Drew met his gaze, unmoved.“You sound like a man who doesn’t have better things to do.”
Tane smiled faintly.“I listen like a man who wants to know why a ghost crawled out of the grave and started poking around Bratya operations.You think we wouldn’t notice?”
Drew stayed silent.He had to get out.If he didn’t check in soon, five years of work—and the lives tied to it—would go up in smoke.He tested the restraints again.The steel didn’t give, but his thumb would.He’d wait until Tane moved.
“You don’t have to die here, Wraith,” Tane said.“Just talk.”
“You should save that line for someone who doesn’t already know your playbook.”
Tane’s eyes sharpened, the smile fading.Then, without another word, he stood and walked out.
The silence that followed was almost worse.Drew stared at the single bulb, counting heartbeats.Was it part of Tane’s method?Let the captive stew, build anxiety, loosen control?Or had he been called out?The man had a reputation—three doctorates in psychology and a knack for making people unravel without ever touching them.
Thirty minutes later, Tane returned.Calm.Smiling again.
“You think I’m gonna crack?”Drew said.
“Everyone cracks.It’s just a question of finding the right angle, the right buttons to push to get you to talk.”
They went back and forth—questions, misdirection, half-truths.Tane probed at old scars, the ones Drew kept buried.Drew gave nothing away.The man was good, but Drew had been trained by worse.
He started to plan instead.He could pop his thumb, slip the right cuff, loop his arm around, and take the man’s throat before he knew it.He’d need the element of surprise.One strike, fast and clean.Maybe two if the man fought.Then the others—he’d take them too.
And if Kael was one of them?whispered the voice in his head.
He shut it down.Didn’t matter.Couldn’t matter.
Tane stood suddenly, staring down at him with unreadable eyes.Then he walked out again.
This time, the frustration clawed up Drew’s throat.He bit down on the sound threatening to escape—a roar, pure rage and pain mixed together.
The door opened.
Kael walked in.
For a heartbeat, everything inside Drew went still.
Neither of them spoke at first.They just stared, years of silence crashing between them.
“You have to let me go, Kael,” Drew said finally.
Kael’s voice was quiet, even.“Why?”
“Because if I don’t get out now, people die.”
“That’s not an answer.”Kael could feel the frustration rising within him.
“It’s the only one I can give you.”Drew held his gaze.
“Try again.”
Drew met his eyes, jaw tight.“You have to trust me, Kael.”
Kael laughed once, humorless.“Trust you?You let me think you were dead for five years, hardly the perfect recipe for trust, Drew.”
“You think that was easy for me?”Drew snapped.“You think I didn’t want to come back?I had to disappear.There’s more going on here than the Bratya, more than any of us.If I don’t move, it ends in blood—a lot of it.”
Kael folded his arms.“So, tell me.”
