Page 159 of Fractured Future

“Give me what I want, and I’ll stop right there.” Madden casually raises a shoulder. “No one has to know abouthim.I won’t spill your secrets.”

Those three traitorous letters pierce my body like rapid-fire bullets.Him.The ghost I’ve long erased from my memory. For all intents and purposes, he never even existed.

“What do you want?” Both palms on the table, I lean into his space.

“I’ll only speak to Ember. That’s my terms.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Not much of a joker, I’m afraid. Bring her to me.”

My laughter is a short bark. It feels alien. Uncomfortable. This man is tearing every last thread from inside me and pulling them tight until it feels like I’m being played like a violin.

“Ember’s in the hospital. She can’t and won’t see you.”

“I have time.” He reclines in his seat. “I’ll be waiting.”

“No one will allow it!”

“That sounds like a you problem, Axel. Go cut someone else’s eyelids off, and bring me what I want. Or else I’ll be taking a trip down memory lane.”

The urge to throw him from that chair, press my blade into his jugular vein and bleed him dry until I’m dancing in his essence is all-consuming.

“Run along.” Madden jerks his chin towards the door. “I’ll wait.”

Conflicted, I consider executing him even though it would end my career. Potentially my life. I’m not sure who would kill me first—Ember, Warner or Hyland.

Shoving the scalpel back into place, I quickly refold my weapons case then tuck it under my arm. The longer I’m breathing the same air as him, the more acute my need to silence his wagging tongue becomes.

Moving to the door, I stop at the last second to look over my shoulder. His beady, black eyes are watching me, full of intense calculation.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?” Madden smirks at me.

“About…him?”

“Ah. Now you want to acknowledge his existence, hm?”

Nausea and the need to flee war for supremacy inside me. I haven’t opened this Pandora’s box for years now. It became easier not to acknowledge his existence as I grew older. Like second nature. I pretended to forget.

“You may have forgotten about your brother, Axel… But I know that he hasn’t forgotten about you.”

Blinking several times, the scene refuses to change. A dream-like haze doesn’t lift to reveal a reality in which this conversation never happened. This is real.

I don’t reply before leaving the room. Madden’s satisfied chuckling follows me out until the door slams shut with a metallic thud, and I slump against it.

He hasn’t forgotten about you.

If the sibling I’ve written out of my life is tangled up in this, I’m on a collision course with a part of my pitch-black past. A course that offers no hope of there being any survivors in the wreckage.

Ember lied to us, but that’s forgivable.

Because I lied to all of them first.

CHAPTER 22

EMBER