Chapter 22
IRIS
I guide Cassian away from the stainless-steel medical station, leaving the bloody gauze behind.
I’m still running on raw adrenaline, my hands having moved purely on instinct as I blindly followed his grunted instructions to pack his wound.
The command center is harsh blue server-light and cold concrete, but the door at the back leads somewhere quieter.
I push it open.
It reveals the bunker’s inner quarters, separated from the noise and the screens: concrete walls, but softer lighting. There’s a kitchenette, a small table, and a bed in the corner—a simple mattress on a metal frame, dressed in gray wool blankets.
It could pass for a monk’s cell. Or a soldier’s final retreat.
“Sit,” I say, guiding him toward the bed.
Without arguing, he sinks onto the mattress, the springs groaning under his weight. He leans back against the cold concrete wall, closing his eyes. His skin is stark white against the dark gray of the blanket.
I stand there for a moment, my hands hovering, unsure of what to do with them. They’re scrubbed raw from the sink, but I still feel the phantom warmth of his blood on my fingers. The ringing in my ears dials down from a scream to a high, thin whine, letting the silence of the room settle around us.
“Water,” he whispers.
“Right. Yes.”
I go to the kitchenette, find a glass, and fill it from the tap.
I walk back and hand it to him.
His fingers brush mine as he takes the glass, draining it in one long pull. Setting it on the floor, he looks up. His eyes are pitch dark, heavy with exhaustion, and focused entirely on me.
“You look like a ghost,” he says.
“I feel like one,” I admit.
A harsh electronic buzzer sounds, vibrating in my jaw and cutting through the whine still ringing in my ears.
I jump.
Cassian sighs, the sound rattling deep in his chest. He glances at a wall panel near the bed.
“Report,” he says.
The intercom crackles.
“Perimeter is re-secured,” Varro says. His voice sounds warped, like he’s speaking underwater through a blown speaker. “We found the breach point. They cut the hardline at the north junction.”
“The bodies?” Cassian asks.
I flinch. The word hangs in the air, ugly and real.
“Twelve tangos,” Varro reports. “Plus Kirill. We’re bagging them now. The cleaners are five minutes out to scrub the antechamber.”
I wrap my arms around myself. Cleaners. Like they’re talking about a spill on a rug, not thirteen dead men.
“Ours?” Cassian asks, his voice lower.
“Six dead,” Varro says, somber. “Plus four in medical. I’ll handle the transports personally.”
Cassian’s jaw tightens. “See to their families. Keep the comms dark. Wake me only if the sensors trip.”
“Copy. Out.”
The intercom clicks off.
Cassian watches me, gauging my reaction.
“This is your world,” I whisper. “This is normal for you.”
“Nothing about tonight is normal,” he says. “But the cleanup? Yes. You get used to it.”
“You talk about them like they’re garbage. Bagged. Scrubbed.”
“They came to put us in the ground,” he says. “They forfeited their humanity the moment they breached that door. I beat them to it.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But the absolute coldness of it still turns my stomach.
It makes my frantic snooping through the library before the siege feel incredibly naive.
I’d been looking for physical files—a paper trail or a printed dossier on Elias Vane that I could actually read and understand.
I didn’t find anything. I realize now how stupid that was.
Whatever caused this slaughter, whatever they are fighting over.
.. it isn’t a stack of paper in a filing cabinet.
It has to be whatever Varro shoved into Cassian’s pocket at the elevator.
“I need to clean you up,” I say, changing the subject before I spiral. “The soot... It’s everywhere. It’ll get into the bandage.”
“Iris, leave it. You need to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. Not yet.”
I can’t close my eyes. If I do, I’ll see the black bore of that rifle again. I’ll see the blood spraying across the stone. I need to be useful.
Turning back to the sink, I find a clean washcloth and wet it with warm water. I return to the bed, hesitating as I step between his spread knees.
“Let me.”
He watches me for a long beat. Then, he tilts his head back against the wall, exposing his throat.
I step closer.
Starting with his face, I wipe the lingering soot from his forehead, tracing the hairline, and clear the grit from the bridge of his nose.
I’m gentle, terrified of hurting him, but he doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t take his eyes from mine, even as my hands move down his jawline, cleaning the cut on his cheek, then lower to his neck, and finally to his chest.
I carefully wipe around the fresh white gauze on his shoulder, clearing the dried blood and grime from his healthy skin. Beneath the dirt, the other marks on his torso come into focus.
The series of scars I noticed earlier.
I pause over a jagged, circular pucker of white tissue on his right ribcage.
“This wasn’t a bullet,” I say, tracing the edge of the old scar with the cloth.
He looks down, barely glancing at it.
“Rebar,” he says. “Construction site in Moscow. A long time ago.”
I move the cloth to a long, thin line running diagonally across his abdomen.
“And this one?”
“Knife. Brussels.”
I stop cleaning. My hand hovers over the fresh white gauze taped to his left deltoid.
The memory has been burning in my mind since the tunnel. It clawed at me in the elevator. It’s screaming at me now. I drop the washcloth onto the mattress and look him in the eye.
“Earlier,” I say. “In the tunnel. You stepped in front of me.”
He goes still.
“He was aiming center mass,” he says dismissively, avoiding eye contact. “The vest did its job. Don’t overthink it.”
“Liar,” I say. “It hit your shoulder. Two inches to the right, and it would’ve hit your neck. You threw your body in front of a rifle. You could’ve died.”
He says nothing, his face a mask of stone.
“You told me I was leverage,” I push, stepping closer until my knees brush against his. “You told me I was an asset. Assets are expendable, Cassian. Tactically, it was a terrible move. You should’ve let him shoot me.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw.
“Is that what you think?” he asks softly.
“It’s what you told me.”
“The rules changed,” he grates out.
“When?”
“The moment you stopped running from me.”
His right hand shoots out, wrapping around my waist. The heat of his palm burns through my sweater as he pulls me forward.
I stumble, falling to my knees between his legs.
He leans down, his face inches from mine. I smell the metallic tang of his blood and the sharp bite of sweat.
“I stole you,” he says, his voice rough, scraping against my skin. “I took you from the world. That makes you mine. And nobody touches what’s mine.”
His hand slides up my back, tangling in my hair. He tilts my head back, exposing my throat to him.
His words… They’re possessive. They’re dark. They’re everything I should hate.
But I don’t hate them. My pulse thuds in my throat.
“Is that all I am?” I whisper. “Property?”
He looks at me, his gaze softening a fraction. His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, catching a tear before it falls.
“Property can be replaced,” he says. “There is no replacing you.”
He didn’t claim me. He placed me above his own life.
“I tried to fight it,” he admits, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. “I tried to keep you at a distance. I tried to make you a weapon so I wouldn’t have to worry about you. But in that tunnel... when I saw that rifle aimed at your chest...”
His hand tightens in my hair.
“I felt fear,” he confesses. “For the first time in five years, I felt absolute, paralyzing fear. Not for me. For you. I couldn’t let them take you.”
He leans his forehead against mine.
I close my eyes, leaning into his touch.
“You’re hurt,” I whisper.
“I’ll live.”
“You need to rest.”
“Yes, stay with me,” he says.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I place my hands on his knees and look up at him.
He exhales a long, shuddering breath.
“Close your eyes,” he whispers. “And let me know you’re still here.”
I rest my head on his thigh. His hand drops into my hair, his fingers curling tight against my scalp, and the room goes completely quiet.