After Fury drops Bryce off at her apartment, Bryce finds Ruhn waiting in the lobby—summoned by Fury, who had been messaging him during their walk from the docks. Flynn and Declan stand guard on the rooftops with long-range rifles. Tharion has departed to help seize the synth shipment, and Fury leaves to ensure the Viper Queen doesn't steal any of it.

Inside the apartment, Bryce is overwhelmed by the sight of Hunt's belongings and especially the bloodstain on the couch—a reminder of their intimate night together. She vomits on the carpet halfway across the room. Ruhn catches her in his arms and carries her to the couch, wrapping her in his shadows and holding her as she sobs uncontrollably.

Bryce's mind spirals through everything Hunt revealed. She concludes that Hunt must have realized she was getting close to the truth when she showed him the trial videos, and that he deliberately seduced her with promises of a future together to distract her. She reasons that as a triarii member, he received the alert about her request to visit her old apartment and snuck out while she slept to burn the building down with his lightning—though she notes the fire alarms were triggered, suggesting some remaining decency. She refuses to believe Hunt's claim that he tried to pull out of the synth deal with the Viper Queen, convinced he would have said anything to save himself. She also grapples with the devastating claim that Danika killed the Pack of Devils, including Connor and Thorne, and then herself—and that Danika now suffers in the Sleeping City because Bryce's refusal to accept the Drop kept her there.

Hours later, Fury returns and speaks quietly with Ruhn in the kitchen, though Bryce overhears everything. Fury reports that Hunt is in a holding cell under the Comitium rather than executed. However, Justinian has been crucified in the Comitium lobby with his healing slowed so he bleeds out slowly, and Viktoria has been ripped from her body and trapped in a glass box placed at the base of Justinian's crucifix. Micah plans to dump the box containing Viktoria into the Melinoë Trench, condemning her to eternal isolation and darkness at the bottom of the sea. When Ruhn asks why Hunt hasn't been crucified alongside them, Fury grimly implies Micah has devised something even worse for Hunt. Bryce sits on the couch, staring at nothing, consumed by the black pit inside herself.