Page 17 of Marked to Be Mine (Erased #1)

I couldn’t help but notice he’d changed too.

On his broad frame, the borrowed clothes looked almost comically inadequate—the t-shirt stretched across his shoulders, revealing strips of skin where the fabric couldn’t quite cover his torso, pants ending well above his ankles.

There was something profoundly humanizing about seeing a trained killer in ill-fitting clothes, like catching a glimpse of the man beneath the weapon.

My gaze drifted past him to where he’d strung up our wet clothes on an improvised clothesline near an open window.

The gentle favela breeze rippled through my blouse and his dark shirt, hanging side by side like some bizarre metaphor for our forced alliance.

Something about the sight—the care he’d taken with this mundane task—tightened my throat with an emotion I refused to name.

“You look better,” he said, eyes flicking to me before returning to his task. The awkward comment hung between us, revealing a hint of social uncertainty that felt strangely endearing.

I moved beside him to peer into the pot. “What are we having?”

“Just beans and rice. That’s all that is available.” Right now, with how hungry I was, I could’ve eaten anything he had to offer.

Our hands brushed as I reached for a spoon.

The contact was brief but electric, conjuring vivid memories of that desperate kiss in the maintenance closet—the taste of rain on his lips, the solid weight of his body against mine, the momentary surrender to something beyond survival.

His fingers stilled for a fraction of a second—he’d felt it too.

Our eyes met, and I recognized the same conflicted hunger I was fighting.

This attraction was as ill-advised as it was undeniable.

A sudden pounding on a nearby door shattered the moment.

Voices shouted in rapid Portuguese. Reaper’s body transformed instantly—the uncertain man replaced by lethal calculation.

He positioned himself between me and the apartment door, one arm extending protectively as his other hand reached for his weapon.

We stood frozen as heavy boots stomped past our door.

The voices grew more insistent, and the banging continued on a door further down the hall.

A woman’s shrill voice cut through the commotion, her words slurring together in a torrent of accusations.

A man shouted back, his deep voice thunderous with rage.

Something shattered—glass or ceramic—followed by a child’s frightened wail.

“Family dispute,” Reaper whispered, his shoulders relaxing marginally, though his hand remained on his weapon. “The husband’s been drinking again. He gets violent.” His eyes tracked the sounds. “Not our problem unless it spills over.”

I flinched as another crash echoed down the hallway, followed by more screaming and the sound of something heavy hitting a wall.

The child’s crying intensified, piercing and desperate.

My stomach twisted with helpless rage—the instinct to intervene warring with the knowledge that we couldn’t risk drawing attention to ourselves.

“Sometimes I watched these situations during surveillance,” Reaper said, voice unnervingly detached. “ Patterns of human behavior. Predictable. Violent but contained.”

The clinical assessment chilled me more than the domestic violence itself. This was how he’d been trained to observe humanity—as patterns to analyze rather than people to connect with. Yet he’d positioned himself to protect me without hesitation.

The commotion eventually moved away, but the protective stance Reaper had instinctively adopted remained. We stood close enough that I could smell the rain-washed scent of his skin. The danger had passed, but a different kind of tension—equally potent—remained.

The adrenaline from our narrow escape faded, leaving bone-deep exhaustion in its wake.

I sank into a rickety chair at the tiny table while Reaper spooned rice and beans from the pot into two chipped bowls he’d found in a cabinet.

The rain drummed against the tin roof, creating a strange cocoon of isolation that felt almost peaceful after hours of pursuit.

We sat shoulder to shoulder at the small table, the warmth of his arm against mine a strange comfort. The bowl was still too hot, but I took a bite anyway, letting the simple food revive me. It had been—how long since I’d eaten? The hours had blurred together in a haze of fear and discovery.

“Let’s assess the data on that USB,” Reaper said, his voice steady despite the tension visible in the rigid set of his shoulders and the controlled rhythm of his breathing.

I nodded, wiping my hands on the oversized shirt before inserting the USB drive. My fingers trembled slightly, from exhaustion or anticipation—I couldn’t tell anymore. Everything felt heightened, as if my body had forgotten how to process normal sensations after so much fear.

The drive contained dozens of files organized into neat folders with clinical labels. I opened the first one labeled “Initial Trials,” and medical reports filled the screen. Names had been heavily redacted, replaced with subject numbers and dates.

“Look at these physical assessments,” I murmured, scrolling through charts documenting weight, muscle mass, and neural responsiveness. I brought my hand to my mouth in sheer shock. This shouldn’t have surprised me, yet, it did. “They were treating people like lab rats.”

Psychological evaluations followed, documenting resistance levels, pain thresholds, and something called “cognitive malleability.” The terminology grew increasingly disturbing with each file: “cognitive recalibration,” “memory suppression protocols,” “identity dissolution,” “loyalty reconditioning.”

But most disturbing was the outcome listed at the end of each file: a simple, bureaucratic “STATUS: TERMINATED.”

“They were refining their techniques,” Reaper observed, voice flat but fingers tightening around his spoon until the metal bent slightly. “Learning from each failure.”

I opened an image folder with corresponding subject designations.

The clinical detachment of the reports shattered against the visceral horror of the photos—men strapped to chairs, tables, and standing frames.

Electrodes attached to shaved heads, IV lines snaking into arms, faces contorted in agonies I couldn’t begin to comprehend or blank with artificial serenity.

Personnel in surgical masks and unmarked scrubs moved around them like mechanics working on machines.

My gaze was frantic as it searched for two familiar faces—Reaper’s and Xavier’s.

“Jesus,” I whispered, bile rising in my throat.

Reaper’s jaw tightened, the muscle pulsing beneath his skin. His breathing remained measured and controlled, but I was close enough to feel the tension radiating from his body. Whatever programming kept his emotions in check was fighting against the evidence of his own victimization.

A folder labeled “Viable Assets” stood out among the others. Inside, the organization changed—code names replaced numbers: Specter_Secunda, Valkyrie_Prima, Ghost_Tertia, Hades_Secunda.

“What’s with the Prima, Secunda, Tertia?” I wondered aloud.

“Generations,” Reaper said. “The informant mentioned generations of agents. They must have evolved their protocol over time.”

Instead of medical reports, these files contained performance evaluations, mission parameters, and success rates. No longer patients—these were operatives.

“These must be the ones who survived,” I said, the realization sickening me. “The ones who lived got code names instead of numbers.” I looked up at him. Reaper’s gaze remained glued to the screen, and mine followed the motion.

We scrolled through images of men in various locations—surveillance photos, training footage. Their faces showed nothing, eyes empty in a way that reminded me of taxidermy—something that once held life, now filled with artificial substance.

Then the scrolling stopped. A video file labeled “Reaper_Prima_Protocol” glared at us from the screen.

The air between us changed, charged with something beyond tension.

Reaper went absolutely still beside me, not even breathing.

Time seemed suspended as we stared at the filename representing his creation and my brother’s probable fate.

Tightness clutched my chest, not releasing. My finger hovered over the trackpad.

“I can watch it first, tell you what’s...”

“No.” His hand covered mine on the trackpad, warm and steady despite everything. “I need to see.”

I turned to face him. “What if it triggers something worse than nosebleeds?”

“I need to know what they took from me.” His eyes met mine, determination overriding fear.

I nodded and clicked play.

The video showed a medical room with harsh lighting and tiled walls—institutional and sterile.

A man—Reaper—sat strapped to a metal chair, head freshly shaved, expression defiant despite visible bruising.

He looked different—younger, fuller in the face, with none of the calculated emptiness I’d seen when he first cornered me in my motel room.

Most jarring was the life in his eyes—rage, determination, humanity .

A clinical voice spoke off-camera. “Subject twenty-seven demonstrates remarkable resistance to standard protocols. Increasing electrical current by thirty percent.”

What followed was methodical torture disguised as a medical procedure.

Electrodes delivered shocks that made Reaper’s body arch against the restraints, tendons standing out in his neck, veins prominent under his skin.

Between seizures, injections followed, clear liquids pushed into his veins while technicians in masks monitored vital signs on machines just out of frame.

Unlike other subjects in previous files, this man—the Reaper before he became Reaper—fought longer, harder. He screamed curses, threats, and promises of vengeance that made my skin prickle.