Sweet Hatred
Chapter 126: memories vii (crumbling)

Chapter 126: memories vii (crumbling)

Ivan stilled beside the doorway, his lips parting, his eyes darting between Ewan and me like he couldn’t quite piece together how the man before him—this sharply dressed, snake of a father—knew his name.

My chest tightened.

I moved on instinct, stepping in front of him. My arm stretched slightly to the side, blocking Ivan from view, from reach, from him.

Ewan’s smile didn’t falter. If anything, it grew.

"Hmm," he hummed, eyes flicking over my shoulder. "You’re shorter than I expected." He gave a low, almost condescending chuckle. "Frankly not the kind of taste I expected him to have."

"Don’t," I snapped. "Don’t talk to him. Don’t even look at him."

He raised a hand in mock surrender. "Just curious. No need to get territorial, son."

I stepped closer, enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his expensive suit, the cologne he always wore like armor. The monster dressed as a man.

"How the fuck do you know his name?" I bit out, voice low enough to draw blood.

He didn’t answer me directly. Instead, he turned his gaze back to Ivan and said, "Ivan. That’s a soldier’s name. Or a war orphan. Yours?"

Ivan didn’t reply. Didn’t even breathe, from what I could tell.

I could feel him behind me, rigid, heart pounding like a warning bell against my spine.

"You’ve been watching me," I said, voice barely holding back the violence pulsing in my throat.

"Of course I have." Ewan’s smile was razor thin now. "You’re my son."

"I’m not yours."

"Then why are you acting like it?" he asked, voice cool. "You think you can hide something like this from me? Come now, Kael. If you’re going to make a mistake, at least pick one that’s worth bleeding for."

I grabbed his suit collar and shoved him hard into the wall.

The sound cracked down the hallway.

Ivan let out a quiet gasp behind me, but I didn’t let go.

"I swear to God, if you ever touch him, speak to him, look at him again—"

"You’ll what?" Ewan interrupted calmly, eyes unblinking. "Kill me? You will. One day, you will. Because that’s who you are. I made you, Kael. Everything you love, I can unmake. That includes him."

My jaw clenched so hard it ached. My grip loosened. But I didn’t move.

He smiled again. "See? That’s my boy."

Then he straightened his jacket, stepped away from the wall, and walked right past us.

At the door, he turned back one last time.

"I’ll be in touch, Kael. Don’t keep me waiting too long."

And then he was gone. The silence he left behind felt radioactive. I stood there, breathing hard, my hands still trembling.

Ivan touched my arm, voice hoarse. "Kael..."

I turned and pulled him into me, clutching him so tightly it hurt. He didn’t pull away. He buried his face in my neck. And for the first time since I was a child—I felt terrified.

Because I knew Ewan Roman never said things he didn’t mean.

And now he knew Ivan’s name. And that changed everything.

I noticed the first shift when Ivan was reassigned to Echo Unit for recon. It was supposed to be temporary—forty-eight hours tops—but that turned into four days, then six. No one could tell me who signed off on the change. The commanding officer claimed it came from above. "Direct orders," he said with a shrug.

Bullshit.

Ivan didn’t say anything, just gave me that crooked smile when he returned, bruised and hollow-eyed.

"I didn’t die, if that’s what you were worried about," he joked.

I wanted to shake him. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab him and lock him in my fucking room so no one could touch him.

Then came the second hit.

An email. Anonymous.

Subject: "Inappropriate relations between soldiers."

No name. No sender. But the contents were clear.

Allegations. That I’d been compromising the chain of command. That I’d shown preferential treatment to Ivan. That I had "crossed professional boundaries." Screenshots. Blurry, but damning enough. The kind of thing you couldn’t quite confirm—but couldn’t completely deny either.

They were trying to build something. Brick by brick. Until it became a noose.

I crushed the report in my hand and burned it in my sink. The smoke choked the room. It didn’t matter. Nothing felt clean anymore.

And then—God—then came the third.

It was supposed to be a standard field drill. I was overseeing the units from a hill, watching through my scope. Ivan was down there, gear strapped on, his form easy to spot even from far off. He moved with a kind of thoughtless grace.

And then he jumped. Parachute.

Nothing.

The chute didn’t fucking open.

My heart dropped. No. No.

I was already running. Screaming into the comms.

Deploy the emergency. Deploy the goddamn—

The reserve chute caught. Just barely. He crashed hard, tumbling through trees.

I made it to him minutes later, throwing everyone out of the way. He was half-conscious, blood on his lips, but alive. "Well," he wheezed, "that was fun." I almost hit him. Almost kissed him. Almost lost him.

They said it was a malfunction. "These things happen," the tech said. No. They don’t. Not to him. Not now. Not after the reports. Not after the reassignment.

This wasn’t coincidence. This was a warning. And I knew exactly who sent it.

And then again, It was the wrench in the engine bay that gave it away. A red-marked tool used only for comms rewiring—jammed beneath the seat of Ivan’s assigned vehicle. I never missed details like that. I was trained not to. I was raised not to.

It was meant to go off when he started the ignition. Just enough to make it look like a fuel system fault. Just enough to make it look like an accident.

I stood there, engine hood up, staring at the shoddy rig. My hand was trembling. They tried to kill him. Again. And I wasn’t going to let this one walk away.

It didn’t take me long to track down the guy. A lanky tech specialist with a nervous habit of biting his lip too much and looking away when I stared at him. He’d been moved here last week. His transfer paper was clean. Too clean.

I slammed him against the wall behind the barracks before anyone could blink.

"What the fuck did you do to that truck?" I growled.

He stammered. Played dumb.

So I punched him. And again. And again.

His nose burst open. Blood painted my knuckles, but I couldn’t stop. My brain was white-hot. Every second he denied it, every second he refused to confess, I just saw Ivan in that truck, flames swallowing him whole—

I grabbed the knife from my side sheath and pressed it to his throat.

"You don’t get to touch him. You don’t get to fucking breathe near him!" I shouted.

He whimpered. Cried. My hand was trembling, blade biting into skin, just enough—

"I should cut you open and leave your organs for the dogs—"

"KAEL!"

The voice split through me like thunder. I froze.

Ivan.

He stood there. Wide-eyed. Pale. Like he didn’t recognize me.

"Let him go," he whispered.

But I couldn’t.

I looked at him—really looked—and for the first time, there was something in his eyes I never wanted to see.

Fear.

Not of the situation. Of me.

Of what I was capable of. Of what I was turning into.

Slowly, I let go of the guy. He crumpled to the floor, sobbing, bloodied, gasping.

Ivan didn’t speak right away. He just stared at me like I was something that crawled out of a nightmare. And for a moment, I believed it.

Because he was right.

I wasn’t Kael. Not the soldier. Not the man who kissed him under the stars and whispered I’d protect you even if the world burned.

I was my father’s son. And I didn’t know how to stop.

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