It makes me feel violently sick to my stomach.
“It’s over,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “We survived.”
She thinks the gang war is paused. She thinks Kirill and his men were just Volkov’s thugs looking for leverage in a territorial dispute. She thinks the worst thing in the world is outside the steel gates of this estate, licking its wounds and figuring out its next move. How achingly naïve.
“How’s your shoulder?” she asks, her eyes fluttering open again. She looks at the thick white gauze wrapping my chest. It’s stained with a fresh, blooming circle of dark red from last night’s exertion, but the bleeding has stopped.
“It will heal.”
“I should change the dressing,” she murmurs, pushing herself up slightly. The wool blanket slips down, exposing the soft curve of her breasts, marked with the faint redness of my stubble.
I catch her wrist before she can sit up completely.
“Leave it,” I say. “I’ll have the medic re-pack it later.”
“Cassian...” She looks at my hand wrapped firmly around her narrow wrist. Her expression softens into affection. “You don’t have to push me away. Not anymore.”
The guilt hits me so hard my ruined shoulder throbs. She thinks I’m retreating behind the cold, untouchable ‘Ghost’ persona because I’m afraid of intimacy. She thinks I’m emotionally stunted.
I wish that were the problem.
“I’m not pushing you away,” I say, my voice rough. I release her wrist and reach up, brushing a tangled lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “I have to meet with Varro. We need to assess the structural damage to the estate. And the docks. Two containers are still sitting at the port, a buyer is already screaming through back channels, and three capos have been waiting on my call since dawn.”
“Okay,” she says softly. Then, she bites her lower lip, a nervous habit returning. “Do you think they have the names of the Syndicate bosses on them?” she asks, her tone shifting to pragmatic hope. “Do you think we can use them to stop this?”
We.The word hits me like a hatchet.
“I haven’t seen them yet,” I say.
“When things are clear,” she continues, her eyes locking onto mine, “I need to call my father.”
My chest physically tightens.
“He must be terrified,” she whispers, the guilt bleeding into her voice. “He thinks I’m dead, or worse. Now that the Syndicate is gone, I just... I need to let him know I’m alive. I need to tell him I’m safe.”
I swing my legs over the side of the metal bed frame, the freezing air of the room hitting my bare skin. I stand, biting the inside of my cheek as the torn muscle in my left arm screams in vicious protest. I pull on a clean pair of black tactical cargo pants from the metal chair where Varro left them last night.
I snatch a clean shirt from the stack, swallowing down a curse as I force my injured, stiff arm through the sleeve. It covers the bloody bandages. It puts the armor back on.
I look back at the bed.
Iris is sitting up, pulling the blanket tight to her chest. She looks beautiful, wrecked, and completely mine.
“Stay here,” I command softly. “Eat something from the rations. Use the shower. I’ll return for you when the upper floors are secure.”
“Okay,” she says. She gives me that fragile, trusting smile again. “Be careful.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I turn my back on her and walk out of the inner quarters, pulling the door shut behind me.
The lock engages with a solid, echoing clank.
I stand in the narrow corridor for a long, agonizing second, leaning my forehead against the freezing steel of the door. I close my eyes.
I’ve executed men in cold blood. I’ve tortured traitors until they begged for death. I’ve ordered the destruction of entire city blocks to send a message to my rivals. I thought my soul was scraped entirely clean of guilt.
But walking away from her right now, knowing the reality of the father she asked to call, makes me feel like I’m suffocating.
I push off the door and walk into the main command center.
