He was incredibly competent at this. At becoming someone else. At speaking their language of violence and revolution with fluent ease.
“The barrel’s been modified.” He held up a rifle, showing it to the gathered men. “Shortened for better maneuverability in close quarters, but you’ll sacrifice accuracy at distance. It’s a trade-off.”
One of Oliver’s men asked about ammunition preferences, and Coop launched into a detailed explanation of grain weights and powder loads that might as well have been a foreign language. But the men listened with rapt attention, clearly respecting his expertise.
I thought about what he’d told me in the truck, about his last mission. The friends he’d lost when everything went wrong. The one who’d killed himself after, unable to live with whatever had happened.
Watching Ryan now, I could see it—the weight he carried. The way he’d channeled his trauma into this work, using his pain to fuel his ability to become someone else. Someone worse. Someone who could infiltrate groups like this and tear them apart from the inside.
He’d been broken by whatever had happened on that mission. I could see it now in the way he held himself separate even while performing connection. The emptiness behind his eyes when he thought no one was watching.
I wished he’d told me then. Wished he’d trusted me enough to share his pain instead of just disappearing. The abandonmenthad carved something out of me that had never healed right. For months, I’d wondered what I’d done wrong, what I’d lacked that made him walk away without a word. I’d picked apart every conversation, every moment, looking for the signs I’d missed.
But watching him now, seeing the weight he carried, I finally understood—he hadn’t been rejecting me. He’d been drowning. The Ryan I’d known, who’d trusted me with everything, had died on that mission with his friends. What came back was someone who couldn’t bear to be seen as broken. Who’d chosen isolation over vulnerability because showing weakness felt like another kind of death.
It didn’t erase the pain of being left. Didn’t undo the months of wondering, of calling his disconnected phone, of driving past places we’d been together like a ghost haunting her own life. But it reframed it. He hadn’t left because I wasn’t enough.
He’d left because he couldn’t face being less than what he thought I deserved.
The accident had come later—four months after he’d vanished. Black ice on a January night, the car rolling down an embankment, hours trapped in twisted metal. Would things have been different if he’d been there? Maybe. Or maybe fate would have found another way to break me. All I knew was that we’d both been shattered separately, carrying scars the other knew nothing about.
“Enjoying the show? Not quite as…scintillating as a certain one I saw last night, but still very impressive.”
Oliver’s voice beside me made me jump. I hadn’t heard him approach, too lost in watching Ryan work. Oliver stood close, too close, that predator’s smile playing at his lips.
I had no doubt last night’s show he was referring to was Coop and me in our cabin.
“Just watching.” I kept my voice quiet, submissive, even as my skin crawled at his proximity.
“Your man knows his weapons.” Oliver’s pale eyes tracked over Coop as he demonstrated proper stance to one of the younger men. “Military precision. Special Forces, I’d guess, before he got smart and realized where the real money was.”
I didn’t comment, not trusting myself to speak without revealing something.
“Tell me—” Oliver moved closer, his voice dropping to an intimate level that made me want to run “—what did you do before Coop…acquired you?”
The question felt like a trap. Too much information and he’d get suspicious. Too little and he’d dig deeper.
“Photography,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes down. “Nature stuff, mostly.”
“An artist.” His fingers reached out, almost touching my hair before pulling back. “How refreshing. Most women who end up in our world have far less…refined backgrounds.”
I stayed silent, not trusting myself to navigate whatever game he was playing.
“You must find Coop’s company rather…limiting,” he continued, his pale eyes studying my face. “A man of his particular temperament. Wouldn’t you prefer someone more…civilized?”
“Better the demon you know,” I said carefully, “than getting passed around to demons you don’t.”
Oliver laughed, the sound cultured and cold. “Practical. I admire that in a woman. Though I wonder if you’d change your mind if you were offered a better arrangement.”
He touched my arm, just barely, but enough to make my stomach turn.
“The Gathering is in two nights,” he continued, as if he hadn’t just made my skin crawl. “It’s not all weapons and strategy, you know. We celebrate properly. Music, dancing, sophisticatedentertainment. Other women will be there—companions of our buyers. Educated women. Refined women.”
The implications hung heavy. I would be compared. Judged. Found wanting or, worse, found appealing.
“You’ll need appropriate attire, of course.” His eyes traveled over me in a way that made me want to shower in bleach. “I’ll have something sent to your cabin. You have such a lovely, trim figure. It would be a shame to hide it.”
Coop must have noticed Oliver with me because, suddenly, he was there, arm sliding possessively around my waist as he pulled me against his side.
