PAULINE POV
I hated this.
I hated every second of it. Every breath. Every creak in the stone above my head. Every whisper of sound from the comms in my ear that wasn’t Rett’s voice.
But most of all, I hated being here.
Stuck underground like some damn prop in our own plan. Playing the helpless prisoner, pacing around a damp, reeking dungeon while all the real action happened outside.
The smell wasn’t even the worst part, although it was absolutely vile—dank stone and rusted chains, old blood soaked into cracks no one had cleaned in decades. The kind of place meant to break you psychologically, not just physically.
But that wasn’t it.
What got to me was how f*****g useless I felt.
I paced again, arms folded tight over my chest, biting at the edge of my thumbnail like it might distra
