I’ve seen rooms like this in nightmares. In rumors whispered by people who never came back.
“Lucian wants him in the second,” Vincent says.
Lucian.
Not my father.
Not Hartford.
Lucian.
It lands heavy.
I pivot, slam my shoulder into Johnny’s chest with everything I have. He grunts but holds on. I go for his throat, his jaw—anything. He’s trained, faster than he looks. He twists my arm behind me, pain flashing white-hot.
“Stop,” he grits out. “Stop, kid.”
Kid.
The word burns. Humiliating. Dismissing. I spit at his shoes.
They shove me into the cell. The door slams shut. The metal clang echoes like a sentence being carried out. The air turns smaller. My breath tightens. Panic scrapes at my ribs. I stagger back until I hit the wall.
“What the hell is he thinking?” I shout, voice ricocheting off concrete. “What lie did you idiots tell him?”
Johnny looks at me with something not quite pity, not quite contempt. “Lucian saw the email from your boyfriend,” he says quietly.
My pulse stutters. “What email?”
But the look on his face tells me everything: they think I’m involved. They think I planned something. That Xavier and I?—
My lungs seize.
“Are you insane?” I snap. “Xavier? He was never my boyfriend, and I haven’t talked to him in months! I didn’t even know he was still?—”
Vincent cuts me off. “Save it for the boss.”
Boss. So this wasn’t some soldier going rogue. This was Lucian. Lucian’s call. Lucian’s hands. Lucian’s betrayal.
He didn’t ask. Didn’t look me in the eye. Just threw me in a box because Xavier breathed the same air somewhere in this city.
They turn to leave.
“Don’t do this,” I say, raw, unsteady. “Johnny.”
He pauses. For a breath, I think he might say something. Warn me. Help me.
He shakes his head and walks away.
The heavy door seals behind them. Silence grows until it crushes.
I sink to the floor. My legs shake too hard to hold me. Lucian thinks I’d betray him.
He tied that ribbon around my wrist last night, kissed me like I mattered—and caged me the next morning.
Something inside me fractures. Sharp. Clean. Irreversible.
I don’t know how long I sit there—minutes, hours—but eventually footsteps echo down the hall.
