The name hit like iron. “Where?”
“One of our safehouses, I have got him contained for now.”
My grip tightened around the phone. “Tomorrow night. I’m coming with you. We’ll bleed him until we know every single detail. Every name, every coin trail, every filthy hand in this.”
Draugr’s voice was calm, steady. “Good. He’ll break fast, or he’ll die slow.”
I ended the call, sliding the phone back into my pocket, my mind already laying out the map of Keller’s destruction.
Inside, the house was still quiet when I returned. I stripped down and slid back into bed, Sorcha instinctively shifting toward me in her sleep, her small hand curling against my chest like she knew I was there.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight against me, and pressed a kiss into her hair. My fury could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, she needed this, needed me.
And God help the bastards who had touched her world.
Chapter 15
The first thing I felt was wrongness. My stomach lurched before my brain even woke properly, and I barely made it out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom as bile burned my throat. I dropped to my knees over the toilet, retching until there was nothing left.
I pressed my forehead against the cool porcelain, chest heaving. Confusion gnawed at me as I hadn’t eaten much last night, only a few bites before Lucien had decided feeding me himself was better than letting me argue. I should’ve been hungry, not sick.
When the shaking eased, I splashed water on my face, the pale, washed-out girl in the mirror hardly recognizable. The shadows under my eyes, the hair messy around my face, the faint mark of his bite still etched on my throat like a brand. His brand.
I wrapped a robe around myself and drifted down the stairs, my legs heavier than they should’ve been. The kitchen was quiet, and for once, I didn’t care that this house didn’t feel like mine yet. I wanted something normal. Boiling water, a mug between my hands, steam warming my face because it gave me a false sense of control.
The tea had barely touched my lips when I heard the footsteps. Ivan appeared in the doorway, broad as the damn doorframe, his sharp eyes scanning me like I was some puzzle he neededto solve. “You’re awake early,” he said, his voice calm but edged with that soldier’s steel. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m fine.” I wrapped both hands tighter around the mug. “Just… needed something hot.”
He didn’t look convinced. Ivan was the kind of man who didn’t believe in ‘fine.’ He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “You’re not used to this life yet.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “You think?”
His brows arched slightly, but he didn’t move. Silence stretched until words slipped out of me unbidden, maybe because he didn’t judge, maybe because his presence was steady in a way I hadn’t had in months.
“I had someone,” I admitted softly. “Before all this. Before I was taken.”
Ivan didn’t react, just waited.
“He cheated on me. I found out a year ago, it was some girl he’d been screwing behind my back.” My throat tightened. “I thought I’d been broken then. Thought nothing could hurt worse. Guess life decided to prove me wrong.”
Ivan’s jaw flexed, but his voice stayed even. “Then he wasn’t worth your time. A man who betrays his woman is already nothing.”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, to be honest I think I always knew, because even though I was with him it wasn’t as intense as it is with Lucien, but tell that to the part of me that can’t stop wondering what I did wrong for him to cheat and if that could happen again.”
His gaze softened, just barely, though the hard edge of discipline never left him. “You survived what would have killed most people. That’s not weakness, Sorcha. That’s strength. Don’t waste it thinking about someone who wasn’t man enough to keep you. Cheating is always on the person who does it, never on the one they betrayed.”
I blinked at him, surprised by the certainty in his tone. “You say that like it’s absolute.”
“It is,” Ivan replied, his voice carrying the weight of someone who’d lived through more than he ever said. “Weak men cheat because they’re empty inside. They look for something to fill that hollow and blame the woman they broke when it doesn’t. It was never about you not being enough, it was about him never being anything at all.”
The words landed like a stone in my chest, rippling outward. For months, I’d replayed it in my head, every stupid little detail like the lipstick on his shirt, the lies that never quite lined up, the way I’d felt when the truth finally crashed down. I’d picked myself apart over and over, wondering what flaw had made him stray, what I could’ve done differently.
And here was Ivan, a man who barely knew me, tearing through all of that with brutal simplicity.
Something in me eased, just a fraction.
“You sound so sure,” I whispered.
