How dare he tell me to be still and surrender to whatever the hell they’ve cooked up.
He thinks I’ll just stop fighting them, the very people who’ve kept me caged and let me bleed.
I’d rather choke on the chemical mist until it rots me from the inside out.
My head tips against Callum’s shoulder, heavy with the effort it takes to angle it enough to see the source of the echoing footsteps drawing closer.
Dante.
He prowls toward us with that same coiled stillness I’ve come to dread in his father, the kind of cold control that makes every movement more dangerous. His shoulders roll back with quiet precision, each step punctuated by the brown eyes burning with a quiet fury that sends a chill down my spine.
For a heartbeat, I can’t tell if his fury is meant for me or for the brothers as this gaze bounces between our faces.
He stops just short of us, the fluorescent lights of the hall stretching long around his broad frame. When he speaks, his voice is low but edged with a fury I’ve never heard within him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
The words are aimed at the brothers, not me.
Callum stiffens around me, his grip iron-clad and defiant. “Getting her and ourselves out of this hellhole.”
Dante’s eyes narrow, dark enough to swallow the light. “You broke protocol. Surveillance already flagged the shift change and alerted me. You think no one’s going to notice? You think–” His teeth snap together as he cuts himself off, like the fury is threatening to bleed out into a detonation. He lowers his voice to a dangerous hush. “Do you have any fucking idea what happens if he finds out?”
The silence that follows thrums in my bones.
Elias steps closer, his presence a wall on the other side of me, his tone low but unflinching. “We know the risk. We’re not backing down.”
The words burrow through me, shocking enough that my body forgets its struggle, my nails loosening from Callum’s shirt.
Elias meant it.
When he told me to stop fighting, when he growled that they were risking everything–it wasn’t some bluff meant to shut me up. He was serious. They’re talking about breaking me out of this place.
For a moment, I can’t even breathe through my confusion. So I stay still and silent, listening as the truth claws its way in.
Callum’s chest heaves against my side, each breath shallow. When he finally speaks again, his voice scrapes out low and cracked.
“I can’t…do this anymore,” he grits out, words meant for Dante but vibrating through me with every aching syllable. “Every day we stay, my soul rots a little more. Watching her like this. Listening. Pretending it doesn’t tear me apart.”
His grip tightens around me, almost crushing, and his next words are low and desperate.
“I’d rather die trying to get her out than stand another day in here alive.”
The silence that follows Callum’s words is thick enough to choke on, broken only by the steady pound of my own heart in my ears.
I don’t trust him.
I don’t trust Elias standing beside him, and I sure as hell don’t trust Dante with the shadows still haunting his eyes.
But desperation is a different kind of truth breaking open within me. I can hear it clawing out of Callum’s throat, see it carved into Elias’s face as he glances at his brother with concern.
If they’re willing to gamble their own lives just to get me out? Then I’d be a fool not to let them try.
It isn’t trust. It isn’t forgiveness. It’s survival.
Dante’s silence stretches, long enough that the hairs on my arms prickle with unease. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and gritted, like he’s forcing the words out.
“This will kill you.”
