Chapter 3 – Old Wounds,New Scars

Nicholas

The first time I saw Rafael Vega he wasn’t a threat. He was a shadow waiting to be used.

A name in a file, a pair of steady eyes in a room full of trembling ones.

I remember the warehouse light cutting through dust, the smell of oil and rust clinging to the air. He’d been brought in after a job gone sideways—half the crew scattered, one man missing, yet Rafe stood untouched. Calm. Too calm.

I asked him his name.

He said, Rafael Vega, sir.

No arrogance. No fear. Just that strange steadiness that made people listen before they meant to.

He was younger then—sharp-boned, lean, quiet. I should’ve dismissed him as another survivor looking for a place to hide, but something in me hesitated.

The same hesitation that would later destroy us both.

He learned fast. Loyal to a fault, or so I believed. I let him too close—closer than I ever had with anyone under my command. In meetings, he’d stand behind my chair, silent and watchful, eyes tracking every threat before I did. We were rhythm and reason; I spoke, he executed. And when he laughed—rarely—it felt like sunlight breaking through smoke.

I told myself I needed him for his precision.

But late nights in the office, when his reflection caught mine in the glass, I knew the truth was less rational.

That kind of loyalty becomes a mirror; you start seeing yourself in it until you forget which face is yours.

And then came the betrayal.

One operation. One signal mis-timed.

A warehouse burned, five of my men gone. Evidence pointed to Rafe. His codes, his frequency, his silence on the radio.

I didn’t even let him explain. I didn’t have to. Rage makes decisions faster than reason ever could.

Now, six months later, he’s in the room beneath my house, sitting on the cold floor where I ordered him kept. The man who once shadowed me like breath is reduced to a sound I hear through the walls—chains shifting, a slow exhale.

When I go down there tonight, I tell myself it’s only to look him in the eye and finish what I should’ve done.

But the truth curls darker than that.

---

Rafe

The lights never go completely out here. Nicholas keeps them low enough that you can forget what time feels like, bright enough that you can’t hide.

It’s been days—or maybe weeks—since they dragged me back to him. The first night, I thought he’d kill me outright. Instead, he hit me once. Not like an executioner. More like a man trying to wake a ghost.

He hasn’t touched me since.

Every night I hear his footsteps stop outside the door, but he never comes in right away. He waits. Makes me feel the weight of him on the other side.

When he finally enters, he brings the storm with him—still, cold, precise. He doesn’t ask questions anymore. He watches. Like he’s searching for something he can’t name.

Tonight is different. His tie is gone, shirt sleeves rolled, eyes darker than I remember.

“You still won’t speak?” he asks.

“What’s left to say?” My voice cracks on the dryness.

“Confession would be a start.”

I almost laugh. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

He steps closer until the faint scent of smoke and clean linen replaces the damp of the room. The same scent from that first day, years ago. I wonder if he remembers.

His gaze flickers—not anger, something else. “Try me.”

The words hang between us. I want to tell him the truth, that I didn’t sell him out, that the betrayal was a trap meant for both of us. But I know Nicholas Rhodes doesn’t forgive on faith. He forgives on evidence, and evidence is exactly what I don’t have.

“I warned you once,” he says softly, “about silence. It makes men think you’re hiding something.”

I look up. “And what do you think I’m hiding, Nicholas?”

For a second, his name catches on his breath. Then he straightens, armor sliding back into place. “Everything.”

He turns to leave, but the air changes before he reaches the door—a subtle vibration through the walls, the faint metallic groan of the security gates upstairs.

Nicholas freezes. I know that look; I’ve seen it before operations go bad.

He pulls his gun from the holster, flicks off the safety. “Stay here,” he mutters, though the lock on my chain makes it clear I have no other choice.

“Something’s wrong,” I whisper.

“Stay quiet.”

Then the sound hits—distant at first, then unmistakable: the rhythm of gunfire muffled by stone. One shot. Two. Then a string of them.

Nicholas’s eyes meet mine for half a second, cold calculation giving way to recognition.

“Someone found us,” I say.

He moves toward the stairs, but the first explosion shakes the ground. Dust rains from the ceiling. The lights flicker once, then die.

In the dark, I hear him curse under his breath—a sound I haven’t heard in years, raw and human.

The door slams shut behind him.

And I’m left alone with the echo of everything we never said.

---

Nicholas

I taught him everything—how to move, how to survive, how to be loyal to someone who commands more than respect. And somewhere in those lessons, I began to feel more than I should have. Dangerous. Quietly magnetic.

And then the warehouse burned. Evidence pointed to him. Rage drove me. I struck him once before I even asked questions. Not enough to kill, just enough to remind him he had broken something fragile between us.

Now he sits below me, the air thick with the past and unspoken threats. The faint light from the camera flickers, casting his face in shifting shadows. Every breath he takes feels like a challenge and a confession at once.

---

Rafe

The door slams behind him, leaving me in the dim light that never fully fades. My chains scrape across the concrete floor. I can feel the tremor in my own arms—the kind that comes from being watched, weighed, measured.

Then the sound hits—outside the heavy metal door, a muffled pop-pop-pop, the rhythm of gunfire. The first explosion shudders through the floor. Dust rains from the ceiling, and I know this is no coincidence.

Nicholas’s voice cuts through the chaos: “Stay down!”

I obey, but instinct urges me forward. I want to run, to act, to do something. I can’t.

A second explosion shakes the ground. Screams echo through the mansion. My heart hammers, but beneath the fear, something else rises—hope. Hope that he’s not leaving me here to burn.

---

Nicholas

The security gate had been compromised. I know it before I see the first intruder—a shadow moving faster than a man should in the dark. Gunfire cracks the night. I move with the rhythm of years, precision and muscle memory keeping me alive, keeping us alive.

Then I hear it: a shift in the basement. Smoke curling upward, a soft, restrained cough. My blood freezes.

“Rafe!” I shout, and every instinct screams that he’s in danger.

I dive toward the stairs, bullets sparking against the railing, glass shattering around me. A beam falls between us. The floor beneath him groans. Without hesitation, I shove him out of the way, my shoulder taking the brunt. Pain blooms, but it doesn’t matter. Not now.

I pull him up, his eyes wide, catching mine. For a heartbeat, all the anger, all the betrayal, all the obsession—everything unspoken—fills that look. And I don’t flinch.

“Move!” I bark, hauling him through the smoke-filled corridor. We navigate fallen beams and overturned furniture, the chaos around us a blur.

---

Rafe

Nicholas’s hand on my wrist is firm, unyielding. His other hand clears debris, pushes me through tight spaces I wouldn’t have survived alone. The heat, the smoke, the roar of destruction—it’s terrifying, but his presence steadies me.

“Why…?” I gasp.

“Don’t ask questions!” he snaps, but his eyes betray him—he’s alive, yes, but so very, achingly human beneath the control he tries to hold.

Somewhere between the gunfire and falling plaster, I realize something I’ve never admitted: I don’t just need to survive. I need him. Even when I shouldn’t.

---

Nicholas

We reach a collapsed doorway, breathing thick in the dust. My chest burns from exertion, from the anger, from the pull I cannot name. I push Rafe behind me, ready to cover him, ready to fight the world and everything in it.

He meets my gaze again. The defiance hasn’t left him. That’s the danger, the draw, the part I cannot destroy even if I try.

A sudden shift in the hall—a shadow, a sound—and I fire instinctively, moving him behind a beam. Smoke thickens; the heat makes it hard to see, but I don’t hesitate. I won’t let him die. Not to anyone.

---

Rafe

I’ve never felt so small and so alive at once. Nicholas moves like a predator and a guardian all at once, his presence radiating power and something softer I don’t have words for. He drags me further into the wreckage, until we find temporary shelter in a corner hallway, hidden, breathing.

I can hear my own pulse. His, too, though quieter—tighter. He’s scanning, calculating. I know he saved me. I know he could’ve left me to the fire. But he didn’t.

And I hate him for it. For making me need him.

---

We crouch in the darkened hallway, smoke curling around us. He finally speaks, voice low, almost tender amidst the chaos:

“Stay close. Don’t move.”

I nod, barely daring to breathe.

A muffled step somewhere above. The sound of a gun being cocked. I glance at him. His eyes meet mine, unreadable and impossible.

And then—silence.

Only the distant echo of footsteps, and the sense that the danger isn’t over.

The mansion shudders again. And we both know, without speaking, that whatever comes next, we’ll face it together—or not at all.