Page 60 of Veil of Ashes

I hold up the recorder, blood streaking my hand, my breath still ragged from the fury boiling inside me. “Enzo’s alive,” I say, the words bitter on my tongue as I force them out, “he ran, left us, and recorded this confession like it fixes anything.”

Kieran drops to a crouch beside me, his knee brushing mine, a jolt of warmth sparking through my skin despite the cold rage. He takes the recorder, turning it over in his calloused hands, brows knitting tight as he weighs the truth I’ve just unearthed.

“He didn’t die,” I say, voice trembling with the weight of a decade’s lies, my fingers curling into fists on my thighs. “He abandoned us, Kieran, let me think he was gone, let me bleed for nothing all this time.”

He sets the recorder down, his hand finding my shoulder, warm and firm against my shaking frame as his touch steadies me.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, low and hard, his fingers tightening with a heat that stirs something alive beneath my anger.

I lean into him, my forehead grazing his chest, the scent of sweat and leather flooding my senses as my body hums. My skin prickles, torn between breaking apart in his arms and pulling him closer to drown out the pain.

“We’re finding him,” I say, lifting my eyes to meet his, dark and fierce with a fire that matches the blaze in my gut.

He nods once, jaw tight, his grip sliding down my arm like a vow etched in the air between us.

I stand, pulling him up with me, glass grinding under our boots as we rise together in the wreckage of my past.

Blood drips from my finger, a slow red trail marking the floor like a path I’m carving forward.

“We’re going to Pahrump,” I say, voice steady now, slicing through the haze of betrayal as I lock eyes with him. “He’s out there, and I’m dragging him back to face every damn wound he left behind.”

Kieran steps closer, his chest brushing mine, heat radiating through his torn shirt as he towers over me, steady and unyielding.

“We will do this together,” he says, simple and solid, sealing our pact in the splintered chaos around us.

I pick up a shard of the mirror, its edge biting my palm as I hold it tight, blood welling up again. My reflection fractures in it, a jagged piece of the woman I’ve become, staring back fierce and unbroken.

The workshop holds its breath, golden light fading as the day slips away, leaving us in the glow of our resolve. I toss the shard aside, its clatter echoing sharp as I turn to Kieran, ready to hunt.

Chapter 21 – Kieran

The desert is brittle tonight. Wind cuts through the dark like it’s looking for someone to punish.

We’ve driven two hours past anything living—no lights, no sound, nothing but dust and the whisper of tires grinding old gravel. The road stopped ten minutes ago. Now it’s just dirt, rock, and memory.

Sylvara walks half a pace behind me, rifle slung, pistol visible at her hip. Her face is unreadable. All focus. No breath wasted. Every step she takes is tighter than the last.

We round a bend, and there it is.

The bunker doesn’t look like much. Just a hatch, part metal, part stone, buried into the belly of the rock. Fencing sags around the perimeter, rusted and rattling in the wind. A half-moon hangs overhead, pale and watching.

Before I can raise my hand to knock, the door creaks open on its own.

Enzo D’Agostino stands in the threshold.

He’s older than the file photos. Grayer, more sunken. But it’s him. The eyes are the same—sharp, hard, the kind that measure your soul in seconds.

“You found me,” he says.

That’s it. No emotion. No surprise. Just a man stating a fact.

Sylvara doesn’t speak. Her shoulder shifts, like a reflex she won’t let herself follow through.

I step between them. Not a threat. Just in place.

Gun drawn, lowered. Not aimed. Not friendly.

Enzo doesn’t blink. He steps aside.

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