NATHAN’S POV
I shouldn’t have let her see that, I had been reckless. The thought settled in the moment she stepped back from me. Not hesitation, not uncertainty. Fear. Real fear. I had seen it before countless times. In enemies. In traitors. In those who understood, too late, what stood in front of them.
But this, this was different because it was directed at me and it shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t weaken the plan. It didn’t alter what she was meant to become. It didn’t— My jaw tightened. It did.
I stood in the doorway long after she stopped looking at me, long after she had turned away. Long after the silence settled into something heavier than before. She hadn’t said anything else, hadn’t accused… hadn’t demanded. She had just… withdrawn and somehow— Th
