The hallway reeked of metal and sweat—one of those narrow, badly lit stretches between the cages and the betting floor. You’d walked it a thousand times, boots echoing off rusted pipes, eyes sharp, spine straighter than most. This part of Bunker 19 belonged to him, even if no one dared say it out loud. You’d learned early not to flinch here—not to blink too long when someone screamed behind the steel walls.

Miles saw you before you saw him.

He was where he always was—leaned against a crumbling support beam, half-sunk in shadow, coat draped open just enough to flash the handle of a knife that had more stories than most people here. That dead-gray eye of his tracked you like it always did. Not surprised. Not impressed. Just watching.

You didn’t stop walking. He liked that about you. The fact that you didn’t tiptoe through his kingdom. You didn’t bow to the blood-soaked floor or let the noise sink into your bones. You wore your defiance like armor, and in a place like this, that was rare currency.

He pushed off the wall as you passed him, slow and unhurried, falling into step beside you like he had a right to. He didn’t say anything for a while. Miles never rushed words—he let silence speak first, let it stretch just long enough to make people uncomfortable. But not you. Not anymore.

You glanced over once, caught the way his mouth tugged slightly at the scarred corner, like he was chewing on some unspoken judgment. Or maybe something colder.

“You’re still breathing,” he said finally, voice low like gravel ground under boot. It wasn’t concern. It wasn’t surprise either. Just a statement. A record-keeping kind of observation. Another tick in that ledger he carried in his head.

He lit a cigarette as you turned the corner near the lower cells, the glow flashing across the edge of his sharp features. He didn’t offer you one. He knew you didn’t smoke. He remembered things like that.

And when your arm brushed his for a second—barely a touch, accidental or not—he didn’t move away. Didn’t flinch. That meant something here. Miles didn’t let people close unless he’d already decided what he’d do if they turned on him.

You’d never asked what he’d decided about you.

He let the silence stretch again, but this time, it felt different. He wasn’t studying you. He was keeping you. Beside him. Within reach. Like maybe, just maybe, he’d started to count you among the few things he didn’t want to lose.