“I don’t know who yet,” I add. “But I will. And when I do, I will find every last man involved. I will end them.”
That’s when she breaks.
Not into tears.
Into rage.
Her body trembles, sharp and violent, like something cracking open from the inside. A sound tears out of her—not a sob, but a fractured, furious breath, and suddenly she’s shaking in my arms, fists clenched in my shirt, nails biting into my skin.
“They let him die,” she whispers, voice shaking with heat. “They let him—”
“I know,” I murmur, tightening my hold. “I know.”
She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t tell me to let go. She presses closer instead, forehead against my chest, breathing hard, fury burning through her grief.
I hold her there, unmoving, a wall around the storm.
“You won’t do this alone anymore,” I say into her hair. My voice is steady, but it costs me something to keep it that way. “Not the investigation. Not the aftermath. Not the truth.”
She shifts just enough to look up at me.
“You have me now,” I continue. “You have my brothers. You have an entire network that answers when I speak. Men who don’t hesitate. Men who will bleed if I tell them to.”
Her throat works. Her hands tighten in my shirt.
“But will you bleed for me?” she whispers.
The question lands clean. No drama. No manipulation. Just the truth she needs.
I cup her face, forcing her to look at me, making sure she sees what’s already decided in my eyes.
“For you,” I say quietly, brutally, “I will kill.”
Her breath stutters. Not fear. Recognition.
The last restraint inside me snaps—not into violence, but into something far more dangerous. I kiss her forehead, then her cheek, then along the line of her jaw, unable to stop myself, needing to anchor her to me, needing to remind her she is not alone in this war.
My thumb brushes beneath her eye, wiping away nothing but heat.
“You aren’t chasing ghosts anymore,” I murmur. “You aren’t screaming into the dark.”
I rest my forehead against hers.
“You stand with me now.”
And as she closes her eyes, as she leans into my touch instead of away from it, I know with absolute clarity:
This obsession is no longer mine alone.
It has wrapped around both of us.
And anyone who steps between us will not survive it.
I pull her to her feet without ceremony and walk her onto the balcony, my hand firm at her lower back. The night air is cool, sharp, clearing the remnants of tears from her lungs.
I don’t explain. I show.
A guard shifts below, hand brushing the grip of his weapon as soon as I step into view. Another moves along the perimeter wall, boots silent, eyes scanning the treeline. Overhead, something hums—soft, constant. Raelyn tilts her head and catches the faint blink of red lights drifting across the sky. Drones. More than one. Moving in lazy, overlapping arcs.