The blood drained from Maeve Ashbound’s face.
Brittany sat to Alexandra’s left with tears rolling down her cheeks and her eyes swollen red. Trisha sat to her right, jaw trembling, hands locked onto the armrests of her chair with the white-knuckled grip of soone trying to keep herself in the seat. Two A-tier fighters who could kill most living things on the planet, sitting in front of a cara and weeping.
Alexandra looked at Brittany first, and her face opened into tenderness. Open, aching, maternal tenderness from a girl younger than the woman she was looking at, the look of soone who knew exactly where you were because she’d been there.
Her arm reached over and covered Brittany’s wrist, and Brittany’s breath hitched.
Then Alexandra looked at Trisha, and the tenderness was the sa but the recognition in her eyes was sharper. She saw the jaw. The rigid posture. The way Trisha was holding herself together through willpower alone, running calculations behind red eyes because the alternative to calculating was breaking.
Alexandra knew that move. She’d done it herself, sitting in a different chair under different lights, doing math on what her life was worth while Maximilian’s threats circled her like hungry sharks.
Her hand trembled when she reached for Trisha’s.
Maeve saw the tremor and filed it. The girl’s composure was excellent, but her hands were telling a different story. Whether that was performance or genuine feeling was a distinction Maeve couldn’t afford to care about anymore.
"No!" Maeve said.
Henrik and Gabriel had gone still beside her.
"The confidentiality clause!" Henrik started. "They signed a-"
"I know what they signed, Henrik!"
Alexandra spoke.
"These girls... Their nas are Brittany and Trisha. You might recognize them. Until recently, they were mbers of the Ashbound guild, serving under Ash Ashbound’s team." She squeezed both their hands. "Their story isn’t mine to tell. So I’ll let them speak."
Brittany wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked into the cara. Her voice ca out ragged and wet.
"We signed a contract with the Ashbound guild. In that contract was a clause that made every mber of our team financially liable for any losses or legal costs that any other mber caused." She swallowed. "We were told it was a safety net. Ash told us it ant he’d carry the weight, because he had the money and we didn’t."
Trisha’s voice cut in, raw but precise.
"He lied. His net worth was never his own. Every Chronos he spent was an allowance from his mother, and when Ash was arrested, the guild zeroed his assets and pointed the contract at us." She exhaled. "Five hundred thousand Chronos each. Seventy-two hours to comply. We were given three days to beco millionaires or default into what amounts to indentured servitude."
Trisha looked at Alexandra and squeezed her hand.
"Just like Maximilian Vice used contracts to trap those young boys and girls into silence, the Ashbound guild used a contract to trap us into debt we never agreed to carry." Her eyes were wet but her gaze was steady. "The thods are different but the math is the sa if you ask . You sign because you trust soone, and then the paper you signed becos the cage they keep you in."
Alexandra’s grip tightened on Trisha’s fingers, and the look that passed between them needed no words.
Henrik slamd his palm on the table.
"Vice’s contracts were illegal! Ours are legal, you stupid whores! Those are binding agreents reviewed by licensed counsel and ratified by the Association’s contract board!" His face had gone red. "They’re comparing us to a man on death row? To a rapist slaver? On a live broadcast? I’ll bury them. I will personally see to it that those two never work in the awakened industry again."
"Henrik." Maeve’s voice was ice. "Shut up and watch."
Brittany’s eyes squeezed shut. "We called six law firms. Five of them refused the mont they heard the Ashbound na. The sixth told us we had grounds to challenge the contract, but the seventy-two-hour deadline made it impossible to file before the clock ran out."
She stopped. Her lips pressed together and the tears thickened. For a mont, it looked like she might not be able to continue. Alexandra’s arm moved behind her back, and Brittany leaned into it.
Trisha picked up without being asked.
"We have legal representation now, a counsel specializing in guild contract labor practices." Her jaw was set as she spoke. "We’ve been advised that contractual confidentiality does not extend to testimony involving potential criminal conduct. Our attorneys are prepared to defend that position in any court the Ashbound guild chooses. So we’re here."
Gabriel exhaled quietly through his nose. Henrik looked at Maeve. She didn’t look back.
"But the contract isn’t even the worst of it," Brittany spoke up, knees pulled up to her chest as she hugged them. Her words ca out thin and trembling. "Within hours of that eting, our phones started ringing from anonymous numbers. They were rich n who knew the exact amount we owed. They knew the deadline. They knew details that were only discussed inside that tent."
Her face crumbled.
"They offered to pay our debts in exchange for our bodies. One of them wanted us to service his teenage sons."
The silence in the video stretched.
Alexandra’s face had gone white. She was looking at Brittany with her lips parted and her eyes glistening, and the reaction was raw enough that every viewer would see it. She’d heard the details before, clearly, but hearing them said aloud in front of an audience cracked the composure she’d sealed over.
Trisha spoke into the silence.
"The first call ca less than four hours after our eting with guild leadership." She paused, and the pause was precise. "We don’t know who leaked our situation. But whoever it was had access to the specifics of a private financial eting, and they decided that two won in crisis were an opportunity."
Maeve’s breathing stayed even and her posture stayed rigid, but her fingers had gone pale against the table’s edge.
"Lies!" Maeve hissed. "This is fabricated. They have no proof that any call originated from anyone connected to this guild! The bitches even said they contacted lawyers! It was them!"
Neither brother responded. Henrik was staring at the screen. Gabriel was looking at the table.
"We need to go back further, though," Brittany said, and she wiped her eyes again. "Because this didn’t start with the contract. It started with orders."
She looked directly into the cara.
"A week ago..."
...
Author: Apologies if the Chapters felt a bit short, I’m sick and these past few Chapters have required to research US law a lot... I hope I didn’t make any big mistake. Thanks for the support
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