The neural suppressant hit his bloodstream like liquid lightning.
Justin’s body seized on the table, every muscle locking in conscious agony while the suppressant kept his mind crystal clear. No blackout. No escape. He felt every burning wave as it stripped the final remnants of toxin from his nerves.
I stood over him, gloved hands steady on the controls, watching the monitors spike into the red.
This was conscious pain at its purest.
And I was the architect.
His scream tore through the surgical theater — raw, guttural, and so perfectly broken it should have filled me with nothing but cold satisfaction. Instead, the fracture inside my chest split wider, bleeding memories I had buried for three years.
It started the night he chose her.
I remembered the exact moment the fracture was b
