Page 157 of Fallen Empire

I’d sharpened mine before, and it cost Bruce his life. Almost cost me mine, too. But the choice had been mine. Just like today.

I would decide my fate.

The day I swore I’d never let someone else dictate my life, my body learned to lock pain away. Stillness became my shield. Silence became my weapon. And right now, that silence was razor-sharp.

Every muscle in my body coiled, every nerve begged to act. But I kept my face still, my eyes locked on Millie. She needed to see me calm. She needed to believe I wasn’t afraid, even if the edges of my vision darkened from the effort.

Sweat and copper clung to the back of my throat, dust scratching at every breath. Every creak of boots on the floor ricocheted inside my skull. The flicker of the overhead bulbcarved shadows across Alex’s face, making his grin look more like a mask than skin.

And when I looked at him now, certain thoughts kept filtering into my head, trying to throw me off balance.

I hated knowing that Jaxson used to be one of them. And with his silence, I was certain every word Alex spoke was true.

Jaxsonhadonce walked that dark path—steeped in shadows most people never even knew existed—and God only knows what he’d seen along the way. The kind of things that stain a man’s soul and don’t wash out.

It should change the way I feel about him. It should make me love him less.

But it didn’t.

Who am I to judge someone for their past? Hell, my own last name has been the reason thousands of innocent souls have lost their lives. Blood spilled in wars I never fought, deals I never made, crimes I never sanctioned. That guilt lives in me now, heavy and uninvited, a weight I didn’t even know existed… until it was too late to put it down.

I never stopped thinking about the children in that van. About Nia and Kai. The others, their wide, unblinking eyes staring into nothing, too afraid or too broken to cry. The air inside had been suffocating, laced with the same stench that clung to my skin now: sweat, copper, and the rotting hopelessness of a place where life had already been decided for you. Whoever had spent time there either never made it out, or came out with nothing left worth saving.

I’m no saint. I’ve made choices I wish I could erase. I’ve survived things that have shaped me into someone unrecognizable from the woman I used to be. And who’s to say his past wasn’t just another cage—one he had the strength to break free from?

A life like that… it leaves marks. And yet, here he is. Free. Standing on the other side. Fighting with purpose. If anything, it made me wonder how much of the man I love was forged in that fire… and how much of him was still burning from it.

But if he’d actually stood beside Alex—participated in the things men like him do—if he’d touched innocent souls and stolen something they’d never get back… that I wouldn’t forgive. I couldn’t.

I’d walk away from him in an instant and never look back.

If I made it out of here alive—ifwemade it out alive—he’d have to tell me everything. Every detail. No omissions. And if he wanted us to still be together, there couldn’t be anything left in the shadows.

Alex was now looming over Millie like a predator savoring the kill. My pulse thudded in my ears, but I buried it under the steel I’d built for moments like this.

Then Millie did the last thing I expected.

She laughed.

It was sharp. Defiant. Dangerous. And for a second, I thought the blood loss was getting to her. That she wasn’t in her right mind. Her skin was pale, her breaths too quick, and the crimson soaking her thigh had slowed to a sluggish, sticky ooze. She had to be lightheaded, maybe even halfway to passing out.

Men like Alex didn’t care about life, only power. Laughter in their face was a spark to gasoline.

But everything Millie did, she did with purpose. Even on the brink of collapse, she knew exactly what she was doing.

When he crouched beside her, reaching for the knife still buried in her thigh, I felt it. My moment had come.

All the power I’d hoarded, every ounce of strength I’d banked, burst loose.

In one smooth, silent motion, I reached behind me, fingers closing around cold steel tucked into the waistband of my pants.

I’d sighed internally when Alex cut the rope that bound me to the chair. I would’ve taken whatever pain he planned to inflict, because it meant he saw me as nothing. A nobody. He hadn’t even searched me for weapons. He never considered me a threat.

By the time Alex’s hand brushed the hilt of Millie’s blade, the barrel of my gun was pressed to the back of his skull.

I leaned in, close enough for him to feel my breath against his ear.

“Don’t,” I whispered.