Page 119 of Prey

“I need an acquisition.” Andrew Holloway’s voice carries that particular tension of a man used to getting what he wants immediately. “Brunette, late twenties, athletic build. Clean background, no family ties. The specifications are in the file I sent.”

I glance at Jenna, who’s looking out the window at the Chicago skyline. Her profile shows the slight changes pregnancy has brought—a new fullness to her face, the way she rests her hand protectively over her still-flat stomach.

“Timeline?”

“Two weeks maximum. The buyer’s waiting in Monaco. Price isn’t an issue.”

“I’ll review the file and get back to you.”

“Make it soon, Vex. This client doesn’t wait.”

I end the call and down the rest of my whiskey. Fifteen years of acquisitions. Fifteen years of perfecting the hunt, the capture, the delivery. It’s what built my reputation, my wealth, my position in The Labyrinth’s hierarchy.

Jenna’s watching me now. Her expression tells me she heard enough to understand.

She walks over slowly and settles onto the barstool beside me. “Work call?”

“Client inquiry.”

“For what work?”

I could deflect, change the subject, pull her into a kiss that erases whatever she’s thinking. Instead, I meet her eyes.

“Acquisition.”

Her jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “The kind where you hunt down an innocent person and sell them to someone who wants to own them?”

“It’s not that simple?—”

“Isn’t it?” Jenna’s voice stays level, controlled. “Someone calls, describes a human being like they’re ordering furniture, and you go shopping for them. Find someone who matches their specifications, study their habits, take them from their life, and deliver them to a buyer.”

I signal the bartender for another whiskey. “I don’t deal in children. Never have. That’s the line I don’t cross.”

“But innocent adults?” Her gray-green eyes hold mine steadily. “People like me, who were just trying to survive their quiet little lives? You hunt them down and sell them to the highest bidder?”

The bartender sets down my drink. I don’t touch it.

“My targets are carefully vetted. I only work with certain types of clients. I have rules about?—”

“Rules.” Jenna’s laugh carries no humor. “What rules? No killing them during transport? Making sure they’re physically intact when delivered? How generous.”

“Jenna—”

“The other Architects run businesses that are morally gray at best.” Her voice gains intensity without rising in volume. “Darius manipulates people’s emotions for corporate advantage. Raphael runs a BDSM club that skirts the edges of consent. Ezra manipulates financial markets. All of them exploit systems, bend rules, operate in shadows.”

She pauses, lets the silence stretch.

“But you literally steal human beings and sell them into captivity.”

Her words are a verdict, and she delivers it with the calm of someone who has already decided. The thing is, she’s wrong. Not about the shape of it—the hunting, the taking, the cold machinery of all of it. She’s wrong about the one thing underneath, the thing that would either damn me further in her eyes or change the color of everything, and I don’t know which, and that not-knowing is the only thing that has ever kept my mouth shut.

“It’s not what you think,” I say.

“That’s what every man says about the worst thing he does.” She doesn’t move from the window. “I was one of them, Nikolai. If you hadn’t decided to keep me, you’d have handed me to whoever was paying. You don’t get to soften that now.”

She believes it, and why wouldn’t she—I built that man on purpose and let her believe that version of me. The truth was never something I could give a captive; she’d have used it to survive me. But she’s not a captive now. She’s free to walk outthat door, and the only thing keeping the truth behind my teeth is cowardice.

So I tell her.