Tane stepped back, replaying the last hour like a film on fast-forward—Victor’s dry laughter, those sharp dark eyes that held both amusement and grief, the way he’d watched Tane without ever pretending he wasn’t looking.And then—
To know what it’s like.Being part of something bigger, something better.A family
That question had landed in Tane’s sternum the moment it was asked and settled hard each time he had thought of it since.And there had been more than once, even when he had been eating upstairs with the others, it had resonated within him.
Victor had said it quietly—too quietly.Like the answer mattered more than he wanted Tane to know.
Tane rubbed both hands over his face.“Shit.”
He left the room and climbed the stairs up to the command center floor, feet slow and filled with a fatigue he hadn’t felt in a long time.Aunty glanced up from the kitchen bench as he appeared in the doorway.
“He eat?”she asked.
Tane shook his head.
Aunty tutted, slicing clean through her pie crust.“Then you find him.Nobody leaves my house hungry.”
“I’m not sure he would be easily found, Aunty,” Tane murmured.“And I’m not sure he was even hungry.”
She paused long enough to look at him—really look—then nodded.“Then you work harder and you find him for a different reason.”
He didn’t argue.Didn’t trust himself too.
Tane stepped out onto the deck that ran the length of the building, letting the glass door click gently behind him.Night air rolled in cold and salty, the ocean crashing below the cliffs in slow, heavy breaths.He breathed it in.Let it settle him.
The yard was empty now of most of the signs of the battle that had been fought here.Gravel mostly undisturbed, only the scorched earth left behind Torch’s flash bang explosions that had disoriented their enemies.The world was now too peaceful for the kind of man who’d just slipped away into the dark.
“You’re a damn mystery, Victor Dane,” he muttered, scanning the tree line out of habit.“And it’s annoying how much I want to solve you.”
A breeze tugged at his shirt.Somewhere deeper in the bush, something rustled—a bird, probably.
Tane shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.His fingers brushed against the cold spine of his multitool, grounding him.He closed his eyes.
He could still hear Victor’s voice—low, careful, threaded with something old and wounded.He would go out and try to right the wrongs he had felt he had been a part of making.He was very much like Drew.
Tane opened his eyes.
It didn’t sit right letting the man walk out into the dark alone.Not after everything he’d survived.Not with the Directorate still out there hunting loose ends.And definitely not with that haunted look Victor didn’t quite manage to hide.
Trouble.
Vulnerable.
Sharp as broken glass.
Tane exhaled hard.“You’re gonna be the death of me.”
He stepped forward and leaned on the metal rim of the glass balustrade.The night swallowed the world ahead, steep and winding.Victor was long gone—too efficient to leave a trail, too smart to be tracked.
But that didn’t matter.
Because Tane wasn’t tracking him tonight.He knew that it was not what Victor wanted or needed, and suddenly Tane felt like he wanted to give him anything and everything he needed.He wasn’t sure if he would give chase, but he would always be looking.He would give Victor the time he needed, and if he reached out and asked for help, he would get it as only Black Tide could give it, full throttle and with hardline torque, the immediate and unyielding resistance a power tool needed to make a change.
He might get hurt or not ask for help.The whisper that lodged itself in his ribs like a hook.And his decision was made.
“You’re not facing them alone forever, Victor,” he said quietly, voice carried off by the wind.“I’ll give you time, but not a lot of it.”
He stood there until the cold bit into his arms.Until the ache in his chest stopped feeling like confusion and started feeling like resolve.
