Lucien hadn't moved in hours.
He sat with his back against the door, head resting on his knees, the silence between him and Silas more suffocating than any scream. Rain tapped against the windows—light, rhythmic, like a warning they could no longer ignore.
"She should be back," Silas finally said, voice low. "She should've been back."
Lucien didn't answer.
They had let her walk to the small roadside stall to fetch some tea leaves, just a five-minute walk—ten at most. She'd begged to go alone. "Let me feel the wind," she said with a tired smile. "Just for a moment. Just for myself."
That had been over an hour ago.
And now, she was gone.
No signs of a struggle. No word. No sound.
Only a void.
Silas stood suddenly, dragging his hands through his hair.
"He found us."
Lucien looked up, face pale. "You think—?"
"Don't you?" Silas snapped. "How long have we been saying it? He's coming. He's close. This—this is how he works. No warnings. No notes. Just disappearance. Control."
The room fell silent again.
Memories clawed their way back like roaches in the dark—Lucien at ten, locked in a brothel room with his wrists bound in glass-threaded cuffs, blood and perfume mingling on the floor. Silas bursting in, young and reckless, dragging his half-brother out through a fire escape window, both of them breathless and bruised.
Their father had punished them for leaving.
Now, he was punishing them for hiding.
"He has her," Lucien said, his voice almost a whisper. "He knows. And this time, he won't just hurt her—he'll break her to punish us."
Silas's fists clenched. "Then it ends tonight."
Lucien nodded. "No more hiding."
"No more running."
"We find him."
"We kill him."
---
The air between them solidified—no longer just grief, not just panic.
But a vow.
Blood-deep. Fire-forged.
They would bring hell to the man who had stolen every peace they had tried to build.
Even if it cost them everything.
---