Chapter 193 ~ We Have to Catch a Rat

Chapter 193 ~ We Have to Catch a Rat

{Daisy's POV}

I stared at the screen for a second longer than necessary, genuinely confused on two completely separate levels.

One: how did Mabel even have my number? Two: why, in any conceivable universe, was she using it right now.

"Why is Mabel calling me?" I muttered out loud, to nobody, before answering anyway, because the only reasonable explanation involved something going wrong with my mother, and that possibility alone made hesitating unacceptable.

I stepped a few paces off to the side as the call connected, away from the tight cluster of men still scanning the perimeter, away from DeLuca, who stood a short distance off in tense conversation with several others, everyone trying to figure out whether we'd just walked into an ambush disguised as an empty building.

"Hello?"

"This is Daisy, right?"

"Yes." My grip tightened on the phone. "Did something happen with my mom?"

"With your what?"

"My mom."

"Oh." A pause. "You mean the old lady? No, that's not why I called."

I blinked, momentarily thrown, then settled into a wary, "Okay."

"I called for something else," Mabel continued, "which honestly feels like none of my business. But it's weird, and I don't like carrying weird stuff around in my head longer than I have to."

"Okay," I said again, slower this time, mentally cycling through every possible thing that could have earned this designation. A post she disliked. Some kind of gossip. I genuinely had no framework for what "weird" meant in Mabel's specific vocabulary.

"So I was talking to Nathan," she said. "He came to find me. Long story short, mid-conversation, his phone rang. None of my business, obviously. But the caller ID said Lillian. Just — Lillian. And I remembered, from the whole thing back at that big open area with all those men, there was that girl from our school who was standing with the enemy. Her name was Lillian too. So…"

A dramatic exhale. "I don't know. I just thought I should mention it, especially since Nathan was acting weird about it. Figured you guys could figure out what it means."

I went completely still.

"You think Nathan's working with Lillian?"

"I don't think anything," Mabel said, breezy, almost bored, a startling contrast to the ice suddenly flooding my chest. "I don't know. I don't care. That's literally why I'm calling you with it instead of dealing with it myself."

"But—"

"Bye."

The call ended.

I stood there, phone still pressed to my ear, staring at nothing, for a full, dazed moment.

Then I moved.

DeLuca was already heading toward the car by the time I reached him, mid-instruction to the group. "Check that perimeter, then scatter. We'll regroup at the designated point. It can't be far."

"Wait." Nobody heard me the first time. "Wait — DeLuca!"

He turned. Whatever sharp, impatient edge had been sitting on his face eased slightly the second his eyes landed on me, and with his attention, everyone else's followed too.

"I got a call from Mabel," I said, not letting myself hesitate. "She said she saw Nathan take a call from someone. Someone saved as Lillian."

DeLuca crossed the remaining distance and stopped directly in front of me.

"Mabel called to tell you she thinks she caught Nathan talking to Lillian."

"I don't know if it's actually her," I said quickly. "Mabel didn't sound sure either. She just wanted us to know."

DeLuca's gaze drifted sideways for a beat, calculating something I couldn't follow.

Then it snapped back.

"That's him," he said. "Let's move."

He was already climbing into the driver's seat. "Get in."

"What?" The word tumbled out before I had anything more useful to attach to it. Everything about this felt too fast, too sudden, edged with the very real possibility that this could be wrong in some way none of us had considered yet.

DeLuca didn't share the hesitation. He looked entirely, terrifyingly certain as he settled behind the wheel.

"We're heading back to base," he announced, and then, quieter, mostly to himself, though I caught it anyway: "We have to catch a rat."

The engine turned over. Before I'd even finished processing the sentence, the car launched forward, tires kicking gravel, everyone else scrambling into their own vehicles to follow behind us. Whatever plan we'd walked away from at the warehouse evaporated instantly, replaced by this new, singular urgency.

I sat there, heart hammering, unsure what to actually believe. I didn't want it to be true. Nathan being genuinely capable of this felt impossible.

Except I didn't really know Nathan. Not deeply. And these past several months had taught me, over and over, in increasingly brutal lessons, that the people closest to you could turn out to be exactly as dangerous as any stranger ever could.

The cars barely finished skidding to a stop before DeLuca was already out of his, moving fast, gun drawn, and I lost sight of him almost instantly in the chaos of everyone else scrambling out behind him.

I pushed my own door open and ran.

Bodies pressed and shifted all around me, everyone converging in the same direction, and I shoved through as fast as I could until I finally caught sight of him — DeLuca, hauling Nathan up off the ground by the collar, lifting him almost entirely off his feet before slamming him back against the wall.

Nathan's whole body shuddered with the impact.

He tried to fight it, twisting, and DeLuca simply pinned him harder.

"What is this rubbish?" Nathan spat, trying to throw a punch.

DeLuca tilted his head back, let it sail past him completely, and answered with a headbutt of his own, sharp and economical, sending Nathan reeling with a groan.

"Ah — what the fuck are you doing? Let go of me!"

"The phone," DeLuca said, calm in a way that felt almost more frightening than shouting would have.

"What phone?"

DeLuca slammed him back into the wall again.

"The phone."

"My phone? I can't just give you—"

DeLuca was already reaching into his pocket, and despite Nathan's struggling, the phone came free easily, other men closing in to hold him steady while DeLuca used Nathan's own face to unlock it. He glanced at the screen for barely a second before handing it off to someone else without a flicker of further interest, then hauled Nathan bodily away from the men restraining him and threw him to the ground several feet away.

My mother started to rise from where she'd been sitting.

"No, Mom, wait." I rushed to her side and held her back gently, watching as the rest of the group folded in around the scene — Tessa, Archer, Mabel, the men who'd stayed behind and the ones who'd just arrived, forming a loose, tense ring around DeLuca and Nathan.

Nathan pushed himself up, still raging. "What the fuck is going on here? Why are you acting like an animal? Don't come near me, you lunatic!"

DeLuca closed the distance in one smooth motion and swept his legs out from under him.

Nathan hit the ground hard.

DeLuca crouched in front of him, entirely composed, like he was settling in for a casual conversation rather than an interrogation.

"How long have you been in contact with Lillian?"

"With who?"

DeLuca's fist connected before the sentence even finished, snapping Nathan's head to the side, blood already welling on his lip.

"Last chance," DeLuca said. "How long have you been in contact with Lillian?"

Nathan glared up at him, defiant for exactly as long as it took DeLuca to raise his fist again.

"A few days," Nathan said quickly, flinching back.

DeLuca didn't react at all, moving straight to the next question with the same flat, unshaken calm.

Everyone else did react. Gasps rippled through the group — Tessa, and honestly me too, my own mouth falling open at how easily that had come loose.

"When did you tell them about the warehouse? Yesterday, or today?"

Nathan hesitated.

DeLuca's fist rose again.

"Yesterday!"

Another wave rippled through the crowd, sharper this time.

"How soon are they getting here?"

Nathan looked genuinely rattled now, some of the fight visibly draining out of him as he registered exactly how little room DeLuca was leaving for lies. This wasn't someone improvising. This was someone who already knew most of the answers and was simply confirming them.

"I—" Nathan's voice cracked. "I got word from her a few minutes ago. She said they're closing in. They had to gather more men first, so they're twenty minutes out."

DeLuca rose to his feet.

Nathan flinched, bracing for another hit that didn't come.

Instead, DeLuca turned to the assembled men.

"Positions," he said. "We have guests to entertain."

The group scattered into motion instantly. He pointed to two of the men nearby. "Take him to that corner. Tie him up."

Nathan struggled uselessly as they dragged him off, already yelling something incoherent into the chaos.

I stood there, still holding my mother, staring at the space where the interrogation had just happened, aware that I wasn't the only one frozen in place.

DeLuca crossed to us.

"All of you stay here until we're finished," he said. "No one goes against that order."

He clicked the safety off his gun, leaned in, and pressed a brief kiss to my forehead before turning and walking straight out toward the exit, the rest of the armed men falling into step behind him.

I stood there, mouth still open, completely unprepared for that particular whiplash.

"This just got insane," Tessa said quietly beside me.

I turned to find her there, Mabel just beyond her, both of them staring with the exact same stunned expression I was almost certainly wearing myself. Somewhere off to the side, Nathan's voice kept rising, furious and muffled. Leave me alone! Let me out of here! I am not someone to mess with!

Mabel's gaze slid slowly across the scene.

"Oh, shit," she muttered.