Memories of our last night together crash into me—his warmth pressed to mine, the tremors in his breath, the tears I wiped from his cheeks without hesitation. I don’t want toremember any of it, yet my mind forces it anyway, hurling each moment back at me like a taunt.
“None of his friends were supposed to touch you,” he says. “We made a deal, and then I started learning more about Dante and found out what happened to his girlfriend, too. And that felt familiar.”
I turn my head, narrowing my eyes at him. “Yeah, well, I didn’t kill William,” I bite out, bitterness ripping through the words. “In case you forgot.”
“You sure you didn’t?” he asks, his voice dipping into something probing, almost surgical. “Because you did things for him, things like Dante once did for his beloved?—”
“She wasn’t his beloved,” I snap, the words cutting out of me before I can stop them. A spark of jealousy, sharp and irrational, ignites low in my gut. “She used him and betrayed him. He did what he had to.”
Silence folds around us, thick enough to clog the air. Cane keeps staring at me, and the weight of it scrapes at my nerves. I turn away, pressing my gaze to the window instead. Raindrops slide down the fog-blurred glass like tiny, glimmering fractures, racing each other toward the bottom. I focus on them, not him.
“So,” I say, forcing my voice to steady as I drag the topic somewhere safer, “if everything was supposedly under control… what went wrong?”
“Estella,” he begins, breath drifting out like he’s about to slip into a confession, “you have to understand something. I’ve given my entire life to this job.”
His tone softens to something exhausted and far-away, as if the memories he’s summoning have weight. “It’s dragged me through every shade of hell. I’ve seen horrors that keep my eyes open at night unless I drown them with half a bottle of whiskey. I did my best. I really did. But they were never going to let me walkaway with the retirement I wanted. And the same fate would have been waiting for you when your time came.”
I shut my eyes and drag a hand across my face, pressing my palm to my mouth as his words sink into my stomach like stones.
“We’re disposable,” he continues quietly as he brings the engine roaring back to life. “When we lose our shine, they don’t tuck us on a shelf with the old toys. They put us through a meat grinder—and they keep grinding until they’re sure there isn’t a grain of dust left.”
The car glides back onto the slick asphalt, headlights cutting narrow paths. Silence stretches, long enough to feel like an ache beneath my ribs. Tears pour relentlessly, burning tracks down my cheeks, and no matter how often I wipe them, more follow, coming too fast and stealing the air from my lungs.
“Well,” I whisper eventually, bitterness scraping every letter raw, “true or not, I’ll never know, will I? You took the choice from me—just like everyone else ever has.”
The door doesn’t just break—it detonates inward, crashing to the floor with a savage thud that kicks a violent cloud of dust into the air. I wrinkle my nose and swipe at my eyes, clearing out the grit just as footsteps thunder toward me.
“Dear God,” a familiar voice breathes. I don’t need to look to know it’s Lucia. “What did you do…”
Metal clicks fill the room, and I lift my hands in surrender, already bored by how absurdly repetitive this bullshit has gotten.
As the dust thins, Lucia’s face sharpens into view. She’s trembling, her fingers white-knuckled around the gun she’s clinging to. Three armed men stand behind her, all their barrels fixed on me like obedient little guardians.
“It was self-defense,” I lie, not even bothering to add conviction. I’m too drained to perform. My arm is screaming with every heartbeat, fresh stitches sending fire straight to my skull, but underneath it all is the bone-deep exhaustion—physical, mental, everything in between.
All I want is to get out of this godforsaken base. I already know it’ll claw its way into my fucking nightmares.
“Fuck, Dante, I don’t believe this,” Lucia cries, her voice shaking as hard as her hands. “Why?”
“Why did you decide to hunt me? That’s the real question.” My tone stays level, though my jaw ticks with anger. “Seriously? After everything we’ve been through?”
Her eyes grow wide as they land on Jason’s corpse, disbelief draining the color from her face. “I… I can’t look at this,” she whispers, then snaps her glare back to me. Her lip curls, disgust twisting her expression before she flicks her chin toward the far end of the base. “Move.”
My brows shoot up. “Move where?” I ask, glancing pointedly at the armed parade behind her. “You don’t feel safe with me, even with all this artillery aimed at my head? Come on, Lucia, you know me.”
“I don’t!” she screams. “None of us do! We stopped recognizing you a long time ago.” Her hands shake so violently she has to clamp one over the other just to steady her grip. She turns to the men behind her, voice cracking. “Check him and move him downstairs, please.”
I hardly have a moment to register before they lunge. Hands clamp onto my shirt, the rough fabric biting into my raw skin as they haul me backward. Fingers rake across my body and clothes, searching every pocket, probing for anything hidden. I thrash until a gun barrel digs straight into my fresh gut stitches.
“Give me a fucking reason,” one of them growls, pressing the metal harder into the wound. “The second Lucia walks away, I’m taking my time with your psychotic ass.”
Lovely. Seems she got herself a shiny new title—just like Jason. Maybe he promised her a crown in their little fantasy kingdom.
Either way, I’ve already made a giant crack in their make-believe world.
I’m so wrapped in that thought that I barely register the descent until the lights flicker on. A cold, metallic clang hums through the basement, and then I see it—the cage, waiting in the center like some hungry beast.
I was prepared for this. My arm is proof of that.
