Page 30 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Jaxson

Millie wasn’t my sister by blood.

But she was the closest damn thing I had to one. And while Ben might have also been the closest thing I had to a brother, if he hurt her? I’d rip him apart without blinking.

No questions. No warnings. No loyalty strong enough to hold me back.

I saw the way he looked at her. Like she was the only thing in the room that mattered. I saw the way his hands curled into fists when she laughed too hard, like he was holding back something he didn’t think he deserved to feel.

But I also saw the silence. The way he pulled away after. The walls going back up the second she leaned too close.

He’s either all in or he’s not. And if he leaves her bleeding in the middle of all this, I’ll bury the man I once called family without a second thought.

Because Millie doesn’t break easy.

But when she does… it’s permanent.

When I came back from my last deployment—if that’s even what you’d call it anymore, considering it was part military, part ghost work—I noticed a change in her.

Millie had always been strong. She didn’t know how to be anything else.

She was raised in a house where appearances mattered more than truth.

Her father made his fortune protecting other people’s reputations.

High-profile, high-dollar clients willing to pay anything to keep their secrets buried.

The irony? The man who built a legacy cleaning up messes couldn’t see the one rotting inside his own walls.

Her mother was proof that money could, in fact, buy happiness. At least by her definition. New handbags, new men, anything to keep the attention on herself. And her father? He still defended her. Spun stories. Covered the cracks like reputation was worth more than reality.

Millie was the one left behind. Balancing ledgers. Managing clients. Keeping the company alive while her father chased headlines and her mother chased chaos.

The first few weeks I’d returned, I saw it in her. That something had shifted. The sparkle in her sarcasm was duller. Her smile didn’t reach the way it used to. It felt like it was more than just the work.

She looked tired. And not the kind of tired you sleep off.

It was the kind of tired that lives in your bones. The kind that whispers you’re on your own, even when the room’s full. I wanted to believe it was all about the job, but something deep inside me felt like there was so much she wasn’t saying.

I never told her I knew about the fallout. I just kept her close. Watched her back.

Because I made a promise. First to her father. Later, to Savannah’s mother too. Different conversations, but the same request. Watch over their daughters. Keep them safe. And now that Savannah still had blood running through her veins, I could say I kept those promises.

But lately... I’m starting to wonder if watching is enough anymore.

I looked toward Savannah, who was chatting with Millie. Normally, I’d be hanging on every word she said. Every laugh. Every small detail. But right now, I was torn—split between telling her there was still a threat out there... and keeping it buried until we had a plan.

It didn’t work out well for us last time.

Last time, the secrets nearly cost her her life.

"Millie, I wouldn’t have cared if you never came back," Savannah said with a grin.

Millie blinked. “Wow. Okay.”

Savannah winked. “Just kidding. Then, I would’ve been a little upset.”

“There’s no way that would ever happen,” Millie said, nudging her gently. “I’ll always be around to take care of you.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “Well, damn. I hope I don’t always need to be babied.”

She was glowing.

Still hooked up to IVs, bandaged and bruised—but her smile? It was brighter than I’d ever seen it. Real. Untouched by pain, even if just for a second.

And in that moment…I didn’t think. I didn’t weigh the timing. I didn’t consider the cost. I just wrecked their world without giving it a second thought.

“Alex is still out there,” I said. My voice was low but sharp. “We think he’s up to something.”

Both of their heads snapped toward me, wide-eyed.

“What the actual fuck, Jax,” Ben said, the words like smoke curling through clenched teeth. He didn’t yell—he didn’t have to. That kind of rage doesn’t need volume. It simmers. Quiet and dangerous. Shit. I forgot he was still in here.

“They need to know.”

“Damn right we need to know,” Millie snapped, standing up so fast her chair nearly tipped.

She turned on Ben. “ You knew about this? And you didn’t fucking tell me?”

Her voice cracked, anger laced with betrayal.

“You kept me out of the loop… again ?”

I had seen Millicent angry maybe a handful of times in my life. Feisty, sure. A little fire here and there. But this was ice. Cold and sharp. Rage held tightly beneath the surface. A storm with nowhere to go.

And if looks could kill?

He’d be six feet under.

The room was silent. So silent it felt like the air had been vacuumed out of it.

Millie’s glare was fixed on Ben like she was deciding whether to verbally destroy him or physically maim him first. Ben didn’t move.

Savannah didn’t blink. And me? I was questioning every damn decision I had just made. Or lack thereof.

What the hell had I just done?

The door creaked open behind us.

Of course it was Nurse Ruth.

You’d think someone would’ve given her a damn day off by now, but no. The woman was either immortal or running on caffeine and pure moral superiority. Regardless, I was grateful for the interruption. She’d just inadvertently saved my ass.

“Well,” she said, with a quick scan of the tension hanging in the air like storm clouds. “You could hear a pin drop in here… if someone didn’t throw it first.”

Millie turned her face to the window. Ben leaned against the far wall, suddenly fascinated by the floor tiles. Nurse Ruth deadpanned right at me and raised a single eyebrow. I just shrugged my shoulders like I hadn’t detonated a bomb in the middle of the room.

Nurse Ruth never took her eyes off mine as she spoke to Savannah, and I was too chicken shit to move. This old woman scared me more than the kind of men who used body counts as lullabies—tossing victims into the earth instead of watching sheep jump fences.

“Savannah, dear, you ready to stretch those legs for me today?”

Silence.

I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Savannah didn’t even look at her. She just stared ahead, eyes locked on something only she could see.

“Savannah?” Ruth’s voice softened just a touch. “Did you hear me?”

Savannah blinked. Slowly.

“I… yeah. I heard you.”

I looked at her—really looked. The light in her face had dimmed. Just minutes ago she’d been glowing. Laughing. For once, forgetting everything she’d been through.

And I stole that from her.

Ruth didn’t comment. She just walked over with that same clipped efficiency, pulled the rolling monitor toward the bed, and attached the cuff to Savannah’s arm like she’d done it a thousand times. Which, knowing her, she probably had.

The machine beeped to life.

Ruth squinted at the screen.

Then hummed. Low. Sharp.

She looked at me first, then turned to Ben, to Millie, and finally down at Savannah. Her gaze came back to me, and this time, it narrowed.

“Mr. Westbrook,” she said, her tone like cold steel wrapped in velvet.

“It seems my perfect candidate for an early release has an elevated heart rate. I’m going to assume that has something to do with the tension in this room, and whatever has Mrs. Bend-the-Rules over there,” she nodded toward Millie, “staring out a window that has nothing but an AC unit on the other side.”

Her hand rested gently over Savannah’s, but her words had the weight of a threat.

“Need I remind you that the poor child in this bed is my priority. And if I have to remove each of you one by one and sit with her myself, I will do that. Gladly.”

My mother passed too soon for me to remember the sound of her voice. But in that moment, I imagined this is what she would’ve sounded like.

That tone. That heat. That fire disguised as care.

I stood straighter without even thinking.

“Yes, ma’am. We understand.” I said we because her words were meant for all of us. And because I had a feeling if Millie opened her mouth again, whatever flew out wouldn’t be good.

I looked back at Savannah, and she was staring at me with the smallest hint of a smirk on her face. As if I hadn’t just burst the fragile bubble she’d been floating in. Like she’d already forgiven me for it.

And in that moment, I knew that the woman I was in love with was the fiercest woman I’d ever known. She wasn’t going to back down from a fight. She’d prove how strong she was, just like she had a thousand times before.

I just needed to make sure it didn’t come to that.

And maybe, just maybe, I could start by pulling Millie back to my side.

Start by giving her the one thing she wanted more than anything.

“Millie,” I said, turning to her, “do you mind helping Ms. Ruth from that side? I’ll stay on this one.”

That was all it took.

The storm cloud hovering over her was gone. She didn’t speak. Didn’t glare. Just moved to Savannah’s other side, steady and focused, like she’d been waiting for someone to let her do something.

And for the first time since I’d opened my damn mouth, the room felt right again.

Except Ben, who was staring at me like he could cut my tongue out with the knife I knew he kept in his pocket.

I didn’t blame him. I should’ve talked to him first, because whatever trust I just broke between him and Millie? It was going to be bad.

I’d questioned it earlier, after that comment Millie made to Savannah. But seeing her now, rage like a fuse lit too long, that complete emotional shutdown...

There was something going on between them.

Something real.

Nurse Ruth cleared her throat. Loud. Intentionally.

“Now that all of you are focused on what matters,” she said, glancing around the room like a general sizing up her troops, “let’s get to work.”