Slade had seen madness before.

He’d fought men who’d carved chaos into their skin, stared down monsters with nothing behind their eyes, and walked away from warzones littered with the broken. But nothing unnerved him quite like the way she wrung her hands.

Not because she was scared—oh no, fear wasn’t in her vocabulary. But the silence… the stillness underneath all that tension… that’s what got to him.

She was twitchy today. Not reckless. Not violent. Just tight. Wound up like a wire ready to snap, her eyes darting from corner to corner as if the walls might close in at any moment.

Slade watched her from across the room, mask off, jaw clenched.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

He just stepped closer, slow and solid, anchoring her without a word—because sometimes, the only way to calm a storm is to hold the center still.

Even if the storm is your wife