I don’t deny it.
He nods once, like that’s confirmation enough. “Then don’t punish her for that.”
“I’m not punishing her,” I fire back. “I’m protectingall of us.”
He takes a slow breath. Always calm, and today, it’s infuriating. “Protecting us by isolating yourself?” he says.
“By staying mission-capable,” I correct.
His gaze holds mine. “This is your mission, too.”
“Drop it,” I say.
His eyes search my face, then he nods once and turns to leave. “Okay. For now.”
That night, I sit in ops with the monitors dimmed, watching nothing and everything.
A new clip of Vaughn plays on one of my screens. Him speaking about “his Kira,” voice breaking, eyes shining. I have no doubt he practices his emotional reactions in a mirror before he goes live.
He touches the podium like it’s an altar. He speaks her name like he owns it.
My stomach turns.
He’s weaponizing public sympathy and poisoning her credibility, and she’s here. Safe inside these walls, sleeping in beds that aren’t hers, learning how to breathe again.
With my brothers.
Without me.
My blank reflection looks back atme in the dark glass.
Hard to read.
Because if I let myself get involved, I don’t know if I’d be able to stop.
And if I reach for her and it goes wrong, I’ll lose the only thing I’ve ever been certain of.
The brotherhood. The mission.
The thin, brutal control that keeps us alive.
I exhale, long and low.
Then I do what I always do when my chest gets too tight.
I get back to work.
Because outside the fence, Vaughn’s building a story.
And stories kill people as efficiently as bullets.
CHAPTER 36
KIRA
Silas is ignoring me.
He only speaks to me when it’s absolutely necessary. When I enter a room he’s in, he acknowledges me the same way he’d acknowledge a locked gate or a camera feed. Brief, professional, impersonal.
