Chapter 10
You Left Me
Mira
The kiss still burned on my lips. That was the fucking problem.
For one second, one stupid, reckless second, I’d let myself fall into it.
I’d let my body remember before my brain could catch up.
The way his hand felt against my face. The way he pulled me in like nothing had changed, like there weren’t two years of silence and grief and unanswered questions sitting between us.
For that one second, I wanted it … wanted him. Wanted to melt into him like I used to, like I hadn’t spent night after night forcing myself to forget what it felt like to be touched by him, to be seen by him, to be his.
And then reality hit. Hard.
It crashed through me so fast it made my chest tighten, my stomach twist. Something sharp and ugly clawed its way up my throat before I could stop it because that kiss wasn’t just a kiss.
It was proof. Proof that he was alive. Proof that everything I’d mourned, everything I’d buried, everything I’d forced myself to accept as gone… had never actually been taken from me.
He didn’t die. He chose to leave.
My hands curled into fists at my sides. Nails bit into my palms as I stared at him, really stared at him, not as the man standing in front of me now, but as the ghost I’d buried two years ago and the reality that had just ripped itself out of the ground like it had every right to be here still.
“You don’t get to do that,” I said, voice low at first, controlled in a way that felt brittle instead of steady.
My chest rose with a sharp breath as I shook my head once.
Disbelief bled into something darker, something louder.
“You don’t get to walk back in here, kiss me like that, and then stand there like you’re still the one in control of anything. ”
The words came faster after that, harder, every ounce of restraint I’d been holding on to cracked under the weight of everything I’d shoved down for two years.
“Do you have any idea what I thought?” I demanded, my voice lifting despite the space we were in, despite the risk, despite everything that should have told me to keep this quiet. I didn’t care. Not right now.
“Do you have any idea what it was like to find nothing? No body, no answers, no explanation, just you… gone?”
My throat tightened, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
“I buried you,” I snapped, the words hitting sharper now, fueled by anger that had nowhere else to go. “I stood there and accepted that you were dead because that’s what made sense. Because that’s what I had to believe to move the hell on.”
A hollow laugh slipped out, bitter and broken in a way I didn’t bother to hide. “And now you’re standing in front of me like this was some kind of fucking plan?”
My eyes burned, but no tears fell. That part of me had burned out a long time ago, replaced with something colder, something that didn’t crack under pressure, something that held instead of broke.
But the rage? That was alive and well.
“You didn’t die,” I said, quieter now, but infinitely more dangerous, each word deliberate, cutting, meant to land exactly where it hurt.
My gaze locked onto his. I refused to let him look away, refused to let him hide behind whatever mask he thought he could still wear with me.
“You fucking left me.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than anything we’d said … because there was no taking that back. No softening it. No pretending it wasn’t the truth.
And for the first time since I’d stepped into Ironhand, since I’d realized he was here, since I’d let myself hope for even a second that maybe there was something more behind it… I stopped holding anything back.
I let him see exactly what he’d done to me. And I didn’t give a single fuck if it made him uncomfortable.
He didn’t flinch. Not at the volume. Not at the accusation. Not even at the way the words hit, sharp enough that anyone else would’ve tried to deflect or shut it down to regain control of the situation.
Aiden didn’t do either. He took it. All of it.
His jaw tightened slightly — the only visible crack in the control he’d been holding onto — and for a second, I thought he might try to brush it off, might fall back into that detached tone he’d been using since we stepped into this room.
He didn’t.
“This wasn’t about you moving on,” he said, voice low, steady. But there was something different in it now — not softer, not apologetic, just… real. Stripped down in a way he hadn’t let himself be since I’d cornered him. “It was about keeping you alive.”
I let out a sharp, humorless breath, ready to tear into that, ready to rip it apart the same way everything else had come out of my mouth in the last thirty seconds.
He didn’t give me the chance.
“The Syndicate doesn’t let people walk away,” he continued, words coming a little faster now, not rushed, but deliberate …
like he’d already had this conversation in his head a hundred times before it ever became real.
“Not the ones who know how they operate. Not the ones who’ve been inside it long enough to matter. ”
My chest tightened despite myself. Anger still burned hot, but something else threaded through it now: recognition. Not acceptance. Not forgiveness. Just the understanding that he wasn’t pulling this out of nowhere.
“They had eyes on me,” he went on, gaze locked on mine, daring me to look away first. “On everything I was doing. On everyone I was connected to. You weren’t just someone I cared about, Mira. You were a liability to them. A way in. A way to control me if they needed to.”
The words landed heavily, each one carried a weight I couldn’t ignore even if I wanted to.
“So, I cut the connection,” he said, quieter now, but no less firm. “Completely. No loose ends. No trail back to you. If I’d stayed, if I’d tried to keep anything between us, they would’ve found you eventually. And when they did, it wouldn’t have been quick.”
Silence settled for a beat, thick and uncomfortable, filled with everything that hadn’t been said yet.
“I made the call,” he added, jaw tightening again, like he knew exactly how it sounded and didn’t give a shit. “Because it was the only way to make sure you never ended up in something like this.”
His logic was clean. It made sense.
Every piece of it lined up in a way that should’ve taken the edge off, should’ve softened the hit of everything he’d just admitted to, like it was some twisted justification for disappearing out of my life without a word.
That didn’t mean I had to accept it.
I let the silence sit for a second, not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I had too much and I needed to make sure it landed exactly where it needed to.
My chest rose and fell once, controlled, even as the anger that had cracked through me earlier settled into something colder, something sharper.
“You’re right,” I said finally, my voice quieter now, but there was nothing soft about it. No give. No understanding. Just a different kind of force behind it. “It makes sense.”
His expression didn’t shift, but I saw the tension in his shoulders tighten just a fraction, like he knew what was coming next and didn’t bother pretending otherwise.
“That doesn’t make it okay,” I continued, stepping closer instead of backing off, closing what little space he’d tried to create between us. “That doesn’t make it your decision to make.”
My gaze locked onto his, holding him there the same way he’d tried to hold me a minute ago, not letting him redirect this into something controlled and clinical.
“You don’t get to decide what I survive,” I said, each word deliberate. It cut through the room with more precision than anything I’d thrown at him so far. “You don’t get to look at my life and choose what parts of it I’m strong enough to handle and what parts you think will break me.”
The anger surged again, but it wasn’t explosive this time. It was focused, pointed exactly where it needed to go.
“You made that choice for me,” I went on, voice tightening just enough to betray the edge under the surface. “You decided I couldn’t handle the truth, that I couldn’t handle the risk, so you took the decision out of my hands and disappeared like that was some kind of protection.”
A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it, sharp and humorless.
“You didn’t protect me,” I said, shaking my head once, the motion small but final. “You controlled the situation. You controlled me.”
My jaw tightened as I held his gaze. I refused to let him look away, refused to let him hide behind logic that sounded good on paper but fell apart the second it hit something real.
“You want to talk about the Syndicate?” I added the words coming out low, steady, and dangerous in a different way now. “Fine. But don’t stand there and pretend you did me some favor by taking away my choice and calling it protection.”
Because that’s what it came down to. Not danger, not strategy. Choice. And he’d taken mine away without a second thought.
Something in his expression snapped into place the second I finished — not louder, not explosive, but sharper … as if I’d just crossed a line he’d been holding in check.
“Then explain this,” he shot back, voice low but cutting now, all that controlled calm edged with something that hit just as hard as my anger. “Explain why the hell you’re here.”
I didn’t answer right away, but he didn’t give me time to think of one either.
“You want to talk about choice?” he continued.
He stepped in instead of backing off, closing the space again until my shoulders pressed into the wall behind me.
“You chose to walk straight into the same world I got you out of. You chose to embed yourself in a place like this, surrounded by people who would sell you off in a heartbeat if it bought them leverage.”
His gaze burned into mine, unrelenting, forcing me to hold it even when every instinct told me to push back harder.
“That’s not strength,” he said, jaw tight. “That’s reckless.”
I let out a sharp breath. Anger flared again as I shoved against his chest just enough to make the point without creating space.
“You don’t get to call me reckless for doing exactly what you’re doing,” I snapped back. “You’re here, too, Aiden. You’re in the same damn place, taking the same risks.”
“Difference is I know what it costs,” he fired back immediately. “And I’m not pretending I can walk away from it clean.”
The words hung there, heavier than anything else we’d thrown at each other, because they weren’t just about Ironhand anymore. They were about us.
We were too close, breaths mixing, tension coiled so tight it felt like it might snap if either of us moved the wrong way.
Anger burned hot between us, but it didn’t stand alone.
It tangled with something else, something just as dangerous, something that hadn’t gone anywhere, no matter how much time had passed.
There was no resolution waiting on the other side of this. No clean ending. Just unresolved fury, an undeniable pull neither of us could ignore, and the quiet, brutal understanding that whatever this was now, neither of us was walking away from it without getting burned.