Page 35 of Lost in Fire

“Which is?”

“A way out.” My voice breaks on the words. “A chance at freedom. At a life where she doesn’t have to hide what she is.”

He stares at me for a long moment, processing everything I’ve told him. When he speaks again, his voice is deadly quiet.

“You should have trusted me.”

“Hargen—”

“From the beginning, you should have trusted me enough to let me choose. To let me help decide what was best for our family.”

Our family.

God, those words make my heart break.

“I couldn’t risk—”

“You couldn’t risk losing control.” He moves closer, each step deliberate. “You couldn’t risk letting someone else make decisions about your life. About our daughter’s life.”

“That’s not—”

“Isn’t it?” He’s close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “You’ve spent all this time playing puppet master. Pulling strings. Making choices for everyone else while hiding behind masks and lies.”

“I did what I had to do!”

“You did what was easiest for you!” His control finally snaps. “You chose the path that let you feel in charge, even if it meant destroying everything else!”

The words hit like a slap. Because underneath the anger, underneath the pain, there’s truth. Terrible, inescapable truth.

“I was scared,” I whisper. “I was so scared—”

“We could have been scared together.” His voice drops to something raw. Broken. “We could have figured it out together.”

The guilt I’ve carried for decades finally overwhelms my defenses. “I know. God, Hargen, I know. I’ve made mistakes—terrible mistakes—but I was trying to keep you both safe.”

“Both?” He tilts his head. “Is that what you believed when you chose execution while carrying our child?”

The accusation makes my breath catch. “I had no idea I was pregnant until after, Hargen, I swear it.”

“Jesus.” He rubs his eyes. “And then you became the Shadowhand.”

“Only later. When Cassia showed me how it would help me stop hiding. To the rest of the Syndicate, Vanya Arrowvane was dead. For five years, I didn’t ‘fit’ anywhere. Not in my clan. Not outside the Syndicate. Being the Shadowhand gave me a place to belong again.”

“Among people who would kill you if they knew who you were.”

“They wouldn’t find out. The position is strictly anonymous, and Cassia manipulated my clan records to make sure that my credentials would never be questioned. It was the best possible way to keep Ember safe.”

“By sacrificing yourself? By becoming someone you hate?”

“By doing whatever it took.” The confession tears from my throat. “Even if it meant losing myself. Even if it meant you could never forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” He reaches out, fingers brushing my cheek. “Vanya, I never stopped loving you.”

The touch undoes me completely. All the walls I’ve built, all the careful structure I’ve maintained—it crumbles under the weight of his words.

“I never stopped loving you either,” I whisper. “Not for a single day.”

He cups my face in his hands, thumbs tracing the paths of tears I didn’t realize I was crying. “Then why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me the truth?”

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