Chapter Three
Victor was silent beside him.
Not the guarded silence of a man watching angles or counting exits—Tane had learned the difference fast—but the heavier kind. The kind that sat behind the eyes and dragged old ghosts up by the throat.
Tane kept his attention on the road, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting against his thigh, but he didn’t need to look to know what was happening inside the cab. He could feel it. Victor’s thoughts ran hot and sharp, circling the same ground again and again.
Trust.
Or the lack of it.
Tane exhaled slowly. If he left Victor alone with that spiral, it would only tighten. Men like Victor didn’t unravel loudly. They calcified.
“You ever heard the sound of rain on a tin roof at night?” Tane asked casually.
Victor shifted, clearly startled by the non sequitur. “Can’t say I have.”
Tane smiled faintly. “Figures.”
He waited a beat, then continued, voice steady. “The orphanage I grew up in had one. It was a really old place and the roof was rusted through in spots, but when it rained, you could hear every drop like it was trying to beat its way inside your skull.”
Victor didn’t interrupt.
“The first night I noticed it was a few days after my grandmother died,” Tane said. The words still sat heavy, even now. “I was new to the orphanage. Angry. So, fucking angry that the world had taken my nana. I was skinny as hell despite eating like I had some kind of tape worm.”
Victor glanced at him, disbelief flickering across his face.
Tane laughed under his breath. “No, really. When I was just a kid, I was a scrawny little bastard.”
He shifted gears smoothly and let the memory come.
“The others were already there. Kael. Niko. Luka. Keanu. Kai, too—Kael’s blood brother. He doesn’t live with us anymore. He’s married to a Pathfinder, a good guy called Hogan, the live a mainland life.”
The corner of Victor’s mouth twitched.
“I didn’t talk much,” Tane went on. “Didn’t want to. I thought if I kept my head down long enough, it would all just ... stop.”
It hadn’t.
“It didn’t start big,” Tane said. His voice stayed even, but his jaw tightened. “It was shoves in the corridor. Names muttered just loud enough for me to hear. Food going missing.”
Victor’s brow creased, attention sharpening.
“Then it grew teeth,” Tane went on. “Corners. Fists. Being knocked down where no one was supposed to look.” He swallowed once. “Kael noticed before I realized it mattered. He kept asking what was going on. Told me I didn’t have to deal with it alone.”
A breath left Tane that hadn’t fully gone in.
“I told him to leave it. Told him I was fine. He told me to tell the head of the orphanage if I couldn’t handle it myself, despite both of us knowing that I wouldn’t,” Tane said quietly. “Didn’t see the point. Part of me just wanted it all to end.”
Victor leaned forward slightly. “Why?”
Tane’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“My father was an addict,” he said after a moment. “Killed my mother and my sister. My grandmother kept me safe after that and when she died...”
He let the rest of it trail off.
“I’m so sorry,” Victor murmured, the words soft and careful—in Hawaiian.
Tane blinked, then nodded once. “Mahalo.”
He told him about the day it changed.
“Kael didn’t yell,” Tane said, voice roughening just a fraction as the memory sharpened. “Didn’t threaten. He just ... sat with me. Right there on the steps behind the rec yard. Asked me what I thought would happen if I kept taking it.”
Tane could see it again—the cracked concrete, the smell of wet leaves, his hands clenched so tight his nails had cut skin.
“I told him I didn’t care,” Tane went on. “That if it ended me, at least it would be over.”
Victor’s breath hitched, barely audible.
“Kael didn’t accept that,” Tane said. “He told me I wasn’t allowed to decide I was disposable. Not when I hadn’t even tried letting someone stand with me.”
Trust had felt impossible. Dangerous. Like stepping off a ledge and hoping the ground would rise to meet him.
“They asked me to trust them,” Tane said quietly. “Just once.”
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat as the scene replayed in full color. The narrow service corridor behind the rec yard. The walls close enough to scrape knuckles. No cameras. No sightlines. He hadn’t known the word for it then, but later they’d learn it was a perfect kill box.
“I almost didn’t do it,” Tane admitted. “Every instinct I had said run. But I was so tired of hurting.”
So, he’d done what they asked. Led the bullies back there with shaking hands and a plan that was more hope than strategy. They’d thrown rocks. Bricks. Anything they could get their hands on. The bullies had gone down screaming, scrambling, bleeding.
“And when they hit the ground,” Tane continued, “the rest of us stepped out. Different sizes. Different ages. But all of us there, and Kael stood beside me. You can’t break sticks in a bundle, he’d told them. You come for one of us, you come for all of us.”
Victor listened with absolute stillness.
“From that day on,” Tane said, “I was with them. We bled together and for each other. Over and over again throughout the years.”
“What does that feel like?” Victor asked quietly.
Tane considered the question.
“Hard to explain,” he said. “But you’ve got a chance to find out for yourself.”
They pulled into the compound just as the night settled fully in around them.
Tane parked the truck behind the secondary structures, near where the hangar would be built in a couple of months—out of sight, secure.
The two of them climbed out of the truck and moved to meet the rest of Black Tide as they stepped out of his truck.
Luca wandered out of the command center, grinning. “Got a fix in place for nosy little Russians.”
Victor flipped him off without missing a beat.
The laughter that followed was easy. Familiar.
It was late. Bone-deep late.
“I’ll sleep in the truck,” Victor said. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“You can,” Tane agreed. “Or you can crash in my van. I’ll even cook. You look like you’ve lost weight.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just walked over toward where the team had their vans parked.
His van was exactly to his tastes—a hybrid between a high-end camper and a meditation den he’d built with his own hands.
Bamboo mats lined the floor, soft under bare feet.
Low, indirect lighting warmed the space instead of bleaching it.
A portable water feature he’d welded himself murmured quietly from one corner, the sound grounding, deliberate.
There was a reasonable-sized shower he could stand up in without hunching, steam-sealed and practical.
A large table dominated the center of the van against the far wall, big enough to work at or eat properly, scarred by use rather than neglect.
The kitchenette was compact but beautifully appointed—clean lines, quality fittings, everything exactly where he needed it.
His bed sat behind a sliding partition like many of the vans Black Tide built. King-size. Solid. Comfortable. A place meant for real rest, not just to collapse on at the end of a hard day.
Tane started pulling ingredients out—root vegetables, protein, herbs—hands moving on autopilot. He was halfway through chopping when the door slid open.
Victor stood there, framed by the light, looking almost stunned.
“You hungry?” Tane asked.
Victor nodded, taking his shoes off as he entered Tane’s space, and that move alone endeared him to him even more.
“Shower’s yours,” Tane said. “Clean shorts, shirts, and new boxers in that drawer beside you and dinner will be ready in forty-five. Grab us both a beer when you’re done. We’ll talk over food.”
Victor disappeared into the bathroom.
Tane exhaled, long and slow, the tension finally easing out of his shoulders.
He cooked, thinking about trust, about bundles of sticks, and about the conversation that waited for them both.
****
Hot water beat down over Victor’s shoulders, sluicing away salt and blood and the sharp metallic edge of adrenaline that had lived under his skin for days.
He braced one hand against the wall of the shower, head bowed, eyes closed, letting the steam fill his lungs. He should not be here. He knew that. Every instinct he’d honed under the Directorate screamed that following Tane back to Black Tide’s compound was a mistake.
And yet ... here he was.
When the truck had rolled through the gate, when Tane had smiled at the armed guard like this place was home and the world bent around him, something in Victor had ... shifted. Not trust. Not yet. But curiosity. And something dangerously close to hope.
Tane’s story circled his thoughts, uninvited and relentless.
A scrawny kid. Beaten. Alone. Refusing help because wanting anything had once cost too much.
Victor swallowed, throat tight.
He understood that instinct intimately.
The Directorate had built their empire on it.
He reached up and shut off the water, the sudden quiet loud in the enclosed space. Steam curled around him as he stepped out, grabbing a towel. The mirror across from him caught his reflection and he grimaced.
Yellowing bruises bloomed across his ribs and shoulder, old and new overlapping in ugly patterns. The bandage low on his abdomen was stained dark at the edges, blood seeping through despite his best efforts. He pressed his fingers there gently, jaw tightening.
You should have let it heal, a voice in his head muttered that sounded suspiciously like Tane.
He snorted softly. Too late for that.
Victor dried off carefully, then eyed the t-shirt he had grabbed from the drawer. Clean. Soft. He hesitated, then shook his head. He wasn’t bleeding on someone else’s clothes. He tugged on the shorts instead and left the rest.
When he stepped back into the van, the smell of food hit him first—warm, rich, grounding.
Tane stood at the kitchenette, shoulders relaxed, knife moving rhythmically over a cutting board. A Maoli song played softly through a Bluetooth speaker, something with layered vocals and a low, steady beat. Tane hummed along under his breath, entirely unguarded.
He turned.