My gun hand trembled. Not just with rage, but with the terrible weight of understanding.
Brock’s expression darkened with genuine anger, shadows stretching across his face as he moved closer. He set the photograph down on the desk between us. “After I sold you to Oblivion, I decided to claim what I’d created. After all, I’d chosen her, groomed her for this world. She belonged with the mastermind, not the muscle.”
The room tilted beneath my feet. I saw her now—Sofia sitting alone at our dining table, staring out the windows at freedom she couldn’t reach. The untouched plate. The empty glass that once held wine.
“But she refused me.” Brock’s voice turned dangerous, dropping to an intimate tone that made my skin crawl. “She pushed me away. Said she couldn’t bear to be with another monster.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “As if she had a choice.”
“No,” I whispered, the word barely audible.
“Staging her suicide was simple,” Brock continued, savoring each syllable. He reached for the photograph again, turning it face-down. “Everyone knew how unhappy she was as your wife. No one questioned that she’d finally broken. All those paper headlines came so handy to bury everything. With your absence, things just… added up so wonderfully.”
The gun grew impossibly heavy. My finger still wouldn’t move on the trigger.
Brock stepped back, adjusting his cufflinks with clinical detachment. “It was a business decision, really. Loose ends and all that. I’m sure you understand.”
His fingers worked the platinum with practiced ease, the same fingers that had signed Sofia’s death warrant. My vision narrowed to a pinpoint, everything peripheral fading to static. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat driving Sofia’s face deeper into my consciousness.
“Once we get you back where you belong, there’s the matter of the journalist.” His voice dropped to a silky whisper. He leaned forward, one hand braced on the desk. “She’s become quite the liability. I’ll need to deal with her personally, just like Sofia. Consider it compensation for the trouble you’ve caused. Though, I will have my fun with Maeve. That much, I can promise you.”
Something snapped inside me. Not like the conditioning breaks—this was deeper, more primal. The frozen part of me that had been watching, calculating, and analyzing shattered into rage. The thought of him touching Maeve, of her ending up like Sofia, made everything crystallize with terrible clarity. I wouldn’t let him take another person I loved. Not again. Never again.
I dropped the gun.
Brock’s eyes widened a fraction—the first genuine surprise he’d shown. He didn’t understand—didn’t realize that the weapon was holding me back.
I lunged across the space between us with inhuman speed. The pistol fell forgotten from my grasp as primal need overwhelmed me—to crush, to tear, to destroy him with my bare hands.
My fingers locked around Brock’s throat as we crashed into the ironwood desk. Glass shattered as the crystal decanter toppled. The stench of expensive liquor filled the air, mixing with sweat and cologne. Brock’s eyes widened momentarily before a knowing smile crept across his face.
“Anchor. Vessel. Marionette.”
The words hit me like physical blows. Each syllable drove spikes of agony through my skull, fracturing my vision into kaleidoscopic shards. I maintained my grip, but my arms trembled with sudden, inexplicable weakness.
“Did you think,” Brock wheezed through my loosening hold, “I wouldn’t have… my own failsafe?”
I redoubled my efforts, slamming him against the desk. Papers scattered. A monitor crashed to the floor. The room spun around us in a whirlwind of motion and destruction.
“Anchor. Vessel. Marionette.”
He repeated the words more deliberately, enunciating each like a gleeful sadist. White-hot agony exploded behind my eyes, turning my vision crimson. Vertigo slammed into me as if the floor had dropped away. A metallic taste flooded my mouth as blood trickled from my nose. My grip faltered completely.
Brock slipped free like water through fingers, straightening his tie with one hand while shoving me backward with the other. I staggered, legs suddenly uncooperative, mind fragmenting.
“A little insurance policy the Director doesn’t know about,” Brock explained, brushing imaginary dust from his immaculate suit. His voice sounded distant, distorted beneath the thunder of my own heartbeat. “I personally added these triggers during your initial conditioning. Just between us partners.”
Each word dripped with sarcasm as he circled me. The room tilted violently. Objects—desk, chairs, shattered glass—shifted in and out of focus. My knees buckled beneath me.
I dropped to the floor, my legs folding uselessly beneath me. My pistol clattered against hardwood, sliding away frommy reach. I lunged for it, but my coordination had abandoned me. My fingers grasped emptiness.
“It’s beautiful, really,” Brock continued, pacing with methodical steps. He retrieved the gun from the floor, turning it over in his hands with appreciation. “The great Ronan Graves, kneeling before me at last.”
I struggled against the invisible weight crushing down on me. My vision alternated between crystal clarity and foggy confusion with each hammering heartbeat. Every muscle screamed as I fought to stand, managing only to raise myself to one knee before collapsing again.
“I’ve waited years for this moment,” Brock said, voice dropping to an intimate whisper. “To see you exactly where you belong. At my knees. Obeying whatever the hell I tell you to do.”
My body trembled violently as I fought the programming. I tried to hold onto things—Maeve, our mission, Specter, a new life I could live if we handled this. I had come too far just to lose all of it to a bastard like Brock. But the more I fought, the worse the agony inside me erupted, threatening to swallow me whole. Every muscle strained against the invisible chains tightening around my mind.
Brock circled me like a predator making its final assessment before consuming its prey. His shoes thumped against the floor with each step, the sound hammering into my fractured consciousness.
