Ethan listened to Ery Shaw, a thought stirring in the back of his mind. How could so many people be tied to ?
The ones he truly cared about were safe inside the Whitmore family’s Hidden Territory.
Still, calling Kiara Quinn "connected" to him wasn’t exactly wrong. The tie between them was fragile, almost laughably so. They’d barely exchanged a handful of words in their lives.
As Ethan sifted through the mories he had taken from Director Vaughn, he stumbled across sothing strange: a gap, a fragnt wiped completely clean. Did that old bastard use his Soul Power to delete a mory before he died?
The thought landed with certainty. Arthur Finch—the man Vaughn had once been—had indeed erased sothing. And if that mory still existed, Ethan would never have done the assassination mission. He would have been chasing an entirely different path.
The lost mory concerned a eting between Arthur Finch and Zachary Steele.
The flicker of realization was there one mont and gone the next.
Ery’s voice cut in again. "Yes, it’s about you... about Eth—"
"Ethie, pick up the phone..."
A girl’s voice interrupted, bright and playful. Ethan’s phone buzzed to life with Lyla’s custom-recorded ringtone. Ery’s words were swallowed by it.
Ethan glanced at the screen. The call was from Leo.
He must be out of the Hidden Territory, Ethan thought, his brow furrowing. I wonder if Elina’s with him.
He answered, his tone steady. "Hey, Leo, what’s going on?"
"Ethan, it’s bad! atball’s in trouble!" Leo’s voice was breathless, stricken with panic.
Ethan sat forward. "atball? What happened?"
atball—one of the earliest Warlocks to stand with Ethan back when Renegade Alliance was little more than an idea—had fought shoulder to shoulder with him against the Blade Syndicate. He wasn’t just a recruit; he was one of the originals.
Leo rushed on, words tumbling out. "It’s not only atball. I’ve gotten distress signals from several others—our elite mbers. atball’s was the last one, sent two days ago. I just left the Hidden Territory and as soon as I got a signal back, all the ssages poured in at once. I tried calling them, all of them, but their phones are dead. I tried other elites too—sa thing. Every line, switched off."
A chill tightened around Leo’s voice. For so many of their strongest to vanish in unison, it could an only one thing: sothing was very, very wrong.
"I understand," Ethan said, his voice low, carrying the weight of steel. He exhaled slowly. "Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this. You and Elina should head back to the Hidden Territory. Stay there, where it’s safe."
"We’re already on our way," Leo answered, sharp and sure. He knew better than to press further.
When the call ended, Ethan slipped the phone away and turned his eyes on Ery Shaw.
"The people you ntioned," he said, his voice turning cold, "they’re the elite core of my Renegade Alliance, aren’t they? The Dissenters are gutting my forces in Ethereal. They want crippled before the Fortress Wars. Who are you working with? The Steele Consortium?"
Zachary Steele’s face flashed in Ethan’s mind like a knife’s reflection.
Ery shook his head. "I don’t know for certain. But the Steele Consortium? Too small. They couldn’t orchestrate sothing like this. Didn’t you find any leads in Vaughn’s mories?"
The words made Ethan’s jaw tighten. Ery not only knew Vaughn was dead—he knew Ethan had scoured his mind before the end.
"You have Lyla under your control, don’t you?"
The temperature in the room seed to plumt. Ethan’s eyes iced over, a killing aura radiating from him in waves. For Ery to know so much, it could only an one thing: Lyla had been forced to speak, to reveal details she should never have known. Soone had gotten to her... and now Ery was standing here with the proof.
But if Lyla had already been rescued, why hadn’t she contacted him? The only conclusion was that Ery’s people still had her under tight control.
A mont ago, Ery had spoken with such confidence, yet he had never once claid to belong to the Neutral Faction. So what was he really? Who did he work for?
Then another, darker thought crossed Ethan’s mind. If Lyla was truly being held, how had she revealed his secrets in the first place? Unless... they had forced it out of her. Unless they had used thods that left no choice.
That single thought snapped sothing inside him. His killing intent burst free like a tidal wave, dark and suffocating. If Lyla had been hurt—if they had so much as laid a finger on her—he would burn the world down to its foundations.
Across from him, Ery Shaw blanched. His entire back was drenched in cold sweat. The weight of Ethan’s murderous aura pressed down on him like a mountain, crushing the breath from his lungs.
"Don’t... don’t get the wrong idea!" Ery gasped, his voice shaking. "Miss Silverwood is perfectly safe!" The words tumbled out as if his life depended on them—and in that mont, it truly did.
Ethan reined in the pressure, but only slightly. His eyes, sharp as blades, pinned Ery in place.
"Where. Are. They?" Ethan’s voice was low, each word bitten out with deadly precision.
"The location... it’s at the bottom of the sea," Ery stamred. "They were originally being taken to Sacred Sea Island, but I had soone intercept them midway. I swear it, they’re safe."
He looked so desperate, so eager for Ethan to believe him, that it was almost pitiful.
Ethan’s mind flashed back to the fishing boat that had exploded from beneath the hull. Was that Ery’s handiwork?
"Take there," Ethan said coldly, rising to his feet.
"I can... but we’ll need to go through Sacred Sea Island first," Ery replied, standing as well. He held Ethan’s gaze, forcing himself to steady his voice. "And what about Kiara Quinn? Are you just going to leave her behind? What about your other elites from the Renegade Alliance? They’re being held on Sacred Sea Island too. You’re not going to save them?"
He pressed on quickly, almost pleading. "Ethereal has been offline for so ti. I had no way of reaching you. Celeste has vanished as well. If I hadn’t run into you here, I wouldn’t have been able to deliver any of this to you."
Ethan narrowed his eyes. The story held together, at least for now. "Fine. You lead the way to Sacred Sea Island." His tone lost so of its edge, but suspicion still simred beneath the surface.
"I’ve never set foot there myself," Ery admitted, sinking back into his seat as though relieved to stop standing under Ethan’s glare. "If I had, do you think I’d still be riding this rust bucket?"
Ethan studied him for a mont, then sat down again. Ery didn’t appear to be lying. Whether that was a comfort or not, he couldn’t yet decide.
Their conversation stretched on, and the picture finally began to sharpen. Sacred Sea Island, according to Ery, was a stronghold built by the Dissenters, designed primarily to rake in profit.
But when Ethan pressed about the so-called "Sacred Blood Ritual," Ery had nothing. Vaughn’s mories had been blank on that point as well.
It was another reminder: Soul Reading wasn’t absolute. A powerful enough individual could erase mories entirely. Perhaps it was fortunate that Vaughn’s death had co swiftly. If Ethan had given the man more ti, he might have been able to alter or wipe his own mories clean.
Still, the fact lingered like a thorn—Vaughn had erased this mory specifically, and only this mory, just before dying. That alone was enough to prove Sacred Sea Island wasn’t just a profit-making enterprise.
It was hiding sothing far more important.
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