Cassian slides into the driver’s seat, casting a single glance at me before starting the car.
No one speaks as we pull away from the curb.
Well. I take back my words. Maybe Karma doesn’t want me to slap these guys after all.
Maybe Karma is a bitch. But lately, she’s been showing up at my door, dressed in leather and delivered by three terrifying men with a taste for vengeance.
Maybe she wants to recruit me, too.
The first thing I hear is his breathing.
Uneven. Shallow. A sharp inhale, then a staggered exhale—like he’s trying to steady himself and failing. Like he's finally a human, not an empty shell of one.
Like some things still get to him.
I lift my head slowly.
Mark stands just inside the kitchen now, his cigarette abandoned somewhere along the way. His gaze flicks from the blood pooling around my feet to the broken bottle still resting on the tile. To Duvall’s body—crumpled and still. And then, finally, to me.
Something cold and unreadable passes through his eyes.
He doesn’t speak.
Neither do I.
We just stare at each other like two people who have absolutely no idea how they got here. Except we’re not strangers. He is my husband. And I am his wife. And even though he’s made vows about loving and cherishing me, he apparently alsoconsidered human trafficking me to his awful creditor part of the deal.
The realization settles in my bones like ice water.
My fingers curl against the floor, pressing into the cooling blood that isn't mine, that never should have had to be spilled like this. My breath shudders out of me, but I don't cry. I don't scream.
Something just… breaks. Like a switch flipped. Like I'm a different person now.
Mark tilts his head slightly, his brows drawing together, but the expression is fleeting, gone before I can read it. He shifts his weight. Opens his mouth. Closes it again. And then—
“Did you have to kill him?”
The words are soft. Almost gentle. Like I’d just put a dent in my car instead of shanking a man who fully deserved it.
I blink. A slow, disbelieving motion. My pulse pounds against my ribs.
“What?”
His jaw flexes, but his expression remains irritatingly calm. “You could have just—” He gestures vaguely at the mess between us. “Fucked him up a little. You didn't have to go this far.”
The room tilts. My head pounds.
Fucked him up a little?
I push up onto my knees, my limbs sluggish, blood-slicked hands bracing against the tile.
“He was going to rape me,” I say, and my voice comes out hoarse, foreign.
Mark sighs, running a hand down his face, and for the first time in all of this, something flickers across his expression. Frustration? Disgust? Exhaustion? I can’t tell. But it isn'tguilt.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “I figured.”
I lurch to my feet so fast my vision goes white. Mark straightens too, mirroring the movement like we’re strangers meeting in a dark alley. But he doesn’t step back.
