Chapter 16 · Hello, Son

"Don't touch her." I slammed my hand over Sloane's wrist before the knife reached her chest.

Her fingers kept pushing anyway.

The blade pressed through my glove and kissed the fabric of my shirt. One more inch, and she would get what she wanted. One more inch, and Victor would get what he wanted too.

"Kael, move." Her voice came out wrong. Too flat. Too calm. "You have three seconds."

"That isn't you talking."

"Three."

I twisted her wrist hard enough to make the knife clatter against the floor. Sloane gasped. The lights above us flashed white, then red. Every screen in the safehouse woke at once.

Victor's face filled them.

Not a recording. Not an image. His eyes moved with hers.

"There you are," he said through Sloane's mouth. "Still pretending you can protect her."

Sloane's body jerked under my grip. Her shoulder slammed into the wall. I caught her before her skull hit the concrete, but she drove her knee into my thigh and tore free.

"Don't hold me!" she shouted.

"Then stop trying to kill yourself."

"I'm trying to kill him!"

"By cutting your own heart open?