Helena had never seen her husband like this. In moments when she had expected him to be this tensed, he never was.
He wasn't this way when their compound was raided eight years ago. Not when he cut ties with three allied families in one night. Not even when he went to war with the Saint brothers and came back drenched in their blood.
Red paced the length of the office. He looked like a chained storm about to break loose. His boots struck the wooden floor so hard.
His phone lay smashed against the far wall. The first guard he'd questioned was still being dragged out of the hallway, barely breathing.
"My daughter has been taken!" Red shouted again, grabbing the edge of his desk and shaking it.
Papers fell to the floor. "Do any of you idiots understand what that means? Do you understand what Valerius is capable of?!"
No one answered. Two men behind the three at the front took a step back.
Helena's hands trembled at her sides, but her voice remained steady. "Red…."
"She's eighteen," he spat, cutting her off. The number of her age itself was poison. "She's barely lived. She barely knows anything. She…"
His voice cracked. Fury devoured it before it could break fully. "She cannot handle them. She cannot be in his hands."
He raked both hands through his hair, pulling hard, like he wanted to tear entire chunks out.
"I did not acquire all this—" he gestured at the empire built under his name, "for my daughter to be taken like some street rat. I did not spend years fighting, killing, and dominating… for Valerius to think he can put a hand on what's mine."
"Red," Helena called again gently, taking a step toward him.
He spun toward her, breathing like a beast cornered. "Don't you get it? Nara is my daughter. She is mine."
Helena didn't flinch. Her throat moved as she swallowed. "I know. She's your daughter… but I am your wife." She placed a hand lightly against her chest. "I was in your life before she came. Listen to me."
Red stopped moving. For a second, the room froze.
He looked at her. The longer they stayed together for alliances, the worse it was for him to recognize who she was.
Grief and fear had peeled away the recognition of everything but his daughter's face.
"My daughter…" he whispered, the words torn, "cannot suffer this."
Helena nodded slowly, her eyes lowering. "But I can?" she questioned. The tremor in her was voice soft but unmistakably real. She could already read his mind. She knew what he had in mind.
Red blinked.
A desperate, reckless, unthinkable decision that only a man losing his mind over his child would dare to make formed in his mind immediately.
He reached for his phone with his hands shaking with adrenaline. He would end Valerius bit before that day comes, he needs his daughter back to himself. Back under his arms.
"Red…" Helena whispered, dread spreading across her face. "What are you doing?"
"I'm calling him," he said. "Valerius."
Her breath stilled. "Red, wait!"
"It's settled." His fingers flew across the screen. "I'll give you to them in exchange for her."
Helena stared.
He didn't look up. He didn't check whether she was breathing. Didn't check whether she was standing or collapsing. He typed faster, his breaths coming harsh and uneven.
He had never thought of her as useful until this day.
"Red, listen to me."
"You'll go to them," he said, "and I'll bring her home."
"You're trading me?" Her voice broke.
"For now," he snapped. "Temporarily. I'll pull strings. I'll find a way to get you out. You won't be mistreated. I promise you."
Helena took a slow step back. Her eyes filled with hurt so quiet and deep it didn't even reach her mouth.
"Red," she whispered. "You don't know what they'll do to me."
He didn't hear her. Or maybe he did, and he couldn't afford to process it. Until Nara was back, every one would be traded if need be.
Fear for his daughter had swallowed every remaining human instinct.
"I'm sending him the coordinates," Red muttered, already attaching files, and writing the message with shaking thumbs. "I'll offer negotiation options after he agrees to the exchange. He'll say yes. He has to say yes."
"You don't know that," Helena said, her voice cracking on the last word.
He finally looked at her.
Her face was pale. Her lips trembled. She had always been strong, always poised, and always the woman who held the household together.
He never loved her, but she gave him peace. She looked like someone whose world was slowly tilting apart.
"I know you love her," she whispered, "but I am not disposable."
Red's chest tightened. Unfortunately, it was not enough to stop him.
"You're not disposable," he said, stepping toward her. "You are my wife, Helena."
"And still the one you offer first," she answered quietly.
Guilt flashed briefly across his features but Nara's face, Nara's voice, Nara's laugh, Nara's stubborness swallowed it instantly.
"She's my daughter," he repeated, as if that justified everything.
And to him, it did.
He pressed the send bottom.
Silence swallowed the room. Helena pressed her hand to her mouth in shock. The Dravens were mean. Nara is valuable to Red so she believed they wouldn't hurt her. But giving her as hostage would mean Red being nonchalant and hesitant to care again.
Red looked at the screen, waiting.
"Red," Helena said again. "What if he takes both of us?"
"Then I will kill him," Red said. "I will kill everyone connected to him. I will destroy Florida. I will burn the Draven Syndicate and bury Valerius in the ashes."
His voice vibrated with something primal.
A part of Helena wanted to scream at him. Another part understood too well what it meant to love Nara the way he did. Another part feared for her life. Another part feared for his.
The phone vibrated.
A reply appeared.
Red lunged for the screen.
Helena squeezed her eyes shut, and the world between them shattered.