Episode 4: Blood and Silk

The safe house smelled of gun oil and jasmine tea. Lila traced the scarred wooden table as Claire spread out blueprints marked with red X's. Outside the grimy windows, neon signs flickered in Hong Kong's night market—thousands of miles from her father's jurisdiction.

Vincent checked his pistol's magazine. "The shipment moves at midnight. We have forty minutes."

Lila's stomach twisted. "You expect me to just walk into a human trafficking operation?"

Claire smirked, sliding a knife into her boot. "Better than staying here alone, oui? This neighborhood eats pretty girls for breakfast."

Vincent tossed Lila a bulletproof vest. "Wear this. And follow my lead exactly."

The vest weighed more than guilt. She'd spent the flight studying Claire's files—each photo of missing girls another nail in her father's coffin. One face kept haunting her: a Korean exchange student with dimples, last seen entering a police station.

The van ride passed in silence. Vincent's knee brushed hers whenever they turned corners, his body heat seeping through the tactical gear. At the docks, rain misted the shipping containers stacked like gargantuan dominoes.

Claire tapped her earpiece. "Thermal shows twelve hostiles. The merchandise is in Container 87A."

Merchandise. The word made Lila sick. These were girls—some younger than her baby sister.

Vincent caught her trembling hands. "Focus. You're here because you speak Mandarin. When we breach, tell them help is coming." His thumb grazed her pulse point. "Can you do that?"

She nodded, mouth dry.

The raid happened in bursts of light and sound. Silenced gunfire. Shouting in three languages. Vincent moved like shadows made flesh, dropping guards before they could raise alarms. When Lila finally reached the container, the stench of sweat and fear knocked her backward.

Twenty pairs of eyes blinked in the sudden light. Girls chained to pipes. Some barely teens.

"Wǒ men shì lái jiù nǐ men de," Lila choked out—We're here to help. A child with matted hair began to sob.

Then the gunshot rang out.

Vincent shoved Lila behind a crate as return fire peppered their position. Claire cursed in French. The traffickers had reinforcements.

"Change of plan." Vincent pressed a key into Lila's palm. "Get them to the extraction point. Claire will cover you."

"What about you?"

His smile was all teeth. "I'll entertain our guests."

She wanted to argue. To demand they all leave together. But the chains' rattle decided for her. Lila started unlocking shackles, whispering promises she prayed she could keep.

The escape blurred into nightmare fragments—sprinting through maze-like alleys, dragging a limping girl, the whiz of bullets too close. When they finally reached the rescue boat, Claire was bleeding from her shoulder.

No Vincent.

Lila turned back toward gunfire. Claire grabbed her arm. "Non, he buys us time! You owe these girls more than heroics."

The boat engine roared to life. As they pulled away, Lila watched the dock lights shrink. Somewhere in that hell, Vincent was either winning or dying. The realization carved something hollow inside her.

Back at the safe house, medics swarmed. Lila sat numbly as a nurse cleaned a cut on her temple. The rescued girls huddled under foil blankets, their hollow eyes following her every move.

One—the Korean student from the photos—approached. "You're...Commissioner Carter's daughter?" Her whisper carried lethal weight. "Tell your father...the snake has many heads."

Before Lila could respond, the door burst open.

Vincent stood framed in moonlight, shirt dark with blood not his own. Their eyes locked across the chaotic room. Something electric passed between them—something that made Claire roll her eyes and mutter about "les idiots amoureux."

"You're hurt," Lila said stupidly.

He caught her reaching hand midair. "Not mine." His fingers interlaced with hers, warm and rough. "You did good today."

The praise shouldn't have mattered. But as his thumb stroked her knuckles, Lila forgot to breathe. Forgotten too were the dozen reasons this was wrong. In this bruised moment, there was only the man who'd walked through fire for strangers, and the terrifying realization that she wanted to trust him.

Claire loudly dropped a medkit between them. The spell shattered.

Vincent cleared his throat. "We got intel on the next shipment. Your father's chief of staff is involved."

Lila's brief warmth iced over. Chief Ramirez had bounced her on his knee as a child. "How deep does this go?"

"All the way to the top." Vincent's gaze held hers. "You still in?"

Outside, rain began to fall. Somewhere in the city, more girls waited in darkness. Lila thought of her father's hands—the same ones that tucked her in at night, signing death warrants over morning coffee.

She squared her shoulders. "What's the plan?"

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