Now…Damien.
I step back in front of him and let loose a breath. Damien hasn’t spoken yet. Not once. That’s almost funny, considering what kind of man he is.
He’s already waiting for me. He’s not pretending he’s not afraid. He couldn’t if he tried. Eyes bulging, his skin color pale and washed out. He’s simply pretending he’s above it, and that Marcus’s death hasn’t rattled him.
That’s worse.
He’s still got that government arrogance in his jaw. The posture. The assumption of authority like it’s oxygen and gravity. He looks insulted more than anything else.
“You’ve been busy,” he says.
His voice is low. Condescending. Like I’m a report on his desk instead of the reason his wrists are bleeding against the restraints.
I don’t answer. He gives this tiny, unpleasant smile. “I’ll admit, this is not how I expected you to go.”
“Go?” I ask.
“Burn out,” he says simply. “Girls like you never make it long-term. I told Owen that. Sensitive girls don’t survive the dark. You’ll bend too hard to protect her. You break in the wrong place. I warned him. I told him you’d get him killed if he didn’t learn to detach.”
The air in my lungs turns razor-cold. Behind me, I hear Wraith make a sound that isn’t quite human. Rook is still. I can feel him, though. I can feel how tightly he’s holding himself together.
I take another step forward until I’m right in front of Damien. He smells like stale cologne, blood, and rain.
“Girls like…Me,” I say.
He nods, almost indulgent. “You weren’t built for this. You’re too impulsive. You werealwaysgoing to get someone hurt. Never could stay where you were told, always sticking your nose where it didn’t belong. I told him if he didn’t start thinking like an asset handler and not a brother, he’d watch you die. He wouldn’t listen. So he got himself killed instead.”
He’s so calm when he says it. That’s what does it. Not the words themselves, but the calm. Like Owen’s death was a scheduling inconvenience. Like I was overhead. Like loss is just something men like him file under “acceptable.”
Something in me goes very,verystill. “You told him I’d die,” I say.
“I told him thetruth,” he spits out. “He needed to hear it.”
My vision pulses black at the edges.
“He loved you too much, I told you already,” Damien continues, and there’s something almost pitying in his tone that makes me want to peel his face off. “That was his weakness. Family makes you sloppy. Attachment makes you predictable. I told him if he didn’t cut you loose, you’d be a ticking time bomb, or turn rogue. And that’sexactlywhat happened.”
I stare at him. And then I laugh. It’s quiet. It sounds wrong even to me, and I relish in the way Damien’s eyes bulge in response. “You think you made me,” I say softly.
He blinks.
“You think you get to claim this,” I whisper. “You think you get to sit there and take credit for what I am. You think you built me. That I’myourmonster.”
His jaw tightens.
“You didn’t build me,” I say. “Youbrokeme. I built me.”
That lands. He doesn’t like that either, but I’m long past caring.
“Every time you said ‘asset’ instead of my name? Every time you looked at Owen and told him to pick you over me? That wasn’t strategy. That was cowardice. You’re not a handler. You’re aparasite.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps.
“You let my brotherdiethinking hefailedme,” I say, and my voice goes quieter instead of louder. It goes deadly. “You let him die thinking he deserved it. You let me live thinking I broke him. That sits onyou. Not on me. Not on him. Onyou.”
He doesn’t look so smug now. Good. I lean in. Close enough that I feel his breath hit my cheek. Close enough that he has to see my eyes. My face. My certainty. “Look at me,” I whisper.
He tries to turn his head away. My hand comes up swiftly, and I put my palm against his jaw and hold him there. I don’t have to hurt him, I just make him face me.
