Page 167 of BounBound By Scars

Still.

Unmoving.

Unmaking.

Titan didn’tblink.

Titan didn’t flinch.

Titan didn’t blink back on.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Kabir

The laughter was unrelenting.

Grating. Smug. Constant.

He just wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

I sat across from Romano in his over-decorated monstrosity he called a home office—throne-like chair, gaudy carpets, walls cluttered with books no one had read and maps of the world that reeked of obsession. Power fantasies layered in mahogany.

He leaned back, drink in hand, his smile wide and wolfish.

After a week of recovery, barely able to lift my arm without searing pain, I’d reached a kind of numbness. Let him laugh. Let him gloat.

Let the bastard think he’d won.

If there was one good thing about getting shot by your own team, it was how convincingly it cemented the illusion.

Romano believed it.Fully.

To him, Blackthorn had cast me out, discarded me, written me off like I was yesterday’s code.

And because of that, his distrust in me faded just a little bit. Which was exactly what I needed.

“Can’t believe you burned that bridge so irreversibly,” he finally said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. “They fuckingshotyou.”

I gave a hollow chuckle, wincing slightly as I shifted in my seat.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Guess trust has an expiration date.”

Romano grinned. “Guess loyalty does too.”

I let that hang in the air. Let him believe I was chewing on it like a bitter pill.

He leaned forward, elbows on his desk, studying me like I was a puzzle piece he’d finally forced into place.

“So,” he said, swirling the whiskey in his glass, “what did they want, your old friends? When they broke into my estate. Aside from leaving you for dead, of course.”

I hid my flinch at his words and kept my voice casual. Tired. Resigned.

“They were after the Doom Switch,” I said.

Romano blinked. Then—laughter again. Shorter this time. Sharper. Almost mocking.

“Doom Switch?” he scoffed. “What the fuck is that? You guys naming shit like you’re writing a comic book now?”