A wave of nausea crashed over Ste, stealing the breath right out of her lungs. Leonard didn''t draw out the suspense. His voice dropped to a grim register.


    "They had him chained up in heavy-duty industrial shackles so he couldn''t fight his way out.


    He wanted his freedom so badly, he deliberately snapped the bones in his own hand to slip free from the cuffs."


    What Leonard conveniently omitted was the detail from the official incident report: there had been a witness.


    One of the mercenary guards doing the graveyard patrol had walked past the cell at the exact moment Joshua shattered his own bones.


    The sickening, hollow crack of joints being forced out of their sockets had echoed loudly down the concrete corridor, yet Joshua hadn''t so much as flinched.


    The sheer, terrifyingck of human reaction sent a visceral chill down the guard''s spine.


    Then, the blood-soaked prisoner had slowly turned his head, locking eyes with the mercenary.


    The look in Joshua''s eyes-soulless, ck, and radiating absolute ughter-was like looking at a demon freshly crawled from the bowels of hell.


    Terrified for his life and knowing the man''s lethalbat skills, the guard didn''t dare approach alone and sprinted away to call for heavily armed backup.


    In that brief window of panic, Joshua vanished into the night.


    All the color drained from Ste''s face, leaving her looking as pale as a ghost.


    She knew Laurel Quinn had hypnotized him to bury traumatic memories, but she had absolutely no idea he had endured six months of calcted, sadistic torture.


    Laurel had never uttered a word about it.


    Joshua had smoothly brushed off his past, iming it was just violent gang business she wouldn''t want to hear about.


    She had never once fathomed he had been subjected to such a sickening, degrading nightmare.


    Noting her chalk-whiteplexion and the violent trembling of her eyshes, Leonard easily read her devastation.


    "You spent all this time thinking he was some invincible god, didn''t you?"


    Ste swallowed hard, a tiny, jerky nod escaping her.


    She had naively assumed the hypnosis was linked to a tragic romance, or at worst, a desperate measure to cap his explosive anger.


    She never pictured the powerful,manding Joshua Gardner reduced to a broken captive in a lightless cell.


    Leonard''s casual recounting of the atrocities was profoundly sickening.


    In Ste''s mind, Joshua was a titan-an untouchable force of nature who bent the world to his will.


    No matter how disastrous a situation became, she always feltpletely safe knowing Joshua was standing in front of her.


    Leonard rubbed the back of his


    neck. "The only reason he even let himself get captured in the first ce was to buy time for two of


    operative''s to escape a


    With hisbat skills, he could have walked out of that ambush without a scratch if


    he hadn''t yed the hero."


    Ste''s fingers curled inward, her nails digging deeply into her palms until her knuckles turned bone-white.


    No wonder Laurel Quinn always spoke of an unpayable debt to Joshua.


    Now, standing in the chilling breeze of the courtyard, Ste finally understood the crushing weight of that loyalty.


    The wind swept past, raising goosebumps on her arms, but it was nothingpared


    to the violent, suffocating ache seizing her chest.


    Watching the raw, agonizing


    heartbreak bloom across Ste''s


    face for another man, a fleeting


    shadow of profound disappointment darkened Leonard''s eyes, stealing the light from his gaze.


    Still, he maintained his stoic facade.


    "I''ve forwarded the full ssified


    dossier


    to your encrypted email. You


    mail


    can read the gruesome details whenever you''re ready."


    His voice snapped Ste out of her spiraling horror.


    She whipped her head around, her eyes narrowing. "Aurora and Sellers poked around in his past and he absolutely destroyed them.


    And you''re digging up the exact same dirt? He won''t show you an ounce of mercy."


    Hearing the faint, underlying trace of warning in her tone, the dim light in Leonard''s eyes suddenly red back to life.


    He offered a surprisingly genuine smile. "Your hand hasn''t fully recovered yet. As long as you still need my medical contacts, he isn''t going toy a finger on me." Ste pressed her lips into a thin line, choosing not to respond.