“Lena,” he said carefully.
My chest tightened, panic creeping in now that I realized what I had done.
I had spoken.
Knox’s hand cupped the side of my face again.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Easy.”
His thumb brushed away the tears still sliding down my cheeks.
“You’re okay. You did so good letting us touch you,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”
His reassurances, praise, and scent wrapped around me,grounding the sudden storm of emotion rushing through my chest.
“This is progress,” he continued quietly. “You needed this.”
His forehead rested briefly against mine.
“We’re going to keep doing this,” he promised. “Keep practicing touch with you. Keep helping you find your voice again.”
I tracked his hand as it slid to the back of my head, fingers gentle in my hair.
“We’ll rebuild every piece of you he tried to break,” Knox said softly. “Until you’re whole again.”
Silas finally looked back at me, his eyes dark and unwavering. His voice cut through the quiet from where he stood by the window.
“He didn’t just leave scars on you.”
His fist balled as his gaze dropped briefly, before lifting again.
“He fed something in us.”
A slow breath left him.
“Seeing what he did to you fed the rage Knox and I have carried since our mother died. It poured fuel on every violent, ugly thing already simmering inside us.”
His fingers curled against the arm of the chair.
“And now it’s certain.”
Silas’s voice turned cold with promise.
“Marco won’t get a quick death.”
Another pause.
“Every pain he carved into you,” he said, “we’re going to carve back into him.”
His eyes locked with mine again.
“Piece by piece.”
Knox didn’t react to Silas’s violent promise.
Not a flicker of surprise. Not a word of caution.
He accepted it the same way he accepted most things that came from his brother: easily, without question, as if the promise of torture was simply another fact of the world.
