Page 45 of Marked to Be Mine (Erased #1)

The file opened to reveal a comprehensive physical assessment dated seven years ago. Height, weight, blood type, muscle density, and reflex measurements—all matching my current attributes.

“This was you,” Maeve said, her voice hushed. Her fingers clasped mine with painful intensity. “This is who you were before Reaper.”

I scanned the document, searching for anything that might spark recognition. My attention was locked on the designation at the top: RG-CV-587.

“RG,” Maeve said, stabbing her finger at the screen. “Those are your initials.”

The moment the letters registered, molten pain seared through my skull. A fragment broke through—myself strapped to a metal table, a clinical voice repeating: “Subject RG shows unusual resistance. Increase voltage for initial conditioning phase.”

I pressed my palms against my temples, a low hiss escaping through clenched teeth.

“Reaper?” Maeve’s movements were instant, her hand finding my arm, her grip steady and unexpectedly strong. She shifted closer until her body pressed against mine, offering silent support. Her concern provided a focal point beyond the pain—something real to anchor me in the present .

“RG,” I repeated, fighting through the stabbing discomfort. “It’s important.”

She stayed close, one hand on my arm, her body angled toward mine as though physically shielding me. Without releasing me, she scrolled further down with her free hand, then froze. “Here. Personnel intake form.”

The document loaded with agonizing delay, pixels slowly resolving into two words that split my reality into before and after:

RONAN GRAVES

Beneath it: “High-profile violent offender. Special skills in covert operations, interrogation techniques, and tactical assault. Proposed for Program Prima by Agent Brock. No prior military and intelligence experience. Violent and reckless individual. Potential. Maximum security risk.”

“Ronan Graves,” Maeve read, her voice vibrating with quiet intensity.

She spoke it like a revelation—a sacred truth rather than merely two words.

Her gaze met mine, studying my features as though searching for the man who had owned this name.

“That’s your real name. That’s who you were before you became Reaper. ”

I stared at the screen, those two words simultaneously foreign and deeply familiar. Like finding something I’d forgotten to miss.

“Ronan Graves,” I said, testing the shape of it in my mouth.

Pain exploded behind my eyes—white-hot and vicious, programming fighting to prevent reclamation of self. But beneath the agony rose something stronger—a savage satisfaction, the first true victory against what they built into my mind. I embraced the pain and forced the words out again, louder.

“Ronan Graves.”

Each repetition drove blades through my skull, but with each utterance, the name settled more naturally on my tongue. Something fundamental shifted within me—foundations breaking apart only to reconstruct themselves in new patterns.

Maeve’s fingers closed around my wrist, her touch an anchor in the storm. Her other hand cupped my jaw, palm against my cheek in a gesture so gentle it threatened to unravel something I’d kept tightly bound. Her eyes shone with an emotion I was afraid to name.

“Again,” she urged, her voice soft but insistent. She leaned in until our foreheads nearly touched, creating a private sanctuary where this reclamation could unfold. “Say it again. I’m right here. You’re safe, Ronan.”

I met her gaze, something breaking open inside me—not shattering but expanding, making room for this recovered piece of myself. My hand rose to capture hers, pressing her palm more firmly against my face as though she alone could ground me through this resurrection.

“I am Ronan Graves,” I said, each syllable cutting through programming, through conditioning, through the walls built to cage whatever humanity survived their procedures.

The pain was blinding now, but I pushed through it, gripping Maeve’s hand against my face like a lifeline.

“My name,” I said again, feeling something critical shift in my mind with each repetition, “is Ronan Graves. ”

Maeve’s thumb brushed my cheek, her touch impossibly gentle against the violence happening inside my skull. “Yes,” she whispered, her face so close I felt the word more than heard it. “You’re Ronan Graves.”

I struggled through the haze of pain, but, for the first time, there was something mine, something real I could hold—aside from Maeve. I knew my name. I had fragments of a person I once was back in my grasp.

“Ronan,” she said again, and my name from her mouth sounded right in ways I couldn’t articulate. Hearing it from her lips felt more intimate than our bodies joining—as though she was touching something no one else had reached.

“Ronan Graves,” I repeated, each syllable settling into place like a weapon finding its rightful owner’s hand. My fingers tightened around hers until our hands became a single entity, this connection suddenly more vital than breathing. “My name is Ronan Graves.”

The truth resonated between us like a struck bell, changing everything in its wake. I was no longer just an operative with a designation. I was Ronan Graves—a man with a past, a name, an identity that existed independent of their creation.

And in Maeve’s eyes—in the way she looked at me now—I saw not just who I was, but who I might become. Not Reaper. Not JD-2741. Ronan Graves.

“Ronan,” she whispered once more, and this time when she said it, I didn’t feel pain—only a fierce, burning certainty. A reclamation. A beginning.