"There's one more thing." Marcellus's voice is careful now. Gentler than I've ever heard it. "One of the donors who was killed. It was Clara Ellis."
The name hits me like a physical blow.
Clara Ellis. The woman I vetted on my first solo mission. The woman who asked good questions and wanted to know exactly what she was getting into. The woman who trusted me when I told her she'd be safe.
I vetted her. I brought her into the network.
And now she's dead.
"Celeste." Maximus's voice cuts through the spiral. His hand finds mine. Squeezes. "This isn't your fault."
"I vetted her. A week ago."
"And Konstantin has been planning this for months. He didn't kill her because of anything you did."
I know he's right. Logically, I know it.
But the guilt sits heavy in my chest anyway, a stone I don't know how to put down.
Marcellus disappears to coordinate the response. The door closes behind him, and for a moment it's just the two of us again, standing in the war room with the taste of each other still on our lips and the weight of six deaths pressing down.
Maximus turns to me. The commander slips, just for a second, revealing the man beneath.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "For the interruption. For all of this."
"Don't apologize for a crisis."
"I'm not apologizing for the crisis." His thumb brushes across my knuckles, a small gesture that shouldn't make my chest ache the way it does. "I'm apologizing because I know what that moment meant. What it cost you to let me that close. And now..."
"Now we have work to do."
"Yes." He doesn't let go of my hand. "But this isn't over. What's between us. It isn't over."
"I know."
"Whatever comes next, whatever we're walking into, I need you to know something first." He steps closer. Cups my face with his free hand, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone. "I don't regret a single second of what just happened. And when this is over, when we've dealt with Konstantin and the leak and whatever else he throws at us, I intend to pick up exactly where we left off."
My breath catches at the promise in his voice.
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a guarantee." He leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. Soft. Reverent. "Now let's go find out who betrayed us."
He releases me and moves toward the door, and I take a moment to collect myself. To straighten my clothes. To smooth my hair. To try to look like a professional instead of a woman who just came apart on the most powerful vampire in the city's fingers.
I fail. I don't care.
He pauses at the door, looking back at me. Something warm flickers in those gray eyes.
"Together?" he asks.
The question means more than just walking into a meeting.
"Together," I answer.
We walk out of that room side by side.
Everything is falling apart. Donors dead, a traitor in our midst, Konstantin circling closer with every strike.
