I wake up alone, in the dark. My body is numb, though there’s a weird pressure on my stomach. When I try to move, something pulls sharply inside. When I lift my hand, a sting reveals the presence of an IV, secured with tape.

My mind’s fuzzy, laced with a familiar haze. I’m drugged. Sedatives. And this place…

Dark, dark, blood and screams and pain and death. Icy sweat beads my face, rolls down my temples. I start to shake. I’m cold, and I’m caught in the nightmare.

Am I still in that basement? Did I ever come out? Did I dream the rest of my life?

Fuck… I’m losing my mind. I need to move, get out of here, but moving seems fucking impossible. I’m trapped under the covers, in this strange numbness, in this sense of hopelessness. I feel for the IV in my hand, at the edges of the tape, to take it off. Disconnect myself from this murky dream.

The tape won’t give. I follow the line with my hand and rip it out.

The pain is distant, but the metallic scent of my blood makes me lightheaded. Fuck, I can’t see… I can’t escape. I need to find the light, find…

Mia.

Where did I leave Mia? She was with me, I’m sure of it, but where was that? She said… she said she’ll be okay if I am.

Am I okay?

I have to be. Because I need her to be fine, to be here… with me. I struggle against the covers, struggle to sit up. Have to find her, find out where I am, what the hell’s going on.

The pressure in my stomach turns into a stab of pain when I sit up, and I grunt, clutching the covers in my hands. My head is spinning.

“Rook!” That soft voice… so familiar. “You’re awake.”

A light switches on, and I blink, my eyes watering. My eyes follow the white coverlet to the end of the wide bed, then sweep over the form seated there.

The light catches on golden strands in her dark hair, on her flushed cheeks, her bright eyes. God, she’s so beautiful. More beautiful than my memory of her.

“Rook.” She gets up and walks around the bed to sit beside me. She lifts a hand to my face, and I shiver with pleasure when she brushes her fingertips down my cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Better now,” I mutter, and I mean it. My head may be spinning, and my stomach feels as if someone is pushing a rusty knife inside and twisting, but she’s here.

“You scared us,” she says, her voice so low it brushes over my thoughts like a breeze. “You passed out and wouldn’t wake up, and then the doctor said you were bleeding inside.”

“I am,” I tell her, and take her hand in mine. It takes a huge effort, like lifting a boulder off the ground, but I manage. I lower her hand to my chest. “In here.”

Her mouth trembles. “Don’t say that. You’ll be all right.”

Will I? Her hand feels good there. I press it harder against my chilled flesh. It’s good, so good, and not enough. I want her to curl on top of me, to chase away the numbness. To make me believe it’s going to be okay.

“You ripped out the IV,” she says. “I have to call the nurse.”

“Wait.” Fuck, I’m so damn dizzy. The room starts to tilt sideways, and my stomach lurches. I fall back on the pillows. “Mia.”

She gets up, and I reach for her, gasping at the pain inside me. Not my heart—but it hurts just the same. “You need painkillers,” she says.

Maybe so. But above all I need her, and she’s walking away. “Wait…”

The nurse bustles in, and Mia is gone.

She’s gone.

And the dark is back.

* * *

I’m sitting in bed. It’s late afternoon. The trees outside are bare, the sky gray. The IV is dripping painkillers into my hand. The bandage wrapped around my middle is tight, the stitched-up wound underneath itchy.

I flex my hands on top of the covers. Cold. Always cold. I’ve been here… for days. How many? I don’t know. I asked the nurse this morning, and she said she was going to check and let me know.

She never came back. Another nurse came to bring my food, and then to collect it, untouched.

I asked her where Mia is. If she’s coming back.

The nurse said she’d ask.

She never came back.

When another nurse came to check my IV and the bandage, I let her, and she left without a word.

I didn’t ask her anything.

I’m not sure I care anymore.

My adopted parents are dead. I did that. I chose to let them die.

My real father is dead. I never got to really know him, or to know if he’d ever grow fond of me, when not tearing wings off damn butterflies and killing people. A fucking stupid question anyway. I’m not sure why I should care either way. He was a criminal. His death is a good thing. If he’d gone to jail, he’d have gotten out, no fucking doubt about it.

I have no mother.

Alma was an employee, paid to keep an eye on me.

Mia is an FBI agent who was after Cronin for personal reasons.

I thought she was here, that she had her hand on my chest, that she caressed my face, but maybe it was all a hallucination from the drugs they pumped into me.

I thought she was mine, but she’s left—to work, I think Storm told me, when he visited the other day.

After all, this was just a case. I was just a damn case. A case now closed, sealed off and shoved to the bottom of the drawer.

I’m… lost. I don’t have an office anymore in Carter enterprises. I don’t have a job there. Or in Cronin enterprises.

I’m not even related to Storm and Hawk. I’m not their cousin. I’m not who I thought I was.

Who am I, then? Who in the fucking hell am I, and what am I going to do now?

* * *

“Are you listening to me, boy? I’ve been talking to you since I arrived, but I doubt you heard a single damn word I said.”

I blink. The room resolves itself around me—the blank walls, the white cover on the bed, the gloomy sky outside the tall window. “What?”

Not the basement. Not the dark. I’d have sworn I was back there. Locked inside.

“What’s this, are you in love or something?” Logan demands.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“That forlorn look in your eyes. That about a girl? You pining over a pretty chick, Rook?”

“Forlorn? Seriously?” I look away. “It’s none of your business, but no.”

“Ah-huh. Where is she? Why isn’t she here? Did you scare her away with your grunting and glaring, too?”

Shocked, I turn back to face him. “You think I scared her away?”

Of course I did. Not just with my grunting and glaring. I scared her from the start, didn’t I? I knew it would go this way, from the moment she knew what I am, what I want, what I fucking need…

It’s so fucking lonely. I’ll never find a girl who understands me and wants me as I am.

“That’s bullshit, boy, and you know it. Girls like you just fine the way you are. You just need the right one. It’s not right that you’re lonely. Not right.”

Shit. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud. Heat crawls up my neck. “You said it. I scared her.”

“Then she’s not the girl for you.”

But I thought she was. I felt it in my bones, in my heart. I wanted her to be the one. Her warmth, her smell, her face, her body, her voice, her words… her strength, her curiosity, her openness, her insolence and that bright smile… she touched me in ways no other girl has.

And we went through the kidnapping together. Survived together.

But maybe it was too much for her. A guy with more baggage than most, and assassins hard on his ass. Am I safe now?

Does it matter?

“Rook. You drifted off again.”

I could swear I’d been looking at Logan, but now he’s standing at the window, muscular arms folded over his chest.

“You need to see someone. Talk to someone.”

“A shrink?”

“Probably. Too many dark places inside your mind, from what I’ve seen. But you also need to talk to your friends.”

“Yeah? And where are they?”

“You told them to leave.”

I did? For real?

That stops me. I close my eyes, defeated, a vague memory of myself shouting at everyone to get the hell out and leave me alone.

Holy fucking shit. I drove them away.

Then again… what would there be to talk about? What would they have to say to the son of Ian Cronin, the guy who destroyed their families, almost got them and their girls killed? Why would they want to have anything to do with me? Better spare them the awkwardness.

“You should come to me, as soon as you’re out of here,” Logan is saying. “I’ll flog that darkness out of you.”

But I am not sure pain works. Not anymore.

“Go,” I tell Logan. “Go back to your wife. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s bullshit, boy.”

Boy…

I’m not a boy. I’m not anyone’s son, or fucking concern. I’m not tied to anyone, not anymore. And if I sink, I’m not taking anyone down with me.

Better this way.