Page 37 of Fallen Empire

I didn’t mean to say half the things I’d just thrown at him like weapons I couldn’t take back. But apparently a decent meal had jump-started my fire again—and with it, dragged up every bit of resentment I hadn’t even realized I was still carrying.

He wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t his fault Savannah was taken. And I knew it.

I’d seen it in his eyes. That hollowed-out guilt gnawing at him like something he didn’t think he deserved to survive. I’d watched Ben go just as still, just as wrecked, haunted by the idea that they’d failed her.

They didn’t.

They never would’ve let anything happen to her. Not if they could’ve stopped it.

Because that’s who they were. Men carved from something sharper than steel.

The kind who didn’t flinch at violence because they’d been forged inside it. The kind who’d put their bodies between us and a bullet without thinking twice. The kind who didn’t just carry guilt—theybecameit.

Men who wore their mistakes like armor.

Who turned shame into a weapon and dared the world to come for them anyway.

And I’d used that guilt like a dagger. Aimed straight at the heart of the only people still holding me together.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I wasn’t mad at either of them. Not really.

But after everything that’s happened over the past few days, it didn’t take much to crack me open. Savannah hitting that ground. Jaxson spiraling into a version of himself I’d never seen. Whatever the hell happened between Ben and me that I hadn’t even begun to unpack. And then there was Nic.

Nic.

Wait...Why was she even here?

She usually texted Ben before dropping by, careful not to bother Jaxson unless she had something worth saying. But she’d been here when we walked in. And Ben hadn’t mentioned getting a text.

Unless she messaged while I was in the shower.

Still… something didn’t add up.

Had she been here the whole time we were gone?

And if so, why?

She didn’t hang around just to kill time. Nic moved with purpose. She showed up when something mattered. And the way she lingered just long enough for Ben to notice—for Jaxson to get twitchy—didn’t sit right with me.

Nic didn’t linger. Ever.

She didn’t stay unless there was a reason.

And the longer I thought about it... the more convinced I became that I wasn’t supposed to know what it was.

And I hated that I was just now noticing it.

Because that wasn’t like me. I noticed everything. I read a room faster than most people read text messages. That’s what made me good at my job. That’s what made me who I was.

But lately, I hadn’t felt like myself.

I’d been so wrapped up in surviving—keeping Savannah alive, keeping Jaxson from unraveling, keeping Ben at arm’s length—that I stopped paying attention to the things that didn’t scream emergency. I’d let someone like Nic slide under my radar.

The lounge was quiet, dim lighting, sterile chairs, the low hum of vending machines filling the silence like white noise meant to soothe frayed nerves. But nothing about this place soothed me.