Chapter Four #2
Drew gave a dry chuckle that came out rough. “You should really put that on a t-shirt? I reckon the tourists would go crazy for that.”
Tane’s expression didn’t change. “You’ve done this before.”
“Once or twice.”
“Then you know how this goes.”
“Yeah. You ask questions I won’t answer. You leave me here to think about it. Then you come back, ask again, a little meaner.” Drew shrugged. “Circle of life.”
Tane pulled up a chair, the scrape of metal on concrete loud in the quiet. “You don’t have to make this hard, brother.”
Drew huffed a laugh. “I’m not your brother.”
Tan leaned forward, his gaze intense. “You were, once. Because of Kael.”
The name hit harder than a punch. Drew kept his face blank, but the pause was too long, the silence too thick. Tane caught it. His mouth tilted slightly, victory in the curve.
“Ah. So, he hasn’t told you yet.”
“Told me what?”
Tane didn’t answer. He leaned back, watching Drew with that calculating calm that made his size even more intimidating.
“How long have I been here?” Drew asked.
“Forty-eight hours. You were out cold for the first twelve. You talk in your sleep, by the way.”
Drew met his gaze, unmoved. “You sound like a man who doesn’t have better things to do.”
Tane smiled faintly. “I listen like a man who wants to know why a ghost crawled out of the grave and started poking around Bratya operations. You think we wouldn’t notice?”
Drew stayed silent. He had to get out. If he didn’t check in soon, five years of work—and the lives tied to it—would go up in smoke. He tested the restraints again. The steel didn’t give, but his thumb would. He’d wait until Tane moved.
“You don’t have to die here, Wraith,” Tane said. “Just talk.”
“You should save that line for someone who doesn’t already know your playbook.”
Tane’s eyes sharpened, the smile fading. Then, without another word, he stood and walked out.
The silence that followed was almost worse.
Drew stared at the single bulb, counting heartbeats.
Was it part of Tane’s method? Let the captive stew, build anxiety, loosen control?
Or had he been called out? The man had a reputation—three doctorates in psychology and a knack for making people unravel without ever touching them.
Thirty minutes later, Tane returned. Calm. Smiling again.
“You think I’m gonna crack?” Drew said.
“Everyone cracks. It’s just a question of finding the right angle, the right buttons to push to get you to talk.”
They went back and forth—questions, misdirection, half-truths. Tane probed at old scars, the ones Drew kept buried. Drew gave nothing away. The man was good, but Drew had been trained by worse.
He started to plan instead. He could pop his thumb, slip the right cuff, loop his arm around, and take the man’s throat before he knew it. He’d need the element of surprise. One strike, fast and clean. Maybe two if the man fought. Then the others—he’d take them too.
And if Kael was one of them? whispered the voice in his head.
He shut it down. Didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter.
Tane stood suddenly, staring down at him with unreadable eyes. Then he walked out again.
This time, the frustration clawed up Drew’s throat. He bit down on the sound threatening to escape—a roar, pure rage and pain mixed together.
The door opened.
Kael walked in.
For a heartbeat, everything inside Drew went still.
Neither of them spoke at first. They just stared, years of silence crashing between them.
“You have to let me go, Kael,” Drew said finally.
Kael’s voice was quiet, even. “Why?”
“Because if I don’t get out now, people die.”
“That’s not an answer.” Kael could feel the frustration rising within him.
“It’s the only one I can give you.” Drew held his gaze.
“Try again.”
Drew met his eyes, jaw tight. “You have to trust me, Kael.”
Kael laughed once, humorless. “Trust you? You let me think you were dead for five years, hardly the perfect recipe for trust, Drew.”
“You think that was easy for me?” Drew snapped. “You think I didn’t want to come back? I had to disappear. There’s more going on here than the Bratya, more than any of us. If I don’t move, it ends in blood—a lot of it.”
Kael folded his arms. “So, tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Then, I can’t let you go.”
They stayed in the tension of it, eyes locked. Drew could see it—the war inside Kael, the pull between duty and something older. Something they’d both buried deep.
“You should trust me,” Drew said softly. “Because we meant something to each other once. That doesn’t just vanish.”
Kael didn’t move for a long time. His eyes searched Drew’s face as if he could still find the truth he wanted hidden there. The silence stretched until it hurt. Drew’s pulse hammered in his throat.
“Kael,” he said, voice cracking with something close to desperation. “You know me. You know I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t real. There’s something coming. Bigger than the Bratya, bigger than either of us. If I stay, people die. Innocent people.”
Kael’s jaw tightened, muscles shifting under the skin. “You expect me to take that on faith?”
“I expect you to remember who I am,” Drew shot back. “You think I walked away because I wanted to? You think I didn’t die a hundred times knowing what I was doing to you? I did what I had to do.”
Kael took a step closer, anger sparking. “You disappeared. You didn’t even give me a body to bury.”
Drew swallowed, his chest aching. “Because if they knew what you meant to me, they’d have used you to get to me. I couldn’t let that happen. You know that, Kael. Fuck! You know that.”
The words hung between them, raw and electric. Kael looked like he wanted to argue more, but something in Drew’s eyes stopped him. For a moment, the fury bled into sorrow.
“Damn you to hell,” Kael muttered.
“Already have been,” Drew said quietly. “By you and so many others.”
Kael’s shoulders slumped slightly, conflict tearing through him. His hand twitched near his sidearm, then dropped. Finally, with a rough exhale, he reached behind him, pressed a button on the wall. The locks released with a mechanical click.
“There’s a car outside,” Kael said quietly. “Keys are in it. Take it. One of us will pick it up later.”
Drew rose slowly, rubbing his wrists. The steel had cut deep, blood slick against his skin. He looked at Kael one last time. The man who had once been his, well, his everything. Despite the short time they’d had together.
Kael didn’t ask him to stay.
Didn’t even look at him again.
Sadness settled heavy in Drew’s chest as he walked through the warehouse. He could feel the eyes of the men on him, but no one stopped him. Kael’s word was law.
He reached the outer door and paused. The night air was just beyond it—freedom, purpose, danger. He looked back over his shoulder.
Kael stood in the shadows, watching.
“You’re wrong, you know,” Drew said quietly. “About what you told yourself. About us.”
Kael didn’t answer.
Drew’s voice softened, heavy with regret. “Out of everyone in this world, you’re the only one who ever had the right to claim me.”
He turned, pushed the door open. It closed easily behind him—too easily. Easier than closing the door now standing wide open inside his chest.
As the engine roared to life and the car pulled away, the image of Kael’s face lingered—a look of longing and loss that burned itself into Drew’s mind.
He didn’t look back.