Chapter 64
SIXTY-FOUR
CADEN
The silence that settled over the room after we came back from that memory was not quiet. It was loud, and stunned and crushing, as though the world itself had paused in disbelief.
I looked at the woman next to me—the woman I had known, with a certainty that bordered on instinct, would be my wife long before the future ever confirmed it—and the sight of her silent tears ignited something feral in my chest.
Murderous didn’t even begin to cover what I felt toward the people who had put that pain in her eyes.
When I snapped my gaze back to the two older men standing across from us, a brutal knot pulled tight beneath my ribs.
The whole thing was distorted, warped by personal belief and despair until right and wrong were ground down into excuses. But intent didn’t absolve a damn thing.
Two so called fathers—both deeply misguided, both convinced of their own righteousness—who had torn lives apart while telling themselves it was for love. They called it protection. I only saw damage, as they had fought for what they believed mattered most: the survival of their children.
Or at least, for those they decided were worth saving. Because I did not, and never would, see Stephen as a father in any sense of the word.
Judging by the rigid, unforgiving stillness beside me, Emma didn’t see Maurice that way either.
But before I could figure out how to behead either of them with the ridiculously small knife I still had in my hand, she moved.
Or rather, her haze did.
I’d seen her lose control before, but this wasn’t that. This was faster. More precise. Instinct stripped bare.
Scarlet energy tore free from her like a dragon surging from its nest, violent and incandescent, as her arms snapped outward in a smooth, rapid arc, too fast for hesitation, too precise to be reckless. Power slammed into the room before anyone could so much as inhale.
The next thing I knew, metal screamed.
Chains erupted from the walls, biting hard and fast, slamming Maurice, Stephen, James—and me—back against stone with bruising force. The impact rattled my fucking teeth.
When the room stilled, Emma stood alone at its center, chest heaving, fists clenched at her sides, eyes blazing like she was barely holding herself together through sheer fury.
“What the fuck, Emma?” James snarled, yanking uselessly at his restraints.
Confusion and anger collided in his tone.
But I understood.
I saw it in the way her shoulders were too tight, the way her gaze kept flicking, counting, assessing, grounding.
She was spiraling, and this was how she clawed her way back into control.
“I don’t want to hear a single word out of any of you,” she spat, her voice iron-hard, the pitch a fraction too high, panic dressed up as command. “Not until I understand what the hell just happened. What the hell I just saw. And who the fuck is responsible.”
I would’ve raised my hand if I could.
“Can I offer an opinion?” I asked mildly, hoping to try and diffuse the raw panic in my girl.
Her head whipped toward me. “You better not be cracking jokes right now, Caden. I am not above deleting one of your balls.”
I tried to give a shrug, which was hard considering the chains biting in my wrists. “At least I’d still have the other.”
Emma went very still, before hissing in a low tone, “Do I look like I’m fucking kidding right now?”
Despite her lashing out at everyone including me, I had to bite back a smile. “You do not, Nightcrawler. I just have to say—even without permission—you look absolutely stunning when you breathe fire.”
Her eyes narrowed to razor–thin slits, scarlet flickering dangerously at the edges. “Keep talking and I’ll test how stunning you look without a head.”
I grinned at her death-threat. Worth it.
Before I could give another retort and meet my inevitable end as a stunning pile of ash, her focus snapped back to Maurice.
“You,” she barked, stabbing a finger in his direction. “Start talking. Who kills my hus—”
She cut herself off, throat working once. Hard.
“Kills Caden?”
Her father looked almost impressed as he jerked his chin toward Stephen. “Ask the Specialist asshole,” he said coolly, “whether he bothered to check before deciding your choices should be impaled.”
The scarlet haze flared brighter.
Emma crossed the room in three furious strides, seized Stephen by the collar, and hauled him off the wall like he weighed nothing. She got right in his face, power crackling so violently I could feel it in my bones.
“Tell me,” she snarled, each word razor-edged and shaking with barely veiled panic.
Horrible timing but watching her like this—burning the world down for me—I was so fucking turned on I couldn’t see straight.
Stephen’s shoulders sagged. His head dropped, chin nearly to his chest, defeat rolling off him in waves.
“I tried, Emma,” he said hoarsely. “I swear I did. But I can’t move or handle anything when I’m visiting the past or the future, you know that.
You’ve experienced it yourself.” He swallowed, words spilling faster now, like confession might save him.
“The man or woman under that hood never shows their face. And you annihilate every single one of them before I can get close enough to see anything useful.”
He dragged in a breath. “All I could figure out is that somewhere next year, you and Caden are fighting Collabs. And for some reason, it’s just the two of you against an army of hundreds on that field.”
Silence hit hard.
Then Maurice snarled, venom sharp enough to cut stone, “You are such an idiot.” He jerked against his chains as if he might still reach Stephen. “Why do you think it’s only the two of them?” His gaze burned as he looked at Emma. “Because she’s powerful enough to take them down.”
“But only if Caden dies, right?” James’s asked quietly, too quietly, as his eyes never left Maurice. “That’s why you did all this? To make sure Stephen couldn’t warn Emma off falling in love with him?”
Maurice’s jaw flexed, the muscle jumping once.
“That’s not the only reason.” He inhaled through his nose. “When I found out what Stephen told the High Chief about this, I orchestrated your abduction to New York. I had to counteract their attempt to bond you with my daughter somehow, make sure Emma saw she still had options.”
Stephen barked a harsh, humorless laugh. “Oh, fuck off. Don’t dress that shit up as something noble.” His eyes flashed. “You just want your daughter unleashed on this world.”
“Unleashed?” Emma whispered.
James answered, dry and grim. “Your father seems convinced your love for Caden is the key. The trigger. It unlocks your power and saves our kind from the Collabs.” He paused. “Because when Caden dies…you react.”
“You don’t just react, Emma,” Maurice cut in. “You win us that entire battle. Without you unleashing your power—without you destroying every single Collab on that field—we lose the war against them. Every future you were all so desperate to fight for dies with it.”
“The Krait. Preventing the existence of the Trackers. Every reason Mr. Walker here has been smashing LiaPrisms left and right: gone. All of it.” His gaze was merciless. “We never even reach those futures if we lose that battle.”
Something in my chest went ice-cold as I looked at Emma.
The devastation on her face wasn’t loud. It didn’t shatter or rage. It hollowed, like something essential had been scooped out and left behind.
Maurice tilted his head, studying her the way one might assess a solution already reached.
“Considering your reaction to your parents’ death,” he said evenly, “this shouldn’t come as a surprise.”
“My reaction…” Emma repeated faintly. “When I killed those militants.”
“Yes.”
Her jaw tightened. “Did you send them to try to ‘unleash me’ too?”
“No.” For the first time, something soft entered his voice. “Emma, I already told you this. I had nothing to do with your parents’ deaths.” He held her gaze. “I swear on my life.”
A beat passed.
“But you did have the president issue that second warrant for my arrest?”
Maurice nodded once. “Yes. After you killed those people, he agreed to have you delivered into my care.”
“And when you realized what Stephen had told the Chiefs,” she continued, sounding steadier now, dangerously so, “you had me jump through that portal.”
“Yes.”
“To make sure I’d follow through on my feelings for Caden.”
Maurice shook his head once. “Only to counteract the Chiefs’ threat. Only to make you see they were lying and had their own agenda.”
Emma ignored his pathetic attempt to justify his actions. “And once I knew what I needed to know, you had the president lift the warrant.”
“Yes, daughter.”
Those two words landed wrong—worse than cringe coming from him.
Emma’s hands clenched at her sides. “Why not simply contact me?” she demanded. “Why not nex me? Why abduct people? Why lure me to New York, then to Cyclos?”
Maurice drew a slow, measured breath, as if he were bracing himself for reason rather than judgment.
“Believe me, I considered it. More than once.” His gaze flicked away before returning to her.
“But Julius told me he’d filled James in on parts of your past. Not all of it, he omitted those that would’ve ensured your understanding, like me being your father.
” His mouth tightened. “So, I simply assumed the picture you had of me wouldn’t be… flattering.”
Emma didn’t respond.
“And then I heard Stephen was looking for me,” Maurice continued. “I put two and two together. I thought maybe you’d asked him to hunt me down. And if that was the case—”
“Then the chances of me coming to you of my own free will,” Emma added coldly, “would be slim to non-existent.”
Maurice nodded once.
No argument.
No denial.
Only confirmation.
“Which sort of makes sense,” Emma muttered, “though it doesn’t answer any of my questions.”
“But it answers a few of mine,” James cut in. “Because if this is all true, then Emma and I were only forced to bond to change the course of the future in which the Chiefs die.” His jaw tightened. “I was never meant to be the Krait’s father. Correct?”
Stephen nodded.
Maurice did too.
“Jesus,” Walker hissed, the realization finally clicking into place. “All this time, everyone knew Colt will be Alek’s father…”
Emma turned on Stephen as all the restraint she’d been clinging to sharpened into something dangerous.
“You really have a problem with communication, you know that?” she barked sarcastically.
“Instead of manipulating your way through my life—again—you realize this could all have been prevented if you’d had the guts to come to me and tell me Caden would die? ”
“What do you mean, ‘all could have been prevented’?” I asked, the question harsh.
Emma didn’t answer.
“She means,” James snarled, “that she would’ve tried harder not to fall for your fucking charm.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Well,” I said coolly, “we’ve all seen how well that worked out, haven’t we?”
Emma pressed her fingers hard against her temple and changed the subject swiftly. “Okay, so, what now?”
Maurice opened his mouth to answer, but a sudden hiss cut through the room, metal sliding against metal, as the door began to open.
All of us tensed instinctively.
And then…fucking Cara Sinclair stepped inside.
Her heels clicked with that deliberate rhythm, spine straight, chin high, like she was walking into a boardroom instead of a dungeon. She took in the room in a single, precise sweep.
“Well,” she said dryly, lips curling into something that almost passed for amusement. “It seems I’ve arrived right in time for some dysfunctional family bonding.”
Then her gaze dropped to James, chained to the wall.
“Why is Walker here?” She asked, tone sharp. “I thought I’d made it clear he was not to be harmed.”
Maurice rolled his eyes and then uttered the most unexpected words I had ever heard.
“Don’t worry, Cara, your brother is perfectly fine.”