The words hit harder than I want them to. Because part of me knows exactly why he’s saying it now. Why the bitterness has that extra edge. It isn’t just Mikhail. It isn’t just command. It’s everything else wrapped around it. Delilah. The fact that she came back from the dark and I stayed beside her. The fact that I’m fighting like hell to keep her human while deciding he doesn’t get the same chance inside uniform.
“You’re fine with Delilah having nightmares,” he says, and there it is, raw and ugly and finally honest. “With her spiraling. With her freezing up. But I cross one line and I’m done?”
There it is.
Jealousy. Raw and ugly and unspoken until now.
“She’s healing,” I say.
“So am I!”
“Not like this.”
He gestures wildly, blood-specked wraps flashing in the harsh lights. “So what? She gets sympathy and I get a pink slip?”
“She didn’t murder a captive,” I snap.
He flinches.
Just barely.
But I see it. The hit landed.
“You’re choosing her,” he mutters.
The words land heavier than he meant them to. Maybe heavier than I can let them without telling him something worse.
I inhale slowly. “This isn’t about her.”
“Bullshit.”
“This is about trust,” I say. “And you broke it.”
He stares at the floor. Breathing hard. Sweat sliding down his neck. The bag behind him finally stills.
“You think I wanted to do it?” he asks quietly.
My anger wavers.
Just a little.
Because no, I don’t think he wanted it. I think he needed it in the ugliest, most final way a man like him knows how to need anything. I think he looked at Mikhail and saw every wound that never closed, every scream he couldn’t stop, every person who didn’t come back whole. I think he made one choice and then another and then none at all.
“I think you didn’t stop yourself,” I reply.
Silence.
The kind that follows a truth neither of us can argue with.
The bag creaks softly behind him.
“When did I become disposable?” he asks.
The question hits so clean it almost makes me dizzy. It strips all the anger out of the room for a second and leaves only the thing underneath it. Fear. Exhaustion. Hurt so old it learned how to wear sarcasm as armor.
“You didn’t,” I say immediately. “You became someone I’m scared for.”
He laughs again. This time it cracks halfway through. “Great. That’s comforting.”
