54. CHAPTER 54
Zayne
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
Mellie laced her fingers with Zayne's while they strolled through the shopping square on their way to her favorite bakery to sample wedding cakes.
Holding her hand felt as wrong as trying out desserts after losing Mom less than a week ago. When Zayne decided to leave Ciondo for good, he didn't think about how that also meant leaving Mellie, and that he couldn't break up with her beforehand. Any life changes cast suspicion on him.
Though Zayne didn't feel for Mellie the way he had for Nadia, he meant his commitment to her.
He did his best to be good to her, to make her happy, to hide his frustrations and annoyance from her, to protect her feelings.
His relationship with her was real. So continuing to plan this wedding with her when he wasn't marrying her made him feel sick. It was wrong.
In his heart, he left Mellie the second he chose to leave his country. He didn't want to lie to her and fool her. But what choice did he have? Endangering Kira and his mission wasn't an option, no matter how badly he didn't want to hurt Mellie.
“Are you sure you don't want to wait?” Mellie asked, a worried gaze on him. “We should go back home.”
“My mother won't be any less dead a week from now. There's no point in waiting.”
Her hand stiffened in his, but she nodded without arguing and then flashed a kind smile. “Okay, babe.”
That came out harsher than he meant it. “I want to see you happy.” That was the truth.
If he was about to break her heart, if he had to pretend they'd spend their life together, he'd give her good memories to hold onto.
The Phaedra might cover up his betrayal by reporting him as dead.
Mellie might never know that he abandoned her.
The door of a restaurant flung open, and two civilians sprinted out onto the street—a woman and a teenage boy. They screamed, holding each other's hands while soldiers stormed after them.
Zayne yanked Mellie behind him, counting seven soldiers in total, all aiming their weapons at who he presumed to be mother and son. He saw fingers on triggers, and shoppers in the path of danger if any of them opened fire. What were these soldiers thinking?
The pedestrians all stopped, gasps and screams ripping from the crowd.
A soldier reached the mother and bashed his gun into her shoulder, knocking her into her son. The civilians crashed to the ground, the boy's head cracking against the pavement.
More cries from the crowd. Blood speckled the ground in front of the son while his mother gripped him, shrieking.
The soldiers surrounded them now, blocking them from Zayne's sight.
He unzipped his jacket so everyone could see his double seals and tossed it on the ground in front of Mellie. “Kneel.” He pried her hands off the back of his shirt and guided her to the jacket. “Hands in the air. You're safe.”
Mellie lowered onto his jacket, clutching her hands to her chest before he lifted them for her.
“Keep your hands visible and stay here.”
This kind of violence rarely broke out in a shopping district frequented by elite.
From a young age, most citizens learned what to do when soldiers drew their weapons in the streets and silenced themselves without any warning.
No one here, apart from fellow soldiers, witnessed anything like this in person normally.
“On your knees,” Zayne shouted to all those who watched the mob of soldiers circle the two on the ground. “Stay still and keep your hands visible.”
People began to lower, especially once some in the crowd pointed out the Phaedra's seals. Soon, everyone followed the order, parents hiding their children behind them.
Something went wrong that these civilians were targeted in public and managed to escape into the daylight. The Phaedra didn't want brutality on the streets of his loyal and faithful servants.
He didn't know how to help the mother and son escape this situation when it had already escalated so much.
“Sergeant Zayne Riven.” He identified himself when he approached, hands raised. “What the hell happened here?”
The Phaedra wouldn't complain about Zayne taking charge of this messy operation before the entire shopping district witnessed more blood sprayed across the ground.
Two privates stepped aside to allow Zayne entrance into their circle. The woman cradled her unconscious son, holding pressure to the gash on his forehead.
“Who are they?” Zayne asked.
“Followers. She came to pass a message to a spy for the United. The spy never showed, but—”
“She brought her son with her to deliver a dangerous message?” Ridiculous. Zayne's glare shot toward the commanding officer. “Did you not learn discretion in the academy?
“We made a tactical error.”
“How can I trust you won't make an error and shoot one of the good people out here?” He crouched, and the woman clutched her son tighter, drawing back. “I'm taking your son inside and calling for medical. You'll follow me and keep your hands where these soldiers can see them.”
She shook her head, scooting away, even though she was surrounded.
“You're panicking,” he said. “Take a deep breath. Your son needs you right now. He's your boy, right?”
Refusing to answer, she only stared desperately into Zayne's eyes with the same resolve and fury he always saw in Kira's.
“I'm picking him up now. Stay calm.”
Though she didn't concede, she didn't fight when Zayne pulled the young teen from her arms. A terrible cry left her lips, and she bowed forward, body following after his. Zayne thought of his own mother and her love for him and his siblings. This woman's desperation cut through him.
He hefted the boy into his arms and rose to his feet. “Be civil,” Zayne said to the commanding officer before returning to the restaurant they had fled from.
Once inside, soldiers cleared the civilians out. Zayne placed the boy on a table and scanned him for further injury. Blood wet his hairline on the right side.
“I'm a medic,” one of the soldiers said, and withdrew gloves from his bag.
The commanding officer stopped beside Zayne. “I take full responsibility for those families seeing this.”
He didn't care about hiding blood from the people out in the streets who normally lived such comfortable lives. He cared about the mother who watched her son right now, knowing they'd both die.
Zayne couldn't save her, but he might be able to save the boy.
“No one is going to like hearing about a child dying,” Zayne said. “Did he do anything?”
“No. It's the mother.”
“Then transport him to the hospital. I'll ask the Phaedra for grace. It'll garner favor with the public.”
The mother covered her mouth at this, not making a sound, though her desperation spoke loudly.
If this worked, he'd leave a son without his mother, and this one at such an early age. Looking into her eyes again, that hollow ache gaped inside him.
Zayne didn't need to say anything else to these soldiers. They'd get their asses handed to them soon enough. On his way out, he met the mother's eyes, unable to tell her she was a good mom, and this wasn't her fault.
Outside, soldiers instructed the civilians to leave the area.
Mellie ran to him and gave him back his jacket. “Thank you for giving me something to kneel on. You know how much I love this dress. It was so romantic of you.”
Romantic? Nothing about this situation was romantic. He made himself nod, not able to pretend to care about anything except that another brave woman would die.
Then, even though Mellie just watched a boy get smashed into the concrete, she slid her hands over his forearms, feeling along his seals. “You were incredible. You took control of the chaos.”
Disgust climbed up his throat at that hunger in her eyes. That lust for his power. She rose to her toes and kissed him hungrily, encouraging his arms to loop around her waist.
“I never get to see you work,” she said.
“You're not afraid?” he asked in a flat voice, forcing his hands to smooth against her back. Forcing himself to play along.
“Not with you protecting me.” Another sultry kiss before the kid's blood dried. “I need to watch you more often. I like it when you order everyone around.”
“Yeah?” Nausea filled him to whisper it against her lips.
“When can you go home?” she asked, the want in her eyes clear.
Zayne's skin crawled. He could go home right now, but he wasn't going to fuck her while they put a bullet in that poor woman's head. “This might keep me busy.”
She pouted but nodded. “I understand, Mr. Important.”
Mom's knowing voice flowed through his mind while he held Mellie in his arms.
“Don't marry Mellie.”
Wasn't this why he warned Kira about her loyalty?
It shouldn't have surprised him to see her reaction to cruelty, but it did.
Kira was right. Zayne needed to adjust his views of civilians and women because, for too long, he glossed over Mellie's complicity.
And why? Because she covered her crimes with a cute smile?
The empire relied upon people like Mellie as their facade of happiness.
Zayne wanted to shove her away from him and never touch her again. Never see her again. How did he end up here? What was wrong with him? Was Mellie another dose of pure PXI, another tank, another poison to cleanse him of his sins?
After Nadia cheated on him, he didn't want to risk his war against the Phaedra with something as painful as love. So, he chose a woman who deserved a terrible man like himself. He chose a woman who slept soundly while he lay awake beside her and never cared to uncover what nightmares he ran from.
“I'm glad you spared the boy,” Mellie said. “His mother almost got him killed. She doesn't deserve him.”
Thick, rancid blood clung to his nostrils.
His mother's blood.
His mother's blood pouring down Kira's face.
“They needed to die,” Zayne said numbly. Didn't he spare Mellie from this? He never made her own what she supported. This time, he wanted her to hear it said plainly. Wanted to see her agree with murder.
The smile that met him looked so innocent it made him feel sick. “Such a tragedy.”