Page 22 of Bound By Blood and Lies

“Yes. I do.”

“What makes you think there’s a singular head?” he asks as his gaze lingers on the document detailing the meeting frequencies.

“Because every single person I have tortured refers to the ‘boss’ not ‘bosses’,” I reply which earns me another glare.

“And how many people have you tortured without permission, Roman?”

He seems calmer now but I can tell by the twitch in his left eye that his anger is simply contained.

“It’s kind of irrelevant. There was no one important.”

“Names, Roman. Now.” He barks and I exhale through my nose.

“Quinn. Jack Archer. A security officer who is irrelevant. I’ve probably killed over fifteen guards.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he exhales then nods once and swipes his hand down his face.

I lower myself into one of the chairs opposite his desk and only then do I realise how tightly wound I’ve been for weeks. Keeping this from him has been a weight I didn’t fully acknowledge until now and handing it over feels like a release of something that has been digging into my spine. We sit in silence as the fire in his hearth ticks quietly behind him.

“This threatens The Company as a whole,” he says at last in a low voice that has been stripped of the earlier fury. “If this is accurate and it gets out, nobody can contain it. There isn’t enough influence in the world to bury something as structured as this. It’s reckless.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” My dad’s gaze lifts back to mine.

“You should have come to me before acting,” he replies slowly.

“Psst,” I wave my hand. “Every single person I hurt was compromised. There was no value in keeping them alive. I’dargue that in front of the council and win.” I cross my leg as one ankle rests on the opposite knee.

“I will look into this personally,” he says. “Discreetly.”

I recognise the tone. It’s the same one he uses when he intends to absorb something into his authority and remove me from the centre of it. What began as a shared crisis is quietly being repositioned as his jurisdiction and a familiar frustration tightens in my chest. I didn’t bring this to him to be benched.

I brought it because it’s bigger than one man.

“I’m not backing off if that’s what you’re implying,” I reply evenly, though there’s steel under it now.

“You will,” he counters sharply. “You are too exposed. If someone high enough authorised this, you are a liability walking.”

“I don’t care,” I respond, and I mean it. There is nothing that will stop me from hunting down those who have helped and hurt my Tink.

“That’s precisely the problem.”

“I’m not stepping back until Fae is home.”

He exhales sharply through his nose as his jaw grinds.

“Why is she so fucking special?” he demands. “She’s just a swallow.”

My brain snags on the wordjustas if she is disposable. As if she is a role and not a person. I could sit here and list every reason why she matters. I could tell him that she is the only person who can touch me without me wanting to skin myself, the only person who has made me stronger or that she is the first variable in my life that feels chosen rather than assigned. But he wouldn’t hear that. So instead, I give him the language he does understand.

“She could be pregnant.”

My father goes still. The movement simply drains out of him as the calculations begin behind his eyes before the emotion does.

“How?” He stutters out. “She’s a swallow. She should be on birth control.”

“I replaced her birth control months ago,” I say. “With sugar pills.”

The colour leaves his face. I have seen him furious. I have seen him ruthless. I have never seen him unsettled like this.