"Where’s the rest of your shit?" Cyrus's voice is ice. Pure fucking ice, like I'm a stranger he's being forced to tolerate instead of someone who used to help him debug code at ass o'clock in the morning while Kade and Tank argued about the best way to intimidate Sheri Woods's goons.
Ouch.
"In the car," I manage.
He nods once, turns to leave. Just like that. No hello, no welcome, nothing.
Jinx trots after him.
"Do youallhate me?" The words slip out before I can stop them, quiet and so fucking vulnerable I want to crawl out of my own skin.
Jinx freezes in the doorway like I just shot him in the back. "You think we hate you? You thinkthat'swhat this is about?" He doesn't turn around, his hand tightening on the doorknob. "Maybe you never understood us at all."
And with that, he disappears into the hallway, leaving me alone with my thoughts, surrounded by a pastel pink cage.
At least it isn't a gilded one.
I sink onto the bed. The soft mattress is so different from the dorm twin I've been sleeping on. The collar still sits against my throat—where it's going to sit for the next fucking year, apparently—and I finally let myself touch it. Trace the delicate silver, feel the lock mechanism at the back that won't open without a key I don't have.
My eyes find the Polaroids on the wall. All those moments frozen in time, preserved like we were something worth keeping. Like we mattered. LikeImattered.
You think we hate you?
I don't understand. Don't understand any of this. The anger? I expected that. The coldness, the distance, the walls they've built to keep me out… that all makes sense.
But this room. These pictures. The way Jinx looked at me like I'd stabbed him just by suggesting they hate me, as if they haven't given me every reason to believe that.
What the fuck is happening?
That's when it hits me. This room isn't just a cage, it's a mausoleum. A monument to a moment in time when I had them and they had me.
The last moment any of us were truly happy.
Before I threw it all away.
Chapter 18
KADE
My Lambo'sengine barely makes a sound as it idles, which makes the silence inside the car even more suffocating. Tank sits in the passenger seat, arms crossed over his massive chest, staring out the window.
He hasn't signed a single word to me in three hours.
Not during the briefing. Not when we scoped our latest target's apartment. Not when we confirmed the asshole's already skipped town like the coward he is.
Just silence. The kind that's louder than any of the drunken parental screaming matches we used to fall asleep to instead of lullabies.
I grip the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather creak. "You gonna give me the silent treatment forever?" I ask, not looking at him. "Because I gotta tell you, brother, you'rereallygood at it. Even for a guy who literally can't fucking talk."
Nothing.
Not even a fucking grunt.
Just that infuriating stillness that makes me want to drive this car into a fucking wall.
"Look, I get it. You think I was too hard on her." My fingers tap against the steering wheel. "But what the fuck was I supposed to do? Welcome her home with open arms after four years ofnothing?"
Tank's jaw tightens. I can see it even in my peripheral vision, the muscle jumping beneath the bandana he refuses to take off even when it's just us. But still, no signs. No communication. Just judgment.
