The screen went black, but the damage was done.
Stanley stood frozen, the image of the boy who shared his blood still burning behind his eyes. Orla didn’t move either. Rafe had slipped out of the room, sensing the kind of silence that came before storms.
“He died,” Stanley murmured again. “I saw the fire. I saw the body.”
Orla reached for him, but he flinched—not away from her, but into himself.
“People fake deaths all the time,” she said softly, trying to tether him. “He could’ve been pulled into something, or—”
“He was six. I was sixteen. He was soft, scared of the dark, hated thunderstorms—” Stanley’s voice cracked. “That wasn’t the kind of boy who grows up to work for Roth.”
Orla took his face in her hands, grounding him. “But he did. Which means someone turned him.”
He looked a
