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“Favors?” Maul asks.

“Plenty owed. Fuck all collected that I know of.”

Silence settles around the table as that sinks in.

I wrap my hand around my beer, staring at the bottle while my hellhound starts prowling beneath my skin again.

Malgrave put his fucking hand around my throat.

Took my voice.

Walked away with it.

And until Echo came through our gates, every one of us believed what he told us to believe.

Punishment.

My grip tightens.

The bottle gives a warning creak, and Sentinel reaches over, takes it straight out of my hand, and puts it on his other side.

I turn my head slowly, and he tilts his head at me. “Easy, hellspawn.”

I glare at him in response.

Sentinel smirks. “Break Ruckus. He’s cheaper.”

“Fuck you,” Ruckus fires back.

Sentinel shrugs. “Am I wrong?”

“Deeply.”

Raze waits for the bullshit to die down before looking back at me. “Echo thinks Malgrave took your voice for a reason beyond punishment.”

My jaw locks.

Yeah, I got that part.

“After what Scar remembered, I’m starting to think she’s right.”

Sentinel’s humor disappears beside me.

Raze looks around the table. “So, I don’t want us wasting time asking whether Malgrave’s done this before. We know he has. I want to know what happened to everything he took.”

Coil slowly lowers his glass. “And if it never stayed with him?” he asks.

Raze’s eyes harden. “Then we find out where the fuck it went.”

I open my mouth. Instinct, pure reflex, the same one that’s fired a thousand times in this room when I had something worth saying. What comes out is a scrape of air that dies before it becomes anything, and every set of eyes at the table swings toward me as though I’ve just set something on fire. Heat crawls up my neck, and I raise a hand instead. Two fingers pointed at my throat, then a slow circle toward the ceiling… up, upward, something above.

Ruckus squints at me like I’ve started speaking Aramaic.

Sentinel doesn’t even look up from his beer. “He’s asking if this goes higher than the Council. If someone’s pulling Malgrave’s strings the way Malgrave’s pulling ours.”

I nod, my jaw tight.

“Good question,” Raze mutters.