Page 117 of Wilde and Deadly

The pieces snapped together with brutal clarity. Dropping Daphne at HQ. The gut feeling he couldn’t explain, the certainty that had sent him straight to the café to warn Cade and Davey.

And Brody—waiting for him.

The pain in his head.

A vague memory of gunfire.

And then... nothing.

A few feet away, Brody stood, arms crossed, watching him with a casual detachment that set Liam’s teeth on edge. Too calm. Too at ease for someone who had just betrayed everyone.

Liam swallowed against the nausea rolling through him, blinking hard to clear his vision. His head throbbed, but something else was wrong. His ears?—

Silence.

No breathing. No footsteps. No quiet hum of the city vibrating around him. Just an eerie, static-filled void where sound should be. The wrongness of it sent a cold spike of adrenaline through him. His implant—fucked.

But then?—

“…ghost station.”

The words cut through the static, distant but there, muffled like he was hearing them from the other side of thick glass. The smaller noises—shifts in Brody’s stance, the click of his boot against concrete—were missing. Gone. But voices, louder sounds, those still bled through the distortion, warping at the edges.

He clenched his jaw, keeping his expression neutral. He couldn’t let Brody see how much he couldn’t hear.

“Did you know the city’s got plenty of these?” Brody’s voice echoed through the vast emptiness, bouncing off the tiles, its cadence sharper than the words themselves. “‘Course you did. You grew up here. You and all of your fucking cousins probably used them like your own personal playground.”

Liam watched him pace, hands in his pockets, posture lazy but calculated. He should have heard the subtle shifts in weight, the scrape of fabric against fabric as Brody moved—but there was nothing. Just the vacuum, swallowing everything that wasn’t sharp enough to punch through the interference.

Brody scoffed. “There are so fucking many of you Wildes—” He broke off. Looked up. “Huh. Think that’s them coming for you?” he asked, eyes tracking something Liam couldn’t hear.

Liam didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. Let the words settle. Then he fired back, low and steady?—

“I think it’s Sullivan coming foryou.”

The flinch was small, but Liam saw it. A hesitation—just a fraction too long. “You leave my brother’s name out of your mouth. He’s not involved.”

“You involved him when you betrayed us.”

Brody’s expression tightened, something raw flashing across his face before he snapped, “He’s not one of you!” The words came out sharp, clipped—too fast and too certain. Like he needed them to be true. “He’ll see reason soon enough.”

But the way his jaw tensed, the way his fingers curled just a little too tightly at his sides—Liam wasn’t sure which of them Brody was trying to convince more.

“Then you don’t know your twin at all.” He flexed his fingers against the cuffs, testing. Too tight. Circulation cut off, fingers numb.Fuck.“Sullivan doesn’t follow. He never has. And he will absolutely not see your reasoning for turning traitor, no matter what it is.”

Brody’s jaw flexed, a muscle jumping near his temple.

“So you can spin it however you want. Tell yourself you’re playing the long game. That you had no choice. But when this is over?” Liam held his gaze, let his voice go quiet, deliberate. “Sully’s never gonna see you as anything other than exactly what you are.”

For the first time, Brody’s smirk slipped completely. He exhaled, short and sharp, nostrils flaring. Resentment, frustration—raw anger—flashed across his face before he locked it down again.

Liam let the silence stretch. It was the only weapon available to him, and he was going to wield it to his full advantage. Luckily, he and silence were old friends.

He waited. Watched. Made Brody stew in it.

Then, when it was heavy enough, when it pressed just the right way?—

“Why?” Quiet. Steel-edged. A scalpel of a question.

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