Seraphina’s POV

Everything around me felt muted, like someone had pressed pause on the world except for the pounding in my ears.

My mother glanced lazily in my direction, eyebrows lifted in mock concern. “If you’re done throwing your little tantrum, close the door on your way out, sweetheart.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t move. I just stared at the photo on my screen, trying to convince myself this was some sick joke. But the cracked floor, the way the necklace was snapped, none of it felt fake.

The moment dragged until I realized I’d stopped breathing. I swallowed hard, shoved the phone into my pocket, and turned without another word. The door slammed behind me.

I walked quickly through the house, almost tripping as I skipped steps. My thoughts raced, overlapping, tangling in every worst-case scenario I had ever imagined.

Outside, Marcus barely had time to get the door before I yanked it open and told him to drive to the warehouse district.

“Which one?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when I see it,” I snapped.

I replayed the photo in my head over and over, my mind focusing on the background of the picture. Cracked concrete, rust-streaked metal, broken tiles, and graffiti. It looked like the lower end of the old shipping yards. The kind of place that had been condemned for years but was still used for drug deals, arms trades, and bodies that weren’t meant to be found.

I told him to turn when I saw the rusted fencing. Then we passed a chain-link gate with a broken padlock. Then I saw it.

Graffiti in red two intersecting daggers. The same as the one in the corner of the photo.

“Stop here.”

I stepped out, alone. I didn’t want witnesses. The air stank of piss, smoke, and oil. I followed the cracked path toward the building with a sunken roof. Every step made my skin crawl.

The door groaned when I pushed it open. Inside, it was cold, hollow, and dark.

Then I heard footsteps. I turned sharply.

Then a tall man with a clean-cut suit, black gloves on, badge peeking slightly from the inside of his coat.

Detective Kael.

We locked eyes. His brow creased the second he saw me.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

I stepped forward, my voice like sandpaper. “That makes two of us.”

Behind him, I saw it.

The exact spot from the photo. And blood. Dried now, but still unmistakable.

Sienna had been here.

“Where's my sister?”

My voice echoed in the empty warehouse, low and sharp like a blade pressed to flesh.

Kael didn’t flinch, but I saw the shift in his eyes. Hesitation. Guilt. Something buried just beneath that polished detective mask.

“I asked you a question,” I snapped, stepping closer. The sound of my heels struck like a countdown. “You’re standing on her blood and you’re telling me I wasn’t supposed to be here?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be here either,” he muttered.

That did it. I grabbed him by the collar, slamming him into the rusted metal beam beside him. The sound rang loud, he grunted staring at me back in the eye.

“Don’t get righteous with me,” I hissed, my nails digging through his pressed shirt. “You had this photo. You had this location. And you said nothing to me.”

He didn’t fight back. That annoyed me more.

“I’ve been trying to piece it together, Seraphina,” he said through clenched teeth. “But every lead dies before I can even breathe on it. Everyone I question disappears. Records wiped. Witnesses vanish. You think I wanted to drag you into another fucking dead end?”

“You should’ve told me the second her name came up.”

“And if I did?” he shot back. “What would you have done? Brought your little empire into this? Started a war before I had any real proof?”

“You’re damn right I would’ve.” I stepped back and shoved him hard. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, Kael, it’s making ghosts talk. And you’ve been sitting in silence.”

He straightened his coat and brushed off the dust like he hadn’t just been slammed against steel.

Then, slowly, he pulled a flash drive from his inside pocket.

“Everything I have is on here,” he said, his voice quieter now. “You’ll see the same patterns I did. Sienna’s phone last pinged from this warehouse four days ago. Her bracelet was found near the alley out back…”

My eyes narrowed. “You didn’t mention the bracelet.”

“Because it was covered in blood. Hers. And I didn’t want to hand you grief without a single name to kill.”

I took the flash drive and stared down at it like it was a loaded weapon.

“What else?”

“There were fragments of a burner phone. I traced it to a number that only called one other. An encrypted line. I ran it through everything I had, and guess what? Dead end.” He looked tired now. “But the second I got closer to cracking the source, Internal Affairs came sniffing around. Someone powerful doesn’t want her found.”

I tucked the flash drive into my jacket and turned toward the bloodstained floor.

“She’s not dead,” I said, not asking, but warning.

He didn’t speak.

“If she was dead, I’d feel it,” I murmured. “We shared a room for sixteen years. I used to know when she was having nightmares, Kael. You don’t forget that kind of bond. Something in me would’ve broken.”

The silence that followed said everything.

But then Kael stepped beside me, his voice lower this time. “If you’re going to use that,” he nodded at the flash drive, “don’t do anything reckless.”

I smirked bitterly. “It’s me, Kael. Reckless is the only language I speak fluently.”

He sighed and turned toward the exit.

“I’ll be in touch,” he muttered, disappearing into the night.

I stood in the center of that hollow room, staring at the dried blood and broken tiles.

She had been here.

But someone didn’t want her to leave.

And whoever they were…

They’d just made the worst mistake of their life.

I was up all night dissecting every file on that flash drive. Kael hadn’t been exaggerating, it was a web of fragments, shredded leads, half-erased records, and blurred CCTV footage. Every clue that looked promising fizzled into static by the next frame. Names were blacked out, timestamps corrupted. It was as if someone or something had reached in and erased the evidence just before it could surface.

But one name kept popping up. The Golden Stiletto.

An underground club hidden deep beneath the city’s nightlife, where entry required more than just money. It required an invitation, some blood and if you refused to comply then you’d be silenced.

The file about it wasn’t like the others. It had no metadata. No origin trace. Just a collection of images that didn’t feel like normal surveillance footage. It had blurry shapes that bent light wrong, reflections that didn’t match the people in the room, some didn’t even have shadows.

It didn’t make sense.

I leaned back in my leather chair, my temple pulsing from lack of sleep.

I’d danced with drug cartels and arms dealers. I’d buried bodies beneath buildings I owned. But this... this felt like something I couldn’t touch. Like something that would touch me back.

Still, I picked up my phone and called Kael.

It rang twice before he answered, his voice groggy, like he’d been asleep.

“Kael, it’s Seraphina. I went through the drive. Most of the leads are fried, but there’s something. One name keeps popping up. The Golden Stiletto. It’s….”

“What drive?”

I froze. “The one you gave me. At the warehouse. It was in a sealed folder marked…”

“I didn’t give you anything.”

I blinked. “Kael, I was standing right there. You handed it to me. You literally said it wasn’t meant for department eyes.”

A long silence followed.

Then, coldly and calmly, he responded

“I think you’re mistaken.”

My screen suddenly buzzed. A new notification slid across the top of my phone.

>Incoming file from: Detective Kael

Subject: Golden Stiletto

Attachment: [1 File]<

I stared at it.

He just said he didn’t send me anything.

Now he’s sending it again.

I lifted the phone slowly back to my ear, heart pounding.

“Kael... did you just send me a file?”

But the line was dead.

I lowered the phone and just sat there frozen.

What the hell was that?

Was he playing with me? Protecting me? Or had someone gotten to him?

I replayed everything about our last meeting. The flash drive, the look on his face when he handed it over, like he already knew he was crossing a line. The way he glanced over his shoulder before slipping it into my palm.

He knew.

So why the hell pretend he didn’t?

Something about this didn’t feel like a lie.

It felt like forgetting or worse… rewriting.

I shook my head. Nah, there was no way….

I stared at the screen, my pulse thundering in my ears.

“But if that’s not the case,” I paused looking around me. “What the fuck just happened?”