3. A Union In Blood

The walls don’t echo like your typical empty space. But the silence suffocates, pressing in tight like a second skin stretched over raw nerves. It fills every inch of this windowless box until the air tastes sterile and still, like a hospital after the last heartbeat stops.

I’ve memorized the room. Every inch of it. Counted the cracks in the tiles beneath my boots, the scratches on the metal edge of the bedframe, and the slow, uneven drip of the sink that refuses to fully shut off. I’ve cataloged every breath I’ve taken since he left—every shallow inhale, every slow exhale I use to keep from screaming.

Sleep doesn’t come again. Not in this place. Not with adrenaline still humming through my veins like electricity wired wrong. Not with betrayal curled up inside my chest like barbed wire.

And rage. Always rage.

I’m not used to being caged. Not like this. Not by someone whose voice makes my skin crawl and my blood simmer. Someone who makes my spine itch to snap just to spite him.

But I won’t give him that. I won’t give Hale Holt the satisfaction of watching me bend.

The footsteps come late, slow and deliberate, each one practically begging me to lose my shit. The hallway groans with anticipation like the house itself knows it’s about to witness something ugly.

I shoot off the bed and stand tall, chin up, fists tight. If I’m going to be dragged, it won’t be while I’m on my knees.

The lock clicks, and the door opens.

There he is.

Filling the doorway with too much presence, too much calm, dressed in black again—always black—like mourning is a permanent state of being. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, revealing the sinuous lines of ink wrapping around his forearms, runes, symbols, and names that look like they were carved into him with teeth.

He walks in like he owns the oxygen, like he’s here to remind me this is his world now.

“You’re quiet this morning,” he says, tone lazy.

I grin, sharp and mean. “Trying not to vomit at the sight of you.”

“Save the dramatics, Calistra.”

“Save your breath, Hellbringer. I stopped caring what you think the minute you manhandled me like a sack of potatoes.”

A twitch of his mouth. Not a smile. A flicker. Like I hit a nerve and he liked it.

He crosses the room and drops a manila folder onto the desk with the flair of someone revealing a magic trick.

“I brought you something.”

“Is it your severed head? No? Shame.”

His brows lift. He taps the folder. “What your brothers left behind. During the chaos. Communication transcripts. Log entries. Surveillance stills. And one obituary you might want to see.”

My stomach clenches.

But I don’t give him the reaction he wants. I walk over, snatch the folder, and flip it open like I’m not afraid of what’s inside.

Photo. Timestamped. Blurry but damning.

My brothers. Over a wreck. Gas can in hand. One of them looking away.

Lower right corner—

A toy. Plastic. Bright. Tiny.

I slam the folder shut. “There weren’t supposed to be kids.”

“You followed orders without question,” Hale says. “Makes you just as guilty.”

“I swear to God—” I spin, eyes blazing. “Do not sit there and pretend you’re some morally superior psychopath. You’ve killed more people than I can count.”

“Yes,” he says simply. “And I remember every face.”

The silence stretches, thick and hot.

“I don’t want your apologies,” he says. “I want your clarity. You either belong in this world, or you don’t. You choose blood or redemption. But you don’t get both.”

I laugh—dry, humorless. “Spare me the philosophy. You kidnapped me.”

“No.” He tilts his head. “I spared you.”

“Right. You spared me so you could play dress-up husband. Real noble.”

“You were marked for death the second you crossed me,” Hale says. “But I saw something else.”

He takes a step closer.

“You’re not loyal to Burke anymore. You just haven’t admitted it.”

“I am loyal,” I snap. Too fast. Too raw.

“Then why are you shaking?”

I swing before I can stop myself.

He catches my wrist. Effortless. Bastard.

“Still testing limits,” he drawls. “Still hoping I won’t do what needs to be done.”

He lets go.

My hand drops like dead weight. My chest is heaving, my jaw clenched so tight it hurts.

“Why the marriage?” I ask, voice low. “Why not just kill me and get your revenge?” “Because your father needs to learn what real loss feels like,” he says. “Not fire. Not fury. But what it’s like to rot from the inside. To revel in eternal pain.”

I pace to the bed like it’s a minefield. Sit down hard. “Then get on with it.”

“Tomorrow,” he says. “We announce the engagement.”

My stomach flips. “You expect me to smile through it?”

“I expect you to survive it.”

“And if I don’t?”

He pauses at the door.

“Then don’t bother waking up.”

The door clicks shut.

I mutter under my breath, “I hope you choke on your own fucking breath.”

And just like that, the room feels smaller. Colder. I pace. I count the steps again—twelve from wall to wall, five from the bed to the sink, six back to the door. I trace the old scar on my shoulder, the one Maddox gave me when he decided that pain was the best way to teach obedience. “A lesson,” he called it as if slicing into me made him a mentor and not a monster. I think about Ryker. His voice behind that tinted window. “You’re a weight we can’t carry.” Not a goodbye. Not even a lie. Just the truth, clean and cruel. I sit on the floor, knees drawn up, head tilted against the wall.

***

The knock at dawn is a punch to the gut. The door opens without waiting for an answer. Two guards step in—expressionless, dressed in black, all edges and silence.

Behind them stands a woman. Tall. Composed. Not a hair out of place. Cream blouse, quiet heels, and a long black dress bag slung over one shoulder. Her eyes rake over me with clinical detachment. “Mr. Holt said to prepare you.”

I raise a brow. “What, no breakfast in bed?”

She side-eyes me as she unzips the garment bag, and silver silk spills free, fluid, and luminous, casting ribbons of reflected light across the bare wall.

“You’ll be expected in the east wing in one hour,” she says, unpacking a sleek brush set from a compact case. “The families will be present. Allies. Enemies. Holt will speak.”

“How charming. I didn’t realize I was the opening act.”

Ignoring my comment, she gestures to the mirror with a flick of her wrist. “Come. Stand still.”

I sigh and force my limbs to move. Every part of me resists, but I obey—because that’s what survival looks like now.

I considered pushing Hellbringer far enough that he’d put a bullet in my head and call it a day. But then I thought of Belle. Of her smile, her silence, her hope. I couldn’t do it.

So I shifted the plan. Rewired it.

Play along—for now.

Until I find the crack in his world wide enough to escape through.

I stare blankly at the mirror as she sweeps powder over my cheekbones, my mind drifting. Not on beauty. Not on appearances. Only on the quiet, brutal calculus of how and when I’ll make my move.