“Look at me like I’m broken,” he said. The room went dead silent, because underneath all the rage and obsession and violence, there it was—shame.
Gunner’s breathing roughened visibly now. “You look at him like he survived,” he said bitterly. “But you look at me like I’m damaged.”
Luna’s face fell immediately. “That’s not what I?—”
“Yes, it is,” Gunner shouted, causing her to jump.
Rocco saw it then—Gunner was unraveling, fast and dangerous. Gunner’s grip tightened on his weapon while years of untreated trauma and isolation cracked wide open in real time, and every instinct inside Rocco screamed the same thing—this was about to go very, very bad.
Rocco knew the exact second the situation turned deadly because Gunner’s eyes changed. That was all it took. One second, there was pain in them—grief, even, and the next, rage was there tangled up with years of abandonment and trauma.
“You look at him like he survived,” Gunner said again, voice rough and uneven. “You look at me like I’m damaged.”
Luna opened her mouth immediately. “That isn’t what I meant?—”
“Stop trying to fix me!” he shouted. The roar of his voice felt as though it shook the cabin. Rocco reacted instantly, stepping fully in front of Luna while raising his gun and pointing it at Gunner. His old friend flinched at the movement—not because he was afraid of Rocco, but because his actions hurt him. It was like the betrayal hurt more than the gunshot wound ever would.
“I knew that you’d choose her,” he whispered brokenly.
“Gunner,” Rocco said carefully. Tony shifted closer to the wall as Luca’s expression hardened. Jonesy looked ready to tackle someone, if necessary, but Rocco barely noticed any of them, because all his focus was locked onto Gunner. And the terrifying thing was that he still knew him well enough to recognize the signs that Gunner wasn’t thinking clearly anymore. He was spiraling.
“You need to put the gun down,” Rocco said quietly.
Gunner laughed harshly. “Or what?” Rocco swallowed hard because this was the nightmare scenario. Not Gunner attacking,but Gunner unraveling. The man had combat training, untreated trauma, isolation, obsession, and now emotional collapse, crashing together all at once. One wrong move and somebody was dying.
Thunder exploded overhead violently, and the lights flickered again from the failing generator. For half a second, the cabin plunged nearly black, and Gunner moved. Luna gasped behind Rocco as Gunner lunged fully out of the cellar entrance with his weapon raised. Everything detonated around them, and Rocco reacted on instinct.
He slammed into Gunner hard enough to send both of them crashing into the kitchen table while gunfire exploded deafeningly through the cabin. Pain burst across Rocco’s shoulder as they hit the floor violently, Gunner snarling beneath him like a feral animal while they fought for control of the weapon.
“Rocco!” Luna shouted. He barely heard her because his training took over completely. He needed to neutralize the threat.
Gunner slammed his head into Rocco’s jaw hard enough to make stars burst across his vision. “YOU LEFT ME!” Gunner roared. The gun fired again, and the shot tore into the ceiling inches away. Tony grabbed Gunner’s arm as Luca caught the back of Rocco’s shirt, trying to pull them apart. Everything became chaos, and underneath it all—there was only grief. Raw, ugly grief pouring out of Gunner like poison.
“You were supposed to come back!” he screamed. Rocco finally got his hand around the weapon fully and ripped it sideways just as Gunner swung wildly at him again.
Then suddenly, Luna’s voice cut through everything. “STOP!” Everybody froze—even Gunner. Luna stood near the shattered kitchen island, breathing hard, tears streaking down her face while she stared at both of them. She wasn’t afraid. No, she looked heartbroken.
“That’s enough,” she whispered shakily. Rocco’s chest heaved violently while Gunner went still beneath him, and for one terrible second, nobody moved. Gunner looked up at Luna slowly, then toward Rocco, and something inside him finally cracked wide open. Not rage this time, but devastation.
“You were all I had,” he whispered. The words gutted Rocco instantly, because he believed him. God help him, he believed every damn word. Rocco loosened his grip slightly without meaning to, and Gunner seemed to notice immediately.
So did Tony. “Roc,” Tony warned sharply. But Gunner wasn’t ready to fight him anymore. He just looked tired—destroyed even.
“You know what they did after the attack?” Gunner asked quietly.
Rocco’s stomach twisted. “No.”
“They buried us before checking to see if we were still alive,” Gunner whispered. Silence crashed through the cabin. Luca went pale, and Jonesy muttered a stunned curse. And suddenly, every missing piece slammed together violently inside Rocco’s head. Gunner survived. He was wounded and buried under the bodies of his brothers. He was left there—forgotten. Rocco physically recoiled because the horror of it nearly stopped his breathing.
“I tried to get out,” Gunner whispered. “Nobody came.” Luna covered her mouth shakily, and Rocco felt sick, because this wasn’t just trauma anymore; this was institutional failure. A human being discarded by war, and now all that pain sat bleeding through the cabin floor between them.
Rocco’s vision blurred suddenly, not from pain, but from guilt—pure crushing guilt. “I didn’t know,” he whispered hoarsely.
Gunner laughed weakly beneath him. “Yeah.” His eyes finally met Rocco’s again. “That’s the problem.”
The front cabin window exploded inward, and glass shattered everywhere. Everybody hit the floor instinctively as a red laser sight cut through the darkness straight across the room. Rocco’s blood went ice cold because Gunner wasn’t alone after all. Someone else was with him. The question now was, who?
LUNA
