“You so easily let me go,” Gunner continued quietly.
Rocco’s jaw flexed violently. “I thought you were dead.”
“You accepted my death too easily,” he said. The words hit like a gunshot. Luna saw Rocco absorb them again, guilt flashing across his face before anger crushed it back down.
“You think I didn’t mourn you?” Rocco snapped.
Gunner laughed bitterly. “You got over my death, eventually.”
“No.” The answer came instantly. “I survived it, with a hell of a lot of help.” Silence followed that, because even Gunner hadn’t expected that answer. Luna saw it in the brief flicker across hisface. Pain—real pain. It quickly vanished beneath his instability again.
“And now you’ve got her.” His eyes shifted suddenly toward Luna.
Every protective instinct in Rocco seemed to detonate instantly. “Don’t look at her.” The warning in his voice made Luna’s pulse jump.
Gunner tilted his head slowly, curious and predatory. “She makes you seem softer around the edges, brother. You feel safe with her, but you’re not. Does she know who you are and what you’re capable of?”
“No,” Luna said before Rocco could answer. Everybody looked at her, including Gunner. Luna slowly stood from behind the island despite Rocco’s immediate look of alarm.
“Luna,” he warned quietly. But she kept her eyes on Gunner.
“He makes me feel safe,” she insisted. The entire cabin went still. Gunner stared at her silently and then laughed in disbelief.
“Safe?” He looked toward Rocco. “That’s laughable. You do know that he’s a killer, right?”
Rocco stepped slightly in front of her. “Last warning,” he growled.
Gunner ignored him completely now, his eyes locked on Luna with unsettling intensity. “You know what he was over there?” Gunner asked softly.
“Yes,” Luna answered honestly. “And I know who he is now.” Rocco physically flinched beside her, like hearing someone choose him despite his past still surprised him.
Gunner noticed too. “Oh,” he murmured quietly. “That’s bad.”
Luna frowned slightly. “What is?”
Gunner smiled then, and the expression chilled her blood. “Because now I understand why he’d kill for you.”
Rocco moved before she could even breathe. “Enough!” The roar of his voice felt like it shook the entire kitchen. He was pure rage, and for the first time since arriving at the cabin, Gunner looked genuinely startled.
Rocco stood in front of Luna, completely now, his chest heaving hard while every ounce of restraint inside him strained visibly. Luna touched his back lightly, trying to ground him. She needed to keep him tethered, and Gunner seemed to notice that. He saw exactly what she was doing for Rocco, and his expression darkened instantly.
“You replaced your platoon with her,” he whispered. Rocco stared at him like his heart was being ripped out in real time.
“No,” he said quietly. “I finally found a reason to keep living after my platoon was gone.”
Gunner’s face twisted violently—not with anger this time, but with hurt, and suddenly Luna understood the terrifying truth. Gunner hadn’t come here just to destroy Rocco; he came here because some broken part of him still wanted his brother back.
“He missed you,” she whispered to Rocco. Luna didn’t miss his gasp or the way that Rocco’s whole body tensed at her realization. But if she was right, this changed everything.
ROCCO
Rocco’s chest felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside because Luna was right, and that somehow made everything worse. Gunner wasn’t standing in that storm cellar looking for revenge or blood for the sake of violence. He looked like a man clawing at the remains of something he lost years ago—brotherhood.
“You replaced your platoon with her.” The accusation still echoed through the cabin while rain hammered the roof hard enough to shake the walls. Rocco stared at the man he used to trust with his life and barely recognized him anymore, but pieces of him were still there, and they were enough to hurt him.
“No,” Rocco said again quietly. “I didn’t replace any of you. I buried you, and I grieved every single one of you.”
Gunner’s expression twisted violently. “Yeah,” he whispered. “You did, but then, you moved on.” The pain in those words hit harder than any threat so far, because part of Rocco understood it. He understood what it would feel like waking up alone after surviving hell while everybody else moved on without him.
