Page 66 of Veil of Ashes

“He wasn’t dead,” she says softly. “He just chose not to be found.”

She turns her face toward the wind.

“And maybe that's worse.”

Chapter 22 – Sylvara

The second the door clicks shut behind me, I lunge forward, moving fast like I can outrun the ghost of Enzo’s voice still ringing in my ears. My boots smack the hardwood floor, keys clattering loud against the counter. I shoulder into the fridge on purpose, the cold metal biting through my dress, pain jolting through me—sharp, real. I cling to it like a lifeline, anything to cut through the static in my chest.

I need it, that sharp sting, something solid to feel beyond the ache gnawing beneath my ribs and the churn twisting my chest. The safehouse hangs heavy with smoke and dust and Kieran’s scent, everything too still as the dull gold lamps cast long shadows that seem to watch my every move.

I grab a bottle of cheap bourbon off the counter, fingers fumbling with the cap until it twists free in my unsteady grip. Amber liquid splashes into a cracked tumbler, sloshing over the rim to trickle sticky down my wrist, and I leave it there, a wet trail I don’t bother to swipe away.

The door locks with a low, metallic snap, a sound that cuts through the quiet behind me.

Kieran stays silent, his presence a heat I feel without looking.

I don’t turn around, not yet, lifting the tumbler to my lips with a hand that won’t quit shaking. The bourbon scorches down my throat, a rough burn that slices through the cold knotting under my ribs, waking me up just enough to breathe.

“You knew,” I say at last, my voice low but sharp enough to slice. “Maybe not all of it, but enough—about the bunker, about Enzo. You saw the flagged entries in the ledger. The coded shipments. The coordinates that didn’t fit. You had pieces and buried them. Like they were noise. Like they didn’t matter.”

He exhales, a steady sound that fills the space, controlled and measured like always. “I heard whispers,” he says from behind me, voice calm, “not proof, not details, just rumors floating in the dark.”

“And that was enough to keep it locked up tight?” I spin to face him, tumbler clutched in my fist as I meet his steady gaze. “You let me walk into that bunker blind, let it tear me apart while you sat on shadows you could’ve shared?”

“I didn’t have anything solid,” he replies, voice even as he stands there, unshaken by the fire spitting from my words. “I didn’t want to believe any of it was real until I saw it with my own eyes.”

My laugh rips out, sharp and bitter, slamming into the bare walls. “That’s your excuse, Kieran? Hoping it was all just noise in your head?”

He steps forward, then freezes, arms loose but eyes locked. A pulse flickers hard in his jaw.

“At first, you were a lead,” he says. “A connection to Enzo—maybe a shortcut to cracking open the silence around him.”

My spine stiffens, every nerve tight.

“I didn’t know what you were walking into,” he says. “And I didn’t think I’d stay in it this long. I didn’t think I’d want to.”

His words thud in the air, heavier than anger.

“But I never used you. Not like that. I followed your lead because you knew the landscape better than I ever could. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the case. It started being about you.”

I grip the tumbler tighter. The bourbon inside shivers, same as the pressure under my skin.

“And now I matter?” I spit, heat behind every syllable. “Now that I dragged you to the doorstep of the man you’ve been chasing? Now that I’ve bled to open his damn vault?”

He doesn’t blink, doesn’t shift, just stands there like a wall I can’t break through. “You mattered before I knew who he was,” he says, quiet but firm, cutting through my fury like a blade.

I throw the tumbler, bourbon and glass shattering against the far wall in a loud burst of jagged chaos.

Kieran doesn’t flinch, watching the shards rain down like he’s ready to take the hit as punishment.

My chest heaves, breaths coming too fast, too shallow as I stare at the mess splattered across the floor. “I’m tired,” I whisper, voice fraying at the edges, “of being everyone’s move, my father’s, Rizzi’s, Gia’s, yours—always a piece on someone’s board.”

“No plan now,” he says, stepping closer, boots soft on the hardwood as he closes the gap. “Just me, Syl, standing here with nothing left to hide, no strings pulling me anymore.”

He stops two feet away, shadow stretching tall and fractured across the wall in the lamp’s dim glow. “Be mine,” he says, voice steady as a heartbeat, “no lies, no mission, just us, right here, right now.”

I hate him for how calm he sounds, how his words slip under my skin and settle there like they belong. I hate myself more for the pull I feel, heat climbing my spine, prickling behind my eyes despite every lie he’s carried.

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