And he moved.
Too fast.
His arm hooked around my waist, pulling me back against him, his mouth covering mine, just as the door swung open.
Light from the outside flooded the room, harsh and unforgiving, and Chain stood there, close enough that I could see the way his shoulders locked and his jaw set hard. His eyes turned feral at seeing us embracing.
“What the fuck is this?” Chain demanded, his voice low and lethal.
He crossed the room in seconds and slammed Zach into the wall, forearm crushing across his throat, the sound of bone hitting drywall cracking through the air. I screamed his name, grabbing at his cut, his arm, his shoulder, trying desperately topull him back, but Chain was already gone to that place where instinct took over.
“Who the hell are you?” Chain snarled, leaning in close. “You got three seconds to tell me why your hands are on her before I end you.”
“Chain, stop!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “Please—stop!”
Zach gasped, eyes wild, and when he tried to speak my name, Chain’s grip tightened until I screamed again.
“It’s Zach!” I cried. “Chain, it’s Zach. Don’t hurt him.”
The name hit the room like a sudden drop in temperature. Chain froze, his breath coming hard as his eyes flicked to mine, filled with disbelief.
“Zach?” he repeated slowly.
I nodded, tears spilling freely now. Chain loosened his hold just enough for Zach to breathe, but he didn’t step away. Instead, he studied Zach’s face like he was trying to reconcile a ghost with flesh and blood.
“This man’s supposed to be dead,” Chain said quietly.
“They lied,” Zach rasped.
Chain stared at him for a long moment before his gaze shifted back to me, and something in his expression changed. Recognition. Understanding. The kind that hollowed him out instead of setting him on fire.
He stepped back slowly, his hands dropping to his sides like they’d suddenly grown too heavy. When he spoke again, his voice was calm in a way that scared me more than his rage had.
“Now it makes sense,” he said.
I reached for him, desperate. I tried to explain, to tell him Zach had grabbed me, that I was leaving, that it wasn’t what it looked like, but Chain shook his head once, small and final.
“You’ve been lyin’ to me,” he said quietly. “Sneakin’ behind my back.”
Then he walked out.
The door closed behind him with a sound that echoed through the room like the end of something I would never get back. I slid down the wall, my sob breaking free as everything I’d been holding back crashed down on me at once, while Zach stood there in silence, watching the space Chain had left behind.
The worst part wasn’t the violence.
It was the way Chain had let go.
And deep down, I knew it might be for good.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I DIDN’T RIDEoff right away.
I stood there on the motel walkway, fists clenched so tight my hands ached, breath sawing in and out of my chest like my lungs had forgotten how to do their damn job. The late afternoon sun pressed in close, thick and wet, the stink of hot asphalt and old smoke curling up from the lot below, but none of that mattered. All I could see was her in that room.
Her body turned toward him. His hands on her. The way she hadn’t pulled away fast enough. That picture carved itself deep, digging in where I wouldn’t ever be able to scrape it out.
I turned before I went back inside and finished what I’d started, before the part of me that still believed in restraint got buried under something meaner. My bike waited where I’d left it, metal still warm, engine growling when I brought it to life like it already knew what kind of ride this was gonna be.
