Chapter 97: WHO’S BEHIND YOU
DANE’S POV
Rhett fought.
Not smart about it either — just desperate, the kind of thrashing that came from panic rather than training, all elbows, shifts and one attempt to headbutt that I moved past before he finished committing to it. I got his arm up behind his back at an angle that made further movement a bad idea and held it there while he breathed hard through his nose and figured out that the math wasn’t working in his favour.
"Done?" I asked.
He went still.
"Good." I said.
Callum was already walking ahead toward the dungeon entrance and I walked Rhett behind him with his arm still where it was because I didn’t trust the stillness yet — people went still when they were planning something, not just when they had given up, and this one had been too deliberate in how he moved tonight for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The dungeon was cold and quiet and the guard on duty looked at Rhett and then at Callum and said nothing.
We put him in the far cell.
Same one Reed had been in.
He sat on the floor and looked up at both of us with the expression of someone assembling a story in their head, testing versions of it, deciding which one to lead with.
"Who sent you?" Callum asked.
"Nobody." Rhett said and his voice was steadier than I expected. "I’m on my own."
"On your own." I scoffed.
"I needed money." He said. "I heard there were border gaps. Easy way in and out, pick up what you can. That’s all it was." He looked between us. "I didn’t hurt anyone."
"You broke into a woman’s house." I said.
"I didn’t take anything." He said quickly. "I was looking for—" He stopped.
"Go on." Callum said.
"Nothing." He said. "I panicked. I went in and panicked and left."
"You were outside her window first." I said. "Before you broke in. You were watching her."
"I was scoping the house." He said. "Looking for entry points. That’s all."
Callum looked at him for a long moment.
Then he looked at me.
"Lock him up." He said. "We’ll come back tomorrow."
He walked out and I looked at Rhett on the floor.
He looked back at me with that assembling expression still working behind his eyes and I filed that away and followed Callum out and told the guard nothing unusual, watch him, nobody in without my clearance.
In my quarters, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop.
Rhett.
I ran the name through every registry I had access to. Pack records, regional databases, the inter-pack employment logs that Keisha’s office maintained and that I had quiet access to through Callum.
It took forty minutes.
He was real. Not a fabricated identity like I had half expected— an actual person with an actual history, twenty six years old, originally from a small pack three territories east, two siblings. An older brother named Corran, currently working border security for his home pack. A younger sister named Blythe, seventeen, still in school.
I looked at the siblings for a while.
Family, I thought. People used family when they had nothing else to use.
I closed the laptop and went to bed and slept four hours before I went back to the dungeon at seven in the morning.
Rhett was asleep on the floor with his coat pulled around him and his face slack and younger looking in sleep than it had been awake. I looked at him through the bars for a moment.
Then I nodded at the guard.
The guard picked up the bucket.
The water hit Rhett in the face and he came up gasping and swearing and scrambling backward into the wall and looked at me standing outside the cell with his eyes wide and his hair streaming water down his face.
"Morning." I said.
"What the—" He wiped water from his eyes. "What the hell is wrong with you—"
"Who sent you?" I said.
"I told you last night." He said. "Nobody. I’m on my own."
Callum stepped forward from where he had been standing behind me. "Let’s try this differently." He said. He looked at Rhett on the wet floor. "Tell me exactly how you learned about the border gaps. Which one you came through. How many times you’ve been on this estate."
Rhett pulled his coat tighter. "I found the gap by looking." He said. "I walked the boundary line looking for a way in. That’s how. And I only came through—"
"Eighteen times." I pointed out.
He blinked.
"We have camera logs." I said. "Going back two months. Eighteen separate entries documented through the east boundary gap, all of them correlating with rotation schedule gaps that you would only know if someone inside this estate told you when and where the gaps were." I looked at him steadily. "So try that again."
He pressed his lips together.
"Someone told you our schedule." Callum said. "Someone had access to that information and passed it to you and you used it to move through this estate for two months without being caught." He crouched so he was at Rhett’s eye level. "I’m not asking if someone helped you. I’m asking who."
"I already told you—"
"You told me a story." Callum said. "I’m asking for the truth."
Rhett looked at him. Then at me. Then at the floor. "I want protection." He said. "If I talk I want—"
"You’re not in a position to negotiate." I said.
"Then I’m not talking." He hissed.
I looked at Callum.
Callum stood back up.
He nodded once and I opened the cell.
The cell door creaked open.
The sound echoed through the narrow corridor before settling into silence again, and Rhett instinctively pushed himself farther back against the stone wall. Water still dripped from his clothes, his hair clinging to his forehead after the bucket the guard had emptied over him moments earlier. He looked exhausted, but his eyes remained alert, darting between me and Callum as though trying to decide which of us was more dangerous.
Neither of us spoke immediately.
Silence had a way of making people uncomfortable.
People always wanted to fill it. Rhett was no different.
"I already told you everything," he muttered after nearly a minute had passed. His voice sounded rougher than it had the night before, the confidence he’d carried slowly being worn down by the uncertainty of not knowing what came next. "I don’t know what else you want me to say."
Callum stood outside the bars with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression giving nothing away.
"You keep saying you’ve told us everything," he said quietly. "That’s interesting."
Rhett frowned.
"Why?"
"Because people telling the truth rarely have to remind everyone they’re telling the truth."
The words hung between them. Rhett shifted his weight but didn’t answer.
Callum continued watching him with the same patient expression he’d worn since entering the dungeon. It wasn’t anger that made him intimidating.
It was patience. He never looked rushed. Never sounded desperate. As though he already knew the conversation would eventually end exactly where he wanted it to.
I unlocked the cell. The metal door groaned as I pushed it open.
Rhett’s shoulders stiffened immediately. His eyes followed every movement I made. "I haven’t done anything," he said, louder this time. "Breaking into that house was stupid. Fine. Arrest me for that if you want. But I wasn’t spying for anyone."
I stopped a few feet in front of him. "No?"
"No."
"You expect us to believe you wandered into one of the most heavily guarded territories in the region by accident."
"I never said by accident."
"You expect us to believe you found the exact patrol gap our guards rotate through."
"I got lucky."
"Lucky," I repeated.
He nodded. "I watched for a few days."
"Eighteen entries?" I repeated with a smirk.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"You do." I crouched in front of him. "So let’s stop pretending."
He held my gaze. I had to give him that much. Most people looked away eventually. Rhett didn’t.
"You watched our patrols," I continued. "You learned the schedules. You learned the blind spots. You entered and exited without taking anything valuable."
His jaw tightened.
"Which means theft wasn’t your objective."
Still nothing.
"You watched one particular house."
Silence.
"You returned to that same house."
Still silence.
"You stood outside the bedroom window."
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
"There were easier houses," I said. "Richer houses. Less protected houses. Yet somehow you always found your way back to that one."
Callum finally stepped inside. His footsteps were slow against the stone floor He stopped beside me but kept his attention entirely on Rhett.
"I’ve been wondering something."
Rhett didn’t answer.
"If money was your goal, why didn’t you steal anything?"
Rhett looked pale.
"If information was your goal, why stay outside the window?"
No answer.
"If assassination was your goal, why leave every single opportunity untouched?"
Rhett swallowed. The movement was small but I noticed.
"You see," Callum continued, "none of your actions fit the motive you’ve given us."
"I was scared."
"You were disciplined."
"I panicked." He hissed.
Neither of us interrupted.
People often revealed more while trying to recover from mistakes than they did while speaking confidently.
Rhett took a slow breath. "I don’t know what you want."
"I want the truth."
"I don’t have another truth."
Callum regarded him for several moments before looking toward me.
I understood immediately.
No words were necessary. I reached down, grabbed Rhett by the front of his coat and hauled him onto his feet.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, struggling instinctively before realizing resistance wasn’t helping him. "Let go."
I didn’t. Instead, I forced him toward the center of the cell, where there was nowhere left to retreat.
His breathing became uneven. "What happens now?" he asked.
Neither of us answered. The silence stretched again. Long enough for him to imagine his own possibilities. Long enough for every worst-case scenario to pass through his mind.
It was remarkable what people did to themselves when left alone with their thoughts.
"I’ve answered every question."
"No," I said calmly. "You’ve answered every question with the same lie."
His shoulders sagged ever so slightly.
Callum circled him once before stopping again. "When people protect someone," he said, "it’s usually for one of three reasons."
Rhett frowned.
"Loyalty."
Silence.
"Fear."
Rhett didn’t move.
"Or family."
For the first time since we’d begun speaking, genuine emotion crossed Rhett’s face.
It vanished almost immediately. But it had been there.
"There it is," Callum murmured.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"I think you do." Callum walked back toward the cell door.
For a moment, I wondered if he was leaving. Instead, he rested one hand against the iron bars and spoke without turning around.
"You’ve done well."
Rhett blinked.
"What?"
"You’ve lasted longer than most."
Confusion replaced suspicion.
"I’ve questioned men twice your age who broke after ten minutes. They shouted. They begged. They invented stories just to make us stop asking questions."
Rhett’s breathing slowed. Almost as though he were taking comfort in the compliment.
Callum let him. Then he quietly shattered it. "But none of them were protecting themselves."
The words landed exactly the way he’d intended.
Rhett froze.
"You aren’t afraid for your own life," Callum continued. "If you were, this conversation would’ve ended already."
Silence.
"You’re afraid for somebody else’s."
Rhett looked away. The first time he’d done so since we’d entered the cell.
I exchanged a glance with Callum. We were getting closer. Callum reached into his coat.
Rhett’s head snapped back up immediately.
But Callum wasn’t reaching for a weapon. Just a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it carefully. "I spent part of last night learning about you."
Rhett’s expression changed.
"You’ve lived a surprisingly ordinary life. Twenty-six years old. Born in East Hollow."
His breathing became shallower.
"You worked transport for nearly four years before disappearing from payroll records." His fingers slowly curled into fists. "Your father died eight years ago. Your mother followed three years later."
The confidence Rhett had worn since we’d captured him was beginning to crack.
Callum folded the paper again. "You have two siblings."
Rhett made no sound.
"Corran."
Rhett shut his eyes.
"And Blythe."
His eyes opened again immediately.
What remained was simply a man realizing the people questioning him knew far more than they should.
"You don’t..." he whispered.
"I’m not making a threat," Callum interrupted gently. "Listen carefully before you decide what I mean."
Rhett stared at him.
"I know who your family is. I know where they live. I know where they work. And that should tell you something."
Callum stepped closer. "It tells you there isn’t anywhere to hide."
The dungeon fell completely silent.
Even the guard outside seemed to stop moving.
"I don’t want your brother." Callum’s voice remained level. "I don’t want your sister."
Another pause.
"I want the person who convinced you this was worth risking your life for."
Rhett swallowed hard and his eyes drifted toward the floor.
I crouched until we were eye level again.
Neither of us hurried him.
Finally, Rhett let out a long breath and his shoulders dropped.
The resistance that had carried him through the night seemed to leave with it.
I held his gaze for another second before asking the question one last time.
"Who’s behind you?"