Thayer doesn't flinch. He steps into the room, entirely kicking the heavy glass door shut behind him. The lock engages with a solid, definitiveclick.
"I heard the transmission last night while you were sleeping," he states, his voice a low, demonic hum that completely lacks any apology.
"I have a brother," I choke out, my hands flying up to cover my mouth, tears of pure, unadulterated shock streaming down my face. "My father lied to me my entire life. And you were going to let me walk into a firefight without telling me that the man trying to kill you is my own blood!"
"He is not your blood!" Thayer roars, the sudden, violent explosion of his volume completely shaking the weapons on the desk. He closes the distance between us in two massive, predatory strides. He grabs my upper arms, his grip bruising, completely refusing to let me pull away. "He is a federal agent who just authorized lethal force against you! He called you a compromised hostage, Sybil! He doesn't know you. He doesn't care about you. Arthur disowned him a decade ago when he joined the Bureau. Hayes has been building a RICO case against the Syndicate for years, waiting to use your captivity as his righteous crusade. He doesn't want to save you, Sybil. He wants to use you as his star witness to put me on death row, and I am going to completely dismantle him."
"He's my family!" I scream, violently shoving against his chest.
"I AM YOUR FAMILY!" Thayer bellows, his pale gray eyes entirely consumed by a dark, psychotic obsession. He hauls me completely flush against his massive frame, completely ignoring the agonizing groan of his torn shoulder. "I am the only family you have ever had! I am the only one who didn't sell you, who didn't abandon you, who didn't lie to you about your own existence! I burned my world to the ground for you, and I will slaughter every single federal agent on this ocean before I let them take you away from me!"
"You lied to me!" I sob, my fingernails digging desperately into his arms. "You were going to shoot my brother in front of me!"
"Because if you hesitated for a single millisecond," Thayer hisses, his face hovering mere inches from mine, his hot, feverish breath washing over my tear-stained skin, "if you looked at him and saw a ghost from your past instead of a threat, he would put a bullet in your chest to get to me. I hid it from you because your empathy is a liability we cannot afford today."
The absolute, terrifying truth of his words completely paralyzes me.
He is a sociopath. He operates entirely on the cold, brutal mathematics of survival. To him, my brother is not a tragedy; he is simply an obstacle that must be violently removed.
And the most horrific, soul-destroying reality of all?
I don't want Thayer to die.
Even knowing the man on the boat shares my DNA, even knowing the depth of Thayer’s manipulation, the thought of his heavy, beautiful body bleeding out on the white sand completely shatters my mind. The trauma bond is absolute. It is a thick, impenetrable root completely tangled around my heart.
I stop fighting him. My hands slide from his arms, my fingers curling weakly into the fabric of his black t-shirt. My head drops forward, my forehead coming to rest heavily against his collarbone.
"I can't do this," I weep, completely broken by the impossible, catastrophic choice. "I can't watch you kill him. I can't let him kill you."
"You don't have to watch," Thayer murmurs, the demonic roar completely vanishing, entirely replaced by a dark, possessive velvet. His right hand slides up to cup the back of my head, his fingers tangling securely in my dark hair. "You just have to survive, Sybil. You let the monster do the bleeding."
He pulls me tighter against his chest, completely enveloping me in the heavy, intoxicating scent of his skin.
The air in the study is suffocating, thick with the adrenaline of the impending war. Thayer’s heartbeat is a frantic, heavy drum against my cheek. He knows we are out of time. The Zodiacs are already cutting through the waves. The tactical teams are already establishing a perimeter in the jungle.
He lifts my face, his rough thumbs aggressively wiping the tears from my cheeks. His eyes are burning with a desperate, feral heat.
"If I drop today," Thayer whispers, the dark vow completely hanging in the air between us. "If they manage to put me in the ground... you do not surrender. You take the Glock, you run to the subterranean vault, and you lock the door. You let them starve before you let them put you in handcuffs."
"You aren't going to die," I gasp, my hands frantically gripping his jaw, completely refusing to accept the possibility.
"I am a man, Sybil," he murmurs, a dark, breathless smile curving his pale lips. "I bleed just like the rest of them. And my shoulder is failing. If I cannot hold the line..."
"No!" I scream, entirely cutting him off.
I surge upward, crashing my mouth down onto his.
It is an act of pure, unadulterated desperation. It isn't a kiss; it is a violent collision of terror, grief, and the absolute refusal to let the world win. I part his lips with bruising force, my tongue completely invading his mouth, entirely demanding the heat and the life that is stubbornly clinging to his bones.
Thayer groans, a harsh, guttural sound of pure surrender. He grabs my hips, completely lifting me off the stone floor. I wrap my legs instinctively around his waist, anchoring myself entirely to his massive frame.
He doesn't carry me to the bedroom. We don't have time.
He slams my back entirely against the heavy teakwood desk, scattering the loaded magazines and the Pelican cases. The cold wood bites into my spine, but the pain is entirely eradicated by the immense, burning furnace of his body pressing flush against mine.
He breaks the kiss, his chest heaving violently, his gray eyes entirely black.
"You belong to me," he snarls, his right hand gripping the hem of my oversized dress shirt.
