Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 110

110 Down in the Cells

James’s POV

Get 28

Meriu

The stairwell down to the holding cells was colder than the rest of the packhouse.

Concrete walls. Security lighting. Steel doors with coded locks and backup manual bars. We had modernised the place after we took the territory, but no amount of reinforced cameras and access panels changed what it was.

A hole where truth was dragged out ugly.

The guard at the lower checkpoint looked up the second he saw me. “Alpha.”

“Status.”

“Donald’s still in holding. Blond one hasn’t spoken much since last round. Keeps asking for a deal.”

Of course he did.

Men like that always wanted to sell truth in pieces, as if slicing it thin enough would keep them from bleeding.

“Any visitors?”

“No, Alpha.”

I nodded and stepped through as the electronic lock clicked open.

Donald was in the first cell, pacing in short bursts. He saw me and immediately went still, eyes darting,

calculating. I kept walking.

Not him yet.

The blond one sat in the last cell on the right, chained to the floor ring with one ankle and cuffed at the

wrists in front. Bruised face. Split lip. One eye swollen but open. Pale hair hanging into his face in dirty

strands. He looked up slowly when I approached, trying for defiance and landing somewhere closer to

fear.

I pulled the metal chair in front of his cell bars and sat.

No greeting

No threat.

Just silence.

He shifted under it before a full minute passed.

Jasper stirred inside me, a low, impatient pressure under my ribs. He’ll crack. Push where he thinks

he’s clever.

I ignored the growl and kept my eyes on the prisoner.

Finally, he swallowed and said, “You going to ask something or just stare?”

His voice was rough but steady. Better than Donald. More control.

I leaned forward slightly. “Donald talked.”

A flicker crossed his face.

Not surprise.

Annoyance.

He looked away. “Donald always talks.”

“He talked enough to give me Boris.”

The prisoner’s jaw tightened.

I watched him. “But he didn’t talk enough to save you.”

That got his attention back fast.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“The whole truth.”

A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “No one gets that.”

I stood up so suddenly the chair legs scraped hard against concrete. He flinched before he could stop

himself

“Try me.”

The bravado thinned,

Jasper bared teeth inside me. There.

I stepped closer to the bars. “Donald gave me names. Routes Fragments. But he left holes. You’re going to fill them.

The prisoner stared at me, breathing faster now. “And if I don’t?”

221%

< 110 Down in the Cells

Get 28

Mer

I tilted my head. “Then I ask Donald again, compare stories, and let him bargain with your silence”

That landed exactly where I wanted it

He hesitated.

I saw him calculating, how much Donald might have said, how much I might already know, how much pain he could avoid by getting ahead of the other man.

I softened my tone just enough to make him lean into the trap. “Start with the land.”

His brows drew together. “What?”

“The land I occupy.” My voice went colder again. “You people didn’t come here just to kill for sport. So tell me why.”

He stared at me a beat longer.

Then, like a rope finally snapping, something in him gave.

“That land’s been coveted for years,” he muttered.

I went still.

He looked at the floor as he continued, words picking up speed now that they were moving. “By alphas. Union members mostly. Small and mid packs, some bigger men behind them. Everyone knows what sits under it. Gold. Trade routes. Positioning. If you hold this territory and secure it, you stop

being easy to push.”

My jaw tightened.

He kept talking, glancing up once to see if I was listening.

“The Alpha who held this place before you, he was never allowed into the Union. You know that?”

I said nothing

Because I did know he had been blocked. I had assumed politics. Reputation. Old grudges. A dozen possible reasons.

But hearing it said in this cell, by one of the men tied to the raid, shifted the shape of the thing.

Not allowed.

Kept out.

Because the land stayed easier to contest if the wrong Alpha held it without Union shield.

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Ma

The prisoner licked blood from his lip. “They wanted that ground vulnerable. Wanted it open for pressure, challenge, takeover… whatever worked.”

I felt Jasper snarl in me, hot and immediate Marcel.

But the man’s words cut across that instinct and forced me to think

Maybe this wasn’t as simple as Marcel standing behind every shadow.

Maybe Marcel was dirty.

Maybe he was not the only one.

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