Page 86 of Breaker

She doesn’t respond and just stares numbly at the wall of pictures. Between whatever happened tonight and what I just told her, I worry I may have sent her over the edge. It’s killing me not knowing what happened. Everything in me wants to force her to talk, tell me so I can figure out a way to prevent it from happening again. But it’s obvious she isn’t, so I must accept that she’ll tell me when she wants to.

Ifshe wants to.

Still, it eats at me. Harlow’s angry, mortified expression tells me it was bad, and I keep picturing Zane or Rune forcing her to do vile things, but I have to shove it away because that tightness clenches my lungs. That dark, slinking feeling gathers in my chest, and I worry it will break free, and there will be no stopping me from killing them both.

I’d be doing the world a favor, but then the hunts would just continue. And we’ll never get what we need. What Reaper needs.

I have to wait.

We have to wait for Delilah to be ready for any of this to work.

Cora glances around, exhaustion etched into every line of her face. “I’m tired.”

My exhale is one of pure exasperation. Of course, she’s tired. She must be exhausted. In every way possible. She’s been trying to survive the devil.

I’ve never felt so ill-equipped to handle a situation in my life. As children, we were each other’s only support at the school. We are bonded by cruelty and secrets. And made into hard, cold soldiers. Cora and Delilah are soft, gentle creatures compared to our harsh, jagged edges. I have no idea how to care for her properly. All we do is fuck and move on. We didn’t stay in any place long enough to form any bonds with people, even if we wanted to.

Until them.

Then we latched on to Cora and Delilah like crazed, starved men and become obsessed with them. As much as Reaper has done his best to keep this a mission, we all know it was a lie.

He’s just as obsessed.

Fallon’s words drift through my mind like poison.

She’ll never forgive you. She’ll hate you when she finds out the truth.

He’s right. And Cora will, too.

“Shouldn’t I be the one having a breakdown right now?” Cora says, snapping my thoughts back to the tiny redhead before me. “You look like you’re having an existential crisis.”

Little does she know I am.

I take her hand and lead her to the stairs. “You’re staying here tonight.”

“I have to go back,” she says, tugging her hand free. “I can’t stay here. Rune will—“

“Rune will believe whatever Harlow tells him,” I say, gripping her wrist and pulling her along. “You’re staying with me tonight, and we’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”

She doesn’t protest. She must realize there’s no room for argument. I guess she learned a few things about us the last few weeks.

When we reach my bedroom door, I glance at her as I push it open, watching her reaction to my personal space. She takes a step through the door, and I realize justhowmuch she trusts us. She’s trusted us with her body. She’s trusting us with her safety. That we’re true to our word and will find a way to steal her back.

She doesn’t know us. Neither woman does. They know our bodies and how we make them feel on a physical level, but they don’t know us as men. That we’re all broken pieces taped together by our loyalty to one another. They don’t know that the love we gave each other was the only true affection we received in such a cold and unforgiving environment. That it morphed and changed over the years.

Father’s love hurt. Fallon had none to give, only scars that we carry inside and out.

“Nice,” she says, looking around my room.

I grab a shirt from my dresser and hand it to her. She rubs the material of the cotton between her fingers, looking around at my books and the thick, creamy comforter. The blinds covering the small window. How soft and delicate everything looks against the chipped walls and metal struts overhead.

“It was you,” she says. “The bedding. You made sure we had nice things.”

And dresses, but I keep that to myself.

I step back into the hall, my hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to get you something to drink.”

Sill gently caressing the shirt, her startling green eyes meet mine. “Are we talking water or something to numb my brain?”

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