Except that wasn’t true anymore, and Dad made sure the word would spread as I curled my fingers into my palms.
The interrogation room was never clean, a river of blood always running along the floor. Its iron smell lingered in the air as I pulled my mind back to the present, to what I had to accomplish.
“What the fuck! I didn’t do anything!” The scream fully tore me from my internalized observations, my attention landing on the auburn-haired male, Lucas, whom Thorne had ordered to take Simon to the medical wing.
Simon.
Fuck, I couldn’t think about him…themright now.
I cracked my fist against his cheek, the impact reverberating throughout my entire body. “What thefuckdid I say? Shut. Up.”
“This is a false accusation!” He struggled against the cuffs securing his wrists. “Thorne, all ofus,” he spat at me, failing to suggest that I’d ever belonged on that piece of shit’s squad, “we’ve donenothing!”
“Nothing?” I grabbed a fistful of his hair before cracking my knee into his nose, the sound of it breaking sending a thrill through me. Notweak.I’m not fucking weak anymore.
He coughed up a mouthful of blood, slouching forward as he shook his head. “Y-You’ve failed yourself, O-Oren. Even knowing who your f-father is… You’ve let him win, and that’s a hell you’ll never escape…”
“You think I failed myself?” I tossed him to the ground, a kick flying into his stomach as Thorne had done to me. “Thornefailed me, and he failed you. I’ve lived in hell since the moment I was born. I just finally learned to get comfortable with it.”
Having stood in the shadows, observing in silence, my father finally elected to speak as Lucas struggled for the air I’d robbed him of. “What do you know ofyourCommander’s decisions to go rogue in Venezuela?”
Rogue?
What?
“I-I don’t… I don’t know anything!”
At my father’s nod, I slammed my foot into his face, blood splattering across the already tainted floor. “Bullshit. If you’re hiding information, it’s not worth it to protect his dumb ass.Hewon’t save you, Lucas. He’s a spineless man who focuses on his gain… on what he earns for himself.”
Choking on his own life force, he planted a shaky arm beneath him, struggling to push his battered body off the floor. “I s-swear, O-Oren… I don’t know anything,p-please…”
My jaw clenched as I stared at his battered face. He’d helped Simon… there was no denying it, but Icouldn’t. To feel meant there was still weakness, and I couldn’t let it enter again.
Scoffing, my dad’s command tore through me like ice water.“Kill him.”
Biting my lip, hesitation still lingered in my bones. “Maybe…” I stopped, squaring my shoulders. I’daskedfor this. I knew what my dad did, so why was I fighting it? I wanted to get stronger, and this… this would solidify it.
I’d paint my hands red, and not in the way my mother ever wanted me to, but I wasn’t her son anymore. I was the product of my father.
Lucas scrambled, the soles of his boots slipping across the bloodied ground beneath him. “N-No!PLEASE!I don’t want to die… I-I don’t…”
I kept my gaze hardened, muscles tight as I pulled the gun from the holster on my hip. “I’m sorry, but death is more merciful than living.”
I pulled the trigger.
Watching the crimson pool, a macabre flower of desolation swirled toward the drain in the center of the room. A numbness flooded my body, and for a moment, I wondered if I had died alongside him. That was until the door to the interrogation room slammed open, one of my father’s men barging in.
“Sir, we just got word from Spec Unit Six,” he panted, the name he uttered reigniting my wrath. “Thorne has patched himself in.”
The imageof Lucas’s body still flooded my brain, the sound of the gunshot echoing in the chambers of my mind as I looked to my father.
I didn’t want to hear Thorne’s voice, but I also wanted to remember it as I trained. To give me something solid to hone in on… An outlet for my rage.
Static flared, the timbre of man I once thought I was ready to fall in love with filling the conference room. “General Valens.”
“Speak.”
“The target’s been handled, the estate swept.” There was the military tone he’d extended to me when I first arrived—histruth.“I am?—”
