The photograph flashed in her mind. It all made sense now, the nagging of recognition that she couldn’t place. The man that her mindknew, but the context was wrong. Greyson and Levi Pierce. Greyson and Brooker.
Her mind had refused to connect the dots, the very idea was impossible. Heart elite didn’t remove their masks. They didn’t venture into Cardinal without guards, without protection, without the trappings of their status.
Shadera’s stomach twisted. She’d been jealous of the Daggermouth that got that contract, and wished it’d been hers. All this time it was, and she had no idea. She’d been used. Manipulated. And she’d killed someone who was rising upagainstthe Heart,againstMaximus.
She’d killed Greyson’s brother.
For the first time in her life, she found herself questioning everything she’d done as a Daggermouth, everything she’d stood for. Every contract she’d fulfilled, every life she’d ended in the name of justice, of vengeance, of the greater good.
How many had been based on lies? How many had been innocent people sacrificed to maintain political fictions? How many times had she been a pawn in a game she didn’t even know she was playing?
She’d become a Daggermouth as a child with nothing left but rage and a promise to make the Heart pay for what it’d taken from her. Jaeger had seen her potential, had molded her into a weapon, had given her purpose when she had none.
But what purpose? To kill on command? To eliminate targets without question, without hesitation, without ever considering that the lines between enemy and ally, between guilty and innocent, might be blurred beyond recognition?
She’d told herself she was fighting for the Boundary, for justice, for a better future. But maybe she’d been nothing more than another cog in the machine of oppression—just serving a different master.
The tears came without warning, silent trails cutting through the dried blood on her face. She didn’t bother trying to stop them. What was the point of pride now?
“Greyson.” Her voice was raw and barely audible. The quiet between them had become its own kind of prison, more isolating than the glass walls surrounding her. “Please talk to me.”
No response came. Just the sound of his breathing, steady and controlled. Too controlled. She knew that rhythm—the deliberate inhale and exhale of someone fighting to maintain composure.
The silence from his cell was worse than any beating. She’d been prepared for physical pain, for torture, for death. But this—this emptiness where his voice should be—it hollowed her out from the inside.
“I know you hate me,” she tried again, each word scraping her parched throat. “I would hate me too. But please . . . I need to know what you’re thinking. I need you to talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?”
His voice cut through the silence, hard and cold as the concrete beneath her feet. There was something in it she’d never heard before—not just anger, but a void. An emptiness where emotion should be.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, relief and dread mingling at finally hearing his voice. “Anything. Scream at me. Tell me you hate me. Threaten me. Tell me you’re going to kill me. Just . . . something.”
He didn’t speak.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words woefully inadequate against the magnitude of what lay between them. “I didn’t know, Greyson. I swear to you, I didn’t know who he was.”
The silence resumed. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours, the quiet growing heavier with each passing moment, the ache in her chest expanding until it threatened to consume her. She wanted his rage, his hatred, even disgust—anything but this.
Some part of her, deep down, felt the sharp threat of fear, as if somehow she could lose him without ever having him in the first place.
“Please,” she finally said again. The desperation leaking into her voice.
“You lied to me,” Greyson answered, anger finally breaking through the emptiness. “You looked me in the eye and fucking lied to me.”
“No, Greyson. I didn’t know.” Her words were frantic. “You heard your father, he was using an alias. I’d never seen his face. I didn’t know it was him.”
“I thought I could trust you.” Greyson’s voice cracked, emotion finally bleeding into his words. “You were just another tool, like me. Like all of us.”
Shadera’s tears flowed freely now at the truth in his words, the salt stinging where they met open wounds. She’d become exactly what she’d sworn to destroy—a weapon wielded by the powerful against the innocent. Her entire identity, everything she’d built herself to be, crumbled around her.
She didn’t know who she was anymore. Couldn’t separate one regret from another as they all crashed together in her mind, a kaleidoscope of shame and horror.
“I believed in what I was doing,” she whispered. “I thought I was protecting the Boundary, fighting back against the Heart. I was so fucking blind.”
The silence that followed felt like a chasm opening between them, widening with each ragged breath she took. Still she continued, unable to stop the words pouring from her.
“For years I’ve been so certain. So righteous. So fucking sure I was on the right side.” A bitter laugh escaped her, turning into a painful cough that rattled her broken ribs as she gasped. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know who I am.”
