Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
He holds my gaze, unflinching. “Nobody feels left out. We feel … protective.”
“Don’t.” It comes out like a warning. “Don’t put that on me.”
His eyes narrow. “You think I’m offering pity.”
“I think you’re offering a solution, and I’m not a problem you solve.”
After a beat of silence, Andrew’s voice goes quieter. “You’re our brother.”
It lands like a hit on a chest plate.
“I’m not trying to force anything,” he says. “I’m trying to keep us from pretending this doesn’t exist, so it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”
“You are forcing,” I say flatly. “You’re talking like it’s all been decided. Like you’ll make space and everybody will fit.”
He lifts his chin. “Then what do you want?”
The honest answer rises up so fast it nearly chokes me.
I want her to look at me the way she looks at you.
I want to put my hand where Boyd puts his, and have it feel natural instead of stolen.
I want to be part of the warmth without losing the only family I’ve ever had.
Instead, I give him the truth I can live with.
“I want you to stop assuming I’m available for whatever arrangement you’ve built,” I say. “You and Boyd can share her if you’re determined to do it, but I won’t be part of some experiment just to keep everyone happy.”
He stares at me for a long moment, hurt flickering behind his eyes.
“You’re attracted to her,” he says quietly.
Heat crawls up my neck.
I don’t deny it.
He nods once, like that’s confirmation enough. “Then don’t punish her for that.”
“I’m not punishing her,” I fire back. “I’m protecting all of us.”
He takes a slow breath. Always calm, and today, it’s infuriating. “Protecting us by isolating yourself?” he says.
“By staying mission-capable,” I correct.
His gaze holds mine. “This is your mission, too.”
“Drop it,” I say.
His eyes search my face, then he nods once and turns to leave. “Okay. For now.”
That night, I sit in ops with the monitors dimmed, watching nothing and everything.
A new clip of Vaughn plays on one of my screens. Him speaking about “his Kira,” voice breaking, eyes shining. I have no doubt he practices his emotional reactions in a mirror before he goes live.
He touches the podium like it’s an altar. He speaks her name like he owns it.
My stomach turns.
He’s weaponizing public sympathy and poisoning her credibility, and she’s here. Safe inside these walls, sleeping in beds that aren’t hers, learning how to breathe again.
With my brothers.
Without me.
My blank reflection looks back at me in the dark glass.
Hard to read.
Because if I let myself get involved, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop.
And if I reach for her and it goes wrong, I’ll lose the only thing I’ve ever been certain of.
The brotherhood. The mission.
The thin, brutal control that keeps us alive.
I exhale, long and low.
Then I do what I always do when my chest gets too tight.
I get back to work.
Because outside the fence, Vaughn’s building a story.
And stories kill people as efficiently as bullets.
CHAPTER 36
KIRA
Silas is ignoring me.
He only speaks to me when it’s absolutely necessary. When I enter a room he’s in, he acknowledges me the same way he’d acknowledge a locked gate or a camera feed. Brief, professional, impersonal.
There’s nothing dramatic or cruel about the way he’s behaving, but it hurts.
Before now, we’d had moments. Nothing particularly meaningful or deep, but we used to at least spend time in each other’s presence, doing things side by side.
He’d lean in the doorway while I chopped vegetables, or sit across from me at the table while I drank tea and worked on the baby blanket, and he cleaned a rifle with meticulous care. He used to walk with me along the fence line.
We used to talk about random things, like how he likes his coffee or about my life in the city.
Now, when I reach for a mug in the kitchen, and my arm brushes his sleeve, he steps back like he’s touched a hot stove.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
He nods once. “All good.”
No warmth. No connection. Nothing.
I’m still wrestling with the frustration of it all later, when I go down to restock towels in the lower-level bathroom and find Silas alone in the ops center. He’s standing at the map table, hands braced on the edge. I stop inside the doorway.
“What do you need?” His tone is flat, and he doesn’t look up.
“I need you to talk to me.”
No reaction. After several painful seconds pass, I’m about to turn and leave when he finally straightens and faces me. “I’m working.”
“You’re shutting me out.”
He looks back down at the table, not even acknowledging the accusation. My pulse starts to pound, and I hug the stack of towels to my chest. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why does it feel like you closed a door in my face?”
He looks at me with an expression that’s characteristically impossible to read. “I’m not going to be part of whatever arrangement Andrew and Boyd think they’ve negotiated,” he says evenly.