Before I could speak, a hand gently pushed my gun down.
Maren stepped past me.
She didn’t look angry. She didn’t look scared. She looked like a force of nature—cold, inevitable, and absolute.
“Tessa,” Maren said. Her voice wasn’t raised. It was deadly quiet, cutting through the ambient noise of the cabin like a scalpel.
Tessa sneered, though her grip on Clara tightened. “Look who it is. The pathetic martyr. Come to beg?”
Maren didn’t stop walking. She moved with slow, deliberate steps toward the back of the cabin. “I’m not here to beg. I’m here to collect.”
“Get back!” Tessa yelled, stepping backward until she hit the bulkhead.
Maren pulled a small black audio recorder from her pocket. She pressed play.
The audio was crystal clear. It was Tessa’s voice, recorded during her visit to the farmhouse a month ago.
“You’re going to sit in this dirt and rot, Maren. Because if you breathe a word to Rowan, or the cops, about the girl in Zurich, I won’t just take the boys. I’ll make sure they stop breathing entirely. Do you understand me? You are a breeding cow, and I took your best calf. Live with it.”
