Page 23 of Hardline Torque
They stood barely two feet from each other, the air between them tight and volatile.
“I didn’t ask you to want me,” Victor said bitterly.“You decided that.You don’t get to punish me for being honest.”
Tane’s hands curled into fists at his sides.“And you don’t get to take what you need from us and keep one foot out the door like we’re disposable.”
Silence cracked between them.
Victor shook his head, voice rough.“Everyone leaves eventually.”
Tane’s eyes went dark.“Not me.”
They stared at each other, breathing hard, both knowing they’d crossed lines neither of them could uncross.
Finally, Tane stepped in close and gripped Victor’s chin, forcing his gaze up.
“You don’t get to stay half-in,” he said, voice low and deadly calm.“Not with my team.Not with me.You either try—really try—or you hand over the intel and walk away.I will not stand here waiting for you to disappear like I am worth nothing.”
The admission slipped out before he could stop it.
He released Victor abruptly and turned away, stalking toward the garage.
****
Victor stood therelong after Tane disappeared into the garage, the echo of his footsteps fading into the hum of the compound.The lights along the perimeter buzzed softly, insects drawn to them in lazy spirals, the night settling back into itself as if nothing seismic had just cracked open between two men in the middle of it.
I will not stand here waiting for you to disappear like I am worth nothing.
The words lodged in Victor’s chest like shrapnel.He hadn’t meant it like that.He hadn’t meant any of it.He’d been talking about contingencies, about reality, about the way his life had always ended—with him alone and moving on before the ground collapsed beneath his feet.
He’d meant to protect himself.
Instead, he’d cut deeper than any blade.
For the first time in his life, Victor wondered if survival was actually worth the cost.
He dragged a hand through his hair and turned away from the camper, walking without direction, letting muscle memory guide him along the edge of the compound.The night air was cool, carrying salt and oil and something green he couldn’t name.Hawaii had a way of feeling alive, even in the dark.
“Rough night?”
Victor stopped.
A man stepped out of the shadows near the fence line, hands loose at his sides, posture relaxed but alert.Drew.Kael’s partner.Victor knew him as Wraith.There were not many in the black ops community that didn’t know him.He had always viewed him as a traitor to the Directorate, to their truth, to the better world that he thought he had a part in making.Turns out all of it was shit, and he had been played as much as Victor had been.
“Something like that,” Victor said, the words coming out flatter than he felt.
Drew studied him for a moment, really studied him, the way operators did when they weren’t sure if the threat was external or internal.Then he nodded toward a low concrete barrier half-hidden by shadow.“Mind if I sit?”
Victor shrugged, a short lift of one shoulder.“It’s a free country.”
They sat, the concrete cool even through Victor’s clothes.The compound breathed around them—generators humming, boots on gravel, and a burst of laughter from somewhere deeper in the buildings.Life continuing, oblivious to the fact that Victor’s chest felt like it had split clean down the middle.
“Place like this,” Drew said after a moment, “it has a way of making you confront yourself.Noisy in all the wrong ways.Quiet in the ones that matter.”
Victor snorted softly.“You always talk like that, or is this a special occasion?”
Drew’s mouth curved.“Only when I’m trying to make a point, help a friend and not get punched in the face in the process.”
The tension eased a fraction.
