Raphael's eyes sharpened. He confirmed the angle, adjusted slightly, and released a controlled breath.
The crescent of moonlight left the blade and traveled the short distance to the collar in silence.
Janna had her eyes shut, teeth clenched, her whole body rigid against its own instincts, the conscious effort of refusing to flinch visible in every muscle.
She felt nothing.
The moonlight entered the collar's metal directly, not touching the skin beneath. A clean crack, and the device split into two halves.
The alarm mechanism, whatever it was triggered by, never fired. Both pieces dropped to the floor.
For the first time in a long time, Janna felt her neck.
She breathed freely and made a sound that was almost crying.
Raphael exhaled. Exactly as he'd calculated, forced removal would have triggered the alarm regardless of technique, and explaining the damage afterward would have been its own problem.
