedes a step.
“Good, you’re all here.”
A blonde woman struts inside, and the brute and broody guard steps aside wordlessly.
“Gojak confirmed,” she announces, like we’re all supposed to know what that means.
Torin glances at me grudgingly before he sets his eyes back on Hadassah. “Gojak has promised me vital resources. Paired with Tommaso’s support, it will put me in league with Orian’s capabilities. Gojak wants something in return and that’s a sit-down with Armend.”
“A powerful money launderer, and Gojak being a powerful politician wants to establish a private arrangement. However, Armend is a distrustful man that lets no man into his elite circle easily,” the woman informs with her sparkling eyes lingering on Hadassah. “A woman, however, is a different story. For the men he does trust, a small collection of key allies. He likes to treat them from time to time with a party filled with… courtesans.”
“Sex workers?” Hadassah blurts with a horrified expression. “Oh, my—you’re not seriously asking that I go undercover as a hooker?”
“It’s unsavory, I know,” the woman says with semi-sympathy. “But if we want to get ahead of Orian Moon who has powerful Yakuza clans at his disposable. And Santos has his bloodthirsty sicarios. We need our own army and alliances.”
Hadassah nods her head numbly with a half-dead look in her eyes.
“I’ll do it. Not like I have a choice.”
I catch the guard—he shifts uncomfortably, a splinter in his stoic reserve.
“You can help provide surveillance and keep eyes on her whilst she’s on the inside?” the woman instructs me with a query in her tone as if wanting to test my capabilities.
I lift a hand to her face to shake it dismissively. “Nah, what are we even talking about here?”
“Hadassah is going to go to this party, and convince Armend to have a sit-down with Gojak,” the woman simplifies like it’s a mission without high risk.
“Hadassah is at the center of two warring syndicates, and you don’t think that maybe this Albanian criminal hasn’t heard of her?”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” she says with a devious smile. “You think Armend is going to listen to just any whore or woman?”
“How do you expect her to convince him with two targets on her back?”
“Hadassah is a maneater,” she says with a wicked glint in her eyes. “She has an incredible sway on men, and I have no doubt that she will have him on his knees for her.”
Hadassah winces and her eyes seek the ground in a sense of shame.
“I’ve never hit a woman, but you keep talking about her like that. You’ll be my first.”
Hadassah’s eyes leap to me with eyes brimming with surprise and the woman lets out a mocking and sharp, cat-like purr.
“I’ll send you all the operational information,” Torin interjects with a cutting voice. “I need to vett and prep a way for a safe interception and exfiltration. You will monitor her the moment she’s out of bounds.”
“Can Calum and I go get something to eat?” she requests but her tone conveys simply what she will do. “If these are my last moments alive, I’d love to spend it with the only man immune to my said sway.”
Hadassah moves to couple my arm with hers, and she leads us away.
Torin simply moves out of our way. Hadassah stares intensely at the guard as if hoping he will look back at her but he never does—not even to acknowledge her existence. The moment she looks away, his eyes spring to her. And there it is. A look that lies suppressed, hidden beneath the layers of resolve and control, yet it bleeds through the moment of silence. His gaze holds a weight, as if every unspoken truth drags his soul down. The longer I look into them, the more I sense the storm he refuses to release; a silent scream suffocated by some untold repression.
We venture deeper into the corridor until we’re out of any audible range.
“Calum—”
“I will forward everything to Em and she can find a way to get in. She’s still in secret contact with her agency, so perhaps someone can help with the resources she needs to make a clean entry. If anything goes wrong, she pulls you out. No questions, no arguments or finding some reason to stay with Torin.”
Spittle flies from my mouth from the strike that has my cheek throbbing with a fresh ache.
“Say something like that again and I’ll knock a tooth loose.”
My mouth agape, my cold hand finds my warm cheek with a shocked smile. “I didn’t mean it like that—maybe, I did. I’m sorry, I just really mean that if something goes wrong, we pull out. We’ve faced criminal organizations before, alone, without the backing and protection.”
“No criminal organization as big as these,” she retorts.
“If something goes wrong, we pull out,” I say sternly, not giving ground to a single rebuttal. “Frankly, if Torin is comfortable putting you in this kind of situation. There’s no telling what he will allow if it benefits his interests.”
“His interests that are helping to keep us alive and Orian away from me,” she counters reflexively.
“At this point, why don’t you just marry him? The way you defending him like he’s your man,” I blurt and she brings us to an abrupt halt to skewer a deadly look into me.
“If Acheson pulls me out. What about you?” she points out.
“I’ll claim my equipment needs to be on-site for a stronger connection—using some bullshit computer science talk that’ll just go over his head. From there, I’ll improvise with what I got and stage a distraction to get away.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Good thing I have two badass women that will assist if I get jammed.”