A week passed without Lena's voice crossing the walls that held her.
No messages.
No calls.
No signs—except the quiet ache that settled deeper every night, the kind that made breathing feel like borrowed time.
Rafferty kept her in a place that pretended to be mercy.
White walls. Soft lights. Calm voices.
No chains—because chains were unnecessary when fear learned the map of your body.
They told her she was safe.
They told her she was important.
They never told her when she'd be allowed to leave.
By the seventh day, Lena understood the truth with frightening clarity:
She wasn't being held.
She was being preserved.
She chose the escape the same way she'd learned to survive everything else—quietly.
She memorized routines.
Counted footsteps.
Tracked the guard rotations by sound alone.
She cried when she needed to.
She smiled when expected.
She waited.
That morning, the sky outside her narrow window looked almost kind. Pale blue. Unconcerned. As if the world hadn't sharpened itself against her ribs.
Lena pressed her forehead to the glass.
Today, she decided.
Either I leave… or I don't wake up again.
She moved when the corridor lights dimmed—bare feet silent, heart racing, fingers shaking as she slipped past the door that had never been truly locked.
She made it ten steps.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps behind her.
Too close.
Too calm.
"Miss Lena," a woman's voice said softly.
She turned.
One of Rafferty's medical handlers stood there—expression smooth, eyes clinical, syringe already in hand.
Lena's breath hitched. She tried to run but was captured before taking ten-steps away.
"Please—"
The needle slid into her arm with practiced ease.
"I'm sorry," the woman whispered—not like an apology, but a procedure.
The world folded inward.
Darkness took her gently as silent took over. She was carried away by two men down to the laboratory.
Rafferty's private laboratory lived beneath the city—hidden under glass and steel and laws rewritten for men like him.
Machines hummed like restrained thunder.
Monitors glowed with a language only the powerful could afford to understand.
Lena lay on the table, pale, unmoving, her chest rising slowly beneath sterile sheets.
Rafferty stood over her, coat removed, sleeves rolled back.
Reverent again.
"She kept it alive," he murmured to the room. "Even after everything."
A surgeon adjusted his gloves. "Once we begin, there's no reversal."
Rafferty nodded. "Take what's mine. Since she tried to escape, i can't risk another chance. It's now, before things slip away. "
Before the doctor could begin, The first alarm screamed.
Then the second.
Then the walls shook.
Gunfire tore through the upper corridor like thunder breaking bone.
Rafferty turned sharply. "What is happening?"
The answer came in explosions.
Steel doors buckled inward.
Men shouted.
Blood hit white floors like spilled ink.
And then—
Brine.
He came through smoke and shattered glass like a promise finally kept. His men followed—hard-eyed, precise, ruthless.
"Move!" Brine roared.
The room became war.
Rafferty's guards fought back with desperation sharpened by loyalty, but Brine had fury on his side—and something worse.
Purpose.
Bullets sang.
Bodies fell.
Glass shattered again.
Brine reached Lena's side, hands already pulling wires free, lifting her carefully like she might disappear if held too tightly.
"Got her," he said into his comm. "Fall back. Now."
Rafferty watched from behind reinforced glass, eyes burning—not with panic, but loss.
"This isn't over," he said softly, to no one.
The building screamed as Brine's convoy vanished into the underground veins of the city as Mr Rafferty stares in anger. He knew he has to do something before everything turns to ash.
After along drive till their destination, Lena breathed.
Still alive. No scars on the face nor anywhere. She was fine, totally. Brine took in a deep breath then looked at Mr Tan signaling him something.
" You were right. If we would have waited alittle bit longer, they would have finished her." Brine said softly."
" Thank God she's safe. Mr Luke would have come back to life and take me with him wherever he is for letting him down." Mr Tan said smiling.
--------
Elsewhere, far from sirens and blood—
Moody stood in a warehouse lit red.
Not warning red.
Ownership red.
Men and women stood around him—scarred, loyal, hungry for something that wasn't borrowed power.
"This isn't the Silver Mark," Moody said.
"This isn't borrowed crowns or inherited wars."
He looked at them, eyes clear for the first time in years.
"This is ThE RED."
A pause.
"My brother built an empire under someone else's shadow," he continued. "I walked away to build one that answers to no one."
They nodded.
"We gonna do our own away. This is my empire, My king, and my Freedom. Thus is us. We are THE RED GROUP. Are we together?" He shouted.
" Yes Sir, We are."They all echoed."
" Jude just informed us, They already gotten the girl. Now it's our turn to snatched her away from them. I also need what they are fighting for. I don't have to strain so much, i got a spy over there. Lena will come to me very soon, she knows why." Moody said, a wicked smile escaping from his face.
Since they knew him right from day one, and because they already believed him. They took the vow and vows abide them. The war ahead wasn't for the weak. And what was coming itnwas beyond their Strengths.
Lena woke to quiet voices and the smell of antiseptic mixed with gun oil.
Mr Tan sat beside her bed.
Older than she remembered.
Sadder, too.
"Brine's outside," he said gently. "You're safe. For now."
Lena swallowed. "Why… why did he want my heart?"
Mr Tan exhaled slowly.
Then he told her everything.
About her father.
About Rafferty.
About the lies wrapped in loyalty.
"Your father helped build the Silver Mark," Tan said. "Not Rafferty. Him."
Lena's breath caught.
"He designed it. The vows. The marks. The power structure. Rafferty stole it—used fear to turn it into something monstrous."
He looked at her, eyes heavy.
"When your father realised Rafferty planned to erase everyone who knew the truth… he ran."
"With me inside him," Lena whispered.
Tan nodded. "The device was meant to protect the group. Your father hid it in you to save you, to save your life. To save all of us."
Tears slipped silently down Lena's temples.
"So he killed him."
"Yes," Tan said. "And now he wants to finish what he started."
Lena closed her eyes.
The war wasn't about power.
It never was.
It was about a heart that refused to stop beating—even when it carried another man's secret.
Outside, Brine stood guard.
Moody gathered his red.
Rafferty watched the city burn gold beneath him.
And somewhere between blood and vows and stolen legacies—
The war didn't grow louder.
It grew inevitable.