He can pay for the privilege.
Because in the end?
I’m going to make every one of those bastards pay.
Chapter 5
Ishould be sleeping. Or working. Anything to bridge the ever-widening gap between what we know and what we don’t. But instead, I’m here. Watching her sleep. Again. Like I’ve got nothing better to do than haunt the edges of her world.
But Christ, she’s captivating.
The room is bathed in darkness, moonlight slipping through her sheer curtains like a soft confession. She’s sprawled on her stomach, one knee cocked to the side, hair fanned over the pillow in dark, tangled waves. The silk sheet clings low around her hips, baring the gentle slope of her spine, the curve of her waist a vulnerable softness that strikes me like a blade.
One hand is fisted on the pillow beside her head; the other is tucked beneath it, as if she’s bracing herself even in sleep.
She looks peaceful.
I’ve watched her long enough to read the difference between the nights that cradle her gently and the ones that crack her wide open. The nights she curls into herself and chokes on silent sobs until her throat’s raw and her eyes are swollen. And those rare other nights—the merciful ones—when exhaustion steals her away quickly, leaving no time for ghosts to creep in.
Tonight was one of the good ones. Her breathing is slow, steady. Her body finally surrendering to the rest it deserves after giving so much of itself away to strangers through the glow of a screen.
But even as I sit here, sickness churns low in my gut. Because all our promises lie broken between us, and now I’m part of the reason she’s exhausted. I’m part of the reason she’s built barricades around her heart, wrapped in the soft glow of her LED lights and carefully curated illusions. And she’s the reason I’m caught between fury and the memory of how she once looked at me.
The camera in the corner of her bedroom clicks softly as it repositions, its red eye blinking like a silent witness to everything we’ve failed to bury deep enough.
When dawn finally seeps in, I force myself to leave her. But it doesn’t feel like leaving. It feels like I’m ripping a piece of myself away that I’ll never get back.
Having an off-grid, high-security place to dish out punishment and extract answers just makes sense in this line of work. The Pit wasn’t built for mercy, it was built to contain what couldn’t be seen, what couldn’t be heard. And somewhere along the way, it got into me, too. Woven into my blood, fused to bone and sinew like a second skeleton. I was barely out of childhood when I learned that secrets belong in the dark and screams sound best when there’s no one left to listen.
I’ve lost track of how many hours I’ve logged down here—studying the art of torture, learning anatomy, mastering the way pain becomes leverage. Down here, time dissolves, days become rituals, and suffering becomes a language of its own.
The air hangs thick, sour with sweat, blood, and fear gone stale. It clings to my skin, burrows into my clothes, settles beneath my fingernails. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, needling into my temples until my skull throbs. The outside world ceases to exist. There’s only concrete, steel, and the echo of screams bouncing off damp walls.
It’s Da’s sanctuary. His stage and church mixed into one. He wants it to be mine too, but lately, the only place I feel drawn to is behind a screen, buried in lines of code where my Uncle Bren lives, where maybe I can solve the puzzle Lily has become.
“Nice of you to join me, son. You’re just in time, Conor here needs a little coaxing.” Da’s voice slices through the room like a blade. Ever since that mess with Jen unravelled, he’s been inching closer to breaking point, and who can blame the guy? Both of his wives used and betrayed him in their own vile ways. But lately he’s been letting himself go. His once close-cropped hair is now long enough to curl around the moth tattooed on his neck.
Pushing off from the concrete wall, he shoves a cigar trimmer into my hand like it’s a goddamn weapon. He jerks his chintoward the man slumped in the corner, chains biting into his wrists.
The cigar trimmer feels absurd in my palm. Too small, too delicate for this place, and what he expects me to use it for.
Last year, finding one of our soldiers branded with a twisted version of the Clan’s tattoo barely registered on the list of fires we were trying to put out. And when Da lost his temper and beat Jimmy half to death before we could pry any intel from him, it slipped even further down the priority list.
I glance at the man chained to the wall. Conor Martin. Low-level runner. Nothing much to write home about, and if it wasn’t for Declan catching sight of his fucked up ink in the gym one day, I doubt any of us would know him by name.
I step closer, close enough to taste the iron tang of blood and the sharp bite of fear radiating off him. I crouch, elbows on my knees, until we’re eye to eye, twirling the cigar trimmer between my fingers.
“Tell me about the tattoo,” I say, my voice low. I rise, moving in a slow circle around him, the concrete pressing close, the chains rattling with every hitch of his breath. “Who gave it to you? Who’s behind it?”
Conor lets out a laugh that sounds like something tearing inside his chest.
“Why don’t you ask your old man?” His breath stinks of blood. “That’s all you’re good for, right? Doing whatever Daddy says. Playing the good little fucking soldier.”
Something freezes inside me, then burns with every word that slips out of his bastard mouth.
He keeps going, words growing sharper, even as his voice shakes. “I thought the Four Points were kings. Turns out you’re just puppets, and this?” He jerks his chin at the ink on his bicep.“This is bigger than any of you. And you? You’re too distracted to see it coming.”
A roar builds in my skull, the edges of my vision washing out to white. My fingers tighten around the trimmer, and before he can so much as flinch, I clamp it around his pinkie, relishing in the pain-filled howl he lets out.
