Kael’s tone cut through the air.“You don’t get to make jokes.Not after six years of being a goddamn ghost and me being the fucking idiot mourning you.”
Drew exhaled slowly, his heart ached, wanting to tell him everything, but he couldn’t.So instead, he leaned back on his hands.“So, you found me.Congratulations.You want a medal or a drink?”
Kael stepped closer.The movement was smooth, controlled, but fury burned beneath the calm.“I want the truth.You died.And although they didn’t find a body and I had no fucking right to claim you even if you had, I fucking buried you in my mind.There was nothing left—no trace, no body, no goddamn explanation.”
Drew fought down his need to tell this man how much he had meant to him.“Guess I’m bad at staying dead then, huh.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
Kael’s fingers flexed once, a tremor barely there.“You could’ve reached out.Whatever shit you were in, I could have helped you.”
“Could’ve,” Drew said quietly.“But the people I worked for back then wouldn’t have liked that much.”
Kael’s voice dropped lower.“Who the hell were you working for?”
Drew hesitated.“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
Something in Kael’s tone broke through Drew’s composure.For the first time, he saw the hurt under the steel.The disbelief.The grief that had never really healed.
“Kael...”Drew started, but the words caught.He forced them out rough.“You have to understand, I didn’t have a choice.”
Kael’s jaw tightened.“Bullshit.There’s always a choice.You think I didn’t look?You think I didn’t burn every favor I had trying to find out what happened to you?”
Drew swallowed hard.“And what did you find?”
“Nothing,” Kael said, voice low.“Just a wrecked op, a burned village, and your name on a list of the dead.”
“Then you should’ve left it there,” Drew murmured.
Kael’s eyes went dark.“I don’t leave my own behind.”
“Like you said,” Drew said softly, heart clenching.“I wasn’t yours to leave.”
The tension snapped like wire between them.Kael’s hand moved—faster than thought.The gun was out, steady in his grip, but the look in his eyes wasn’t anger anymore.It was confusion.Pain.A man torn between killing a ghost and protecting one.
Drew’s own voice sharpened.“You gonna shoot me for disappearing?Or because you don’t like what it says about you?”
Kael didn’t answer.
“Do it,” Drew pushed, bitterness spilling through.“We’re good at endings.”
The muscle in Kael’s jaw jumped.“You think I came here to kill you?”
Drew shrugged.“Wouldn’t be the first time someone I trusted once tried to kill me.”
Kael exhaled sharply through his nose.The gun dipped a fraction, his eyes closing for a heartbeat before reopening—hard again, controlled.“You talk too damn much.”
“Always have,” Drew retorted.“It’s part of my charm.”
The silence between them thickened.Then, with no warning, Kael raised the weapon again.
Drew’s eyes widened.“Kael—wait—”
The muffled phfft of compressed air cut the room.Pain stung his shoulder, hot and immediate.He gasped, eyes dropping to the small dart embedded just below his collarbone.
