Queen of Wild Cards novel Chapter 660

"And if I lost, he took my life. Well, I lost. He demanded my hands. I hadn't avenged your mother yet, and I refused to die like a dog.

"So, Leon and I made a run for the border. I had his son leak a rumor that I owed loan sharks, couldn't pay, got my fingers chopped off, and was being hunted down.

"But our luck ran out at the border. We stumbled onto a massive human trafficking operation. We saw things we weren't supposed to see, and they weren't about to let us walk away. They knocked us out and dragged us straight into the Rose Compound in North Myanor.

"After witnessing the torture those trafficked victims were subjected to, I decided I was going to burn the whole place to the ground. I stayed there, helped Leon escape, but refused to leave with him.

"I wanted to destroy the compound and get those innocent people back home. I thought I was close. I didn't realize the entire region—from the locals to the police—was on their payroll. I managed to call the authorities, thinking I'd succeeded.

"Instead, the cops drove me right back to the compound themselves. They beat me half to death. If Fenton hadn't shown up and swapped me out just in time, I would have rotted in North Myanor."

Fenton swallowed a piece of braised pork belly and grimaced. "I didn't just 'show up'. Do you have any idea how long Little Star had been looking for you? I got a tip that you might be in North Myanor and went specifically to get you out. And in the end, you nearly got beaten to death, and I still managed to lose you. I was useless."

If he had been just a little more prepared, he could have brought Dewey home then and there. He blamed himself for not bringing Silas along. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to, but the situation had escalated too quickly; if he had waited for backup, Dewey would have died.

"Don't say that, Fenton," Stella said softly. "North Myanor is a meat grinder. The fact that you managed to pull off a bait-and-switch and get him out of the compound at all is incredible."

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