Because if I do, if I let go, he might disappear again.
And I’m not ready to be alone in this war.
CHAPTER 30
RAFE
She’d opened the door with fire in her eyes. Not fear, not anger, but a raw, untamed fury that had mirrored my own.
And all I could think was: she was still there.
I’d half expected the bed to be empty when I returned. Her ring left on the pillow. Her scent already fading.
But no.
She had been standing there, illuminated by the faint pre-dawn light filtering through the high windows. Wearing my shirt. Barefoot. Bruised, maybe, by the chaos of the night, by the brutality of my world.
But waiting for me.
That was what had kept me upright, the only reason I hadn’t collapsed under the weight of everything I’d done.
Because if I’d come back to find her gone, vanished, or taken. I wouldn’t have stopped. I would’ve walked back into the dark and found someone else to kill, someone else to bleed. Maybe even died doing it.
But there she was. And when she saw the blood on my shirt, the bruises on my knuckles, she hadn’t flinched. She’d stepped closer like the scent of blood was cologne. Like I’d come back from war victorious for her.
When she whispered,“Then don’t leave again,”it had broken something in me. That raw, fractured voice, half plea, half command had stripped away what little control I had left. The last of my defenses collapsed.
I’d lifted her into my arms, needing the feel of her body against mine to stay grounded. Kissing her had felt like gasping for air after drowning, violent and desperate. And when I’d finally sunk deep into her, it was like my body remembered something my soul had known before I did: that she wasn’t just sex or solace.
She was my salvation.
I had whispered things I never meant to say out loud, promises and confessions. I had touched her like a man who knew he’d lose everything if he stopped. I had kissed her throat, her breasts, her mouth like a starving man with no intention of surviving the feast.
When I’d come, it had been total obliteration. Just a raw, consuming surrender that left me half-afraid of how much power she held over me.
She had fallen asleep afterward, tangled in the sheets and in me, her legs laced around mine, her breath warm against my chest.
And I’d stayed awake for hours.
One arm around her. The other on the gun beneath the pillow. I’d stared into the dark and made a list of every name I still needed to erase from this earth to keep her safe.
Because I knew it then, more clearly than ever.
If I lost her, I wouldn’t survive it.
And if they tried again, I wouldn’t just retaliate.
I would annihilate them all.
CHAPTER 31
RAFE
Iawaken hours later to a vision. I blink twice to make sure I’m not dreaming as Nikki climbs on top of me like she owns me.
And God help me, she does.
Her thighs straddle my hips, her skin flushed and damp from the first round we barely survived. Her hair’s a mess, tangled, wild, curling around her face in a chaotic halo. Her lips are swollen from my kisses. Her thighs are still slick from the mess I made of her the first time.
