Only fear.
Not of death.
Death would have been quick. Predictable. A risk he’d accepted the moment he chose to betray everyone around him.
This is different.
He’ll stand before the families whose names he traded away, the people who buried sons and daughters because my brother decided their lives were worth less than his ambition. Whatever judgment they pass belongs to them. Mine ended the moment I lowered my fist.
I nod, and the enforcers haul Kazren away. His protests fade with every step until the old corridors swallow them completely, leavingthe maintenance bay wrapped once more in the low hum of dormant machinery. The silence that follows feels unfamiliar. For as long as I can remember there has always been another move to anticipate, another threat waiting beyond the next door, another lesson Father expected me to survive.
There isn’t one anymore.
I stand in the middle of the bay, breathing air that suddenly feels lighter than it did only minutes ago, and realize I don’t know what comes next. My entire life has been measured against Father’s expectations, Kazren’s schemes and the endless calculations needed to survive inside House Sethrak. Without them, the future stretches in front of me like ground I’ve never walked before.
Miro’s hand slips quietly into mine, holding on as though she has no intention of ever letting go again. “I knew you’d stop.”
“You were certain?”
She nods, her eyes searching mine. “Not because he deserved it. Because you do.”
The words settle somewhere deep inside me. All my life I’d been measured by strength. By obedience. By the things I was willing to do in Father’s name. Today I walked away from the one thing he could never have understood.
Today I chose mercy over vengeance.
I don’t know whether I’ll ever be the male Miro believes I am. There is too much blood on my hands for that. Too many choices I can’t undo.
But standing beside her, with her hand in mine…
Now I want to try.
“Let’s go home,” she says.
Home. A place I no longer have to defend. Home is her. I close my fingers around hers, and together we leave the darkness behind.
Chapter Twenty
MIRO
Zavin’s fingers remain wrapped around mine as we leave the maintenance bay. His grip never loosens, but I feel the faint tremor running through his hand. The heaviness in his step. The drop in his shoulders.
The enforcers drag Kazren past us. His head hangs forward, dark hair matted with blood, one boot scraping across the deck plating as they haul him towards the tunnels. Maybe I should feel pity for the male, but it doesn’t come. All I see is a male who would kill me and forget about me by dinner and a brother who chose power over blood.
Zavin doesn’t spare him a glance. His eyes remain fixed ahead, his expression unreadable to anyone who didn’t know him, but I see the weight of everything land on him. He hasn’t just ended a war. He’s buried the last of his family.
I squeeze his fingers, wanting him to know he isn’t standing in the aftermath alone. His thumb brushes once across the back of my hand before curling around it again, and something inside me settles.
I understand him. Not every choice he’s ever made. Not every secret he’s kept. But the male beneath all of it. The male who put a bullet in Tevan’s head and who now holds me so gently is the same male. Fierceenough to do what no one else will. Gentle enough to carry another person’s pain as though it belongs to him.
Helix had taught me that people were assets, liabilities, and variables to control. House Sethrak had taught Zavin something even crueler. It had taught him that love could be weaponized, that loyalty was earned through fear and that survival demanded blood. We were both shaped by places that had tried to strip away the best parts of us.
The difference was that he’d fought his way back.
I don’t blame him for what he did.
I never will.
The elevator doors slide shut with a heavy clang, sealing us inside the small metal compartment. The moment they do, every bruise, every cut and every place I’d ignored comes alive. Pain surges through my shoulder in a brutal throb. My ribs ache with every inhale. My split lip burns. Even my knees protest beneath my weight, suddenly too weak to keep holding me upright.
