"I do." I tilt her chin up, make her look at me. "I've killed people, Talia. I know what it looks like when someone's dying. Killian was breathing when we left. Conscious enough to groan. He's going to be fine."
"But what if?—"
"No what ifs." I'm firm now, because she needs firm, needs something solid to push against. "He's alive. And you're going to tell me right now what's really going on. Who's Axel? Why are you in love with the leader of the organization you're supposed to be destroying? What the fuck have you gotten yourself into?"
She's quiet for a long moment, just breathing against my chest, her tears soaking into my jacket. Then, quietly: "Killian and Axel. They're—they're together. Both of them. And I—" She stops. "I fell in love with both of them."
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with implications I'm still processing.
"You fell in love," I repeat slowly. "With Killian. And Axel. The Viper leadership."
"I know how it sounds?—"
"It sounds insane." But even as I say it, I'm thinking about Xavier and Valentina and Zay, about the way relationships can get complicated when more than two people are involved, about the fact that I have no room to judge. "It sounds like you went in planning revenge and came out with something else entirely."
"I wasn't planning it," she says defensively. "I didn't—it just happened. I was there and they were—they're not what I expected. They're not monsters. They're just—they're people. Complicated people with their own trauma and their own reasons for doing what they do. And I—" She pulls back to look at me. "I love them. Both of them. The way you love Xavier and Zay and Valentina. I love them and I need them and you can't ask me to choose between them and my family."
"I'm not asking you to choose." I brush hair out of her face, trying to process this, trying to figure out how to handle a situation that's gotten infinitely more complicated than a simple extraction. "But Talia, they're Vipers. They've been attacking the Raiders. Killing our people. Taking our territory."
"I know." Fresh tears start falling. "I know and I've been trying to stop it, trying to feed them bad information, trying to protect both sides but it's not working and I don't know what to do."
The pieces are starting to come together now. The leak we've been chasing. The intel the Vipers have been getting. It's not someone betraying us—it's Talia trying to play both sides, trying to protect people she loves on opposite sides of a war.
"Jesus Christ," I breathe.
"I'm sorry." She's crying again. "I'm so sorry. I never meant—I was supposed to destroy them from the inside but then I fell in love and everything got complicated and I don't know how to fix it."
I pull her back against my chest, hold her while she cries, while my own body reminds me that I'm bleeding and broken and probably need medical attention. But that can wait. This—Talia falling apart in a parking lot, Talia caught between two worlds, Talia needing someone to tell her it's going to be okay even if it might not be—this can't wait.
"Okay," I say finally, the word coming out rough. "Okay. I'll bring you back."
She jerks back to look at me. "What?"
"I'll bring you back to them. To Killian and Axel." I'm already regretting this, already knowing Jackie is going to lose her mind, already aware that this is possibly the stupidest decision I've ever made. "But there are conditions. Non-negotiable conditions."
"Anything—"
"They stop attacking us." I hold her gaze, make sure she understands how serious I am. "The Vipers stop hitting our territory, stop killing our people, stop this war. You're the one feeding them information—you're the one who can make this stop. So you make it stop."
"I can't just?—"
"Yes, you can." I'm not backing down on this. "You tell them that the girl they're in love with has ties to the Raiders. That continuing this war means losing you. That you'll only stay ifthey agree to a ceasefire." I pause. "And you tell them that if they hurt you, if they even think about using you as leverage or collateral or anything other than someone they love, I will burn their entire organization to the ground. No extraction. No mercy. Just fire."
She nods slowly, processing. "And you'll really bring me back?"
"I'll bring you back." I check my phone—three missed calls from Jackie, two from Zay, one from Xavier. The extraction was supposed to be quiet, surgical, in and out. Instead it's turned into this mess. "But you're calling your mother first. Right now. You're telling her you're safe, that you're making your own choices, that you're—" I stop. "That you're in love and you need her to trust you."
"She's going to hate this?—"
"She's going to hate it less than thinking you're dead or being held against your will." I hand her my phone. "Call her. Now. Before I change my mind about any of this."
Talia takes the phone with shaking hands and makes the call. I can hear Jackie's voice on the other end—relief and anger and confusion all tangled together—but I'm not listening to the words. I'm looking at Talia's face, at the way she's trying to explain something inexplicable to a mother who just wants her daughter safe.
I'm thinking about how love complicates everything, how it makes simple situations impossible, how it turns loyalty into a labyrinth with no clear exit.
I'm thinking about Xavier and Valentina and the mess they've made, about Zay trying to hold everyone together, about myselfstanding in a parking lot bleeding and broken because I tried to save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
I'm thinking that maybe none of us know what we're doing. Maybe we're all just stumbling through, trying to protect the people we love, trying to make impossible choices in situations that don't have good answers.