“You gave me threats,” I snap. “You gave me fear. You gave me a truck in the night and cut fences and?—”
His eyes widen, offended. “I did it for us.”
My mouth goes dry. “Kyle…”
He steps closer again, breathing hard, losing the thread of his own plan. His voice drops to something intimate and sick. “Once you calm down, you’ll see I’m the only one who can give you a real life. Hawthorne will drag you down with his ghosts.”
The room feels smaller. The ropes feel tighter. My pulse roars in my ears so loud I almost miss it?—
A faint sound outside.
Not wind.
Not birds.
A crunch of tires on gravel.
My heart stops for a fraction of a second.
Kyle doesn’t notice. He’s too busy unraveling. “You could’ve had me,” he says, as if that’s the greatest gift any woman could receive. “You still can. Just… stop fighting me.”
I lift my chin and lock eyes with him. “No.” The word lands like a slap.
Kyle’s face twists, rage boiling up fast. He lifts his hand?—
And the front door explodes inward.
Not literally—no fire, no dramatic movie blast—but it slams open so hard it bangs against the wall, and the room floods with men who move like they were built for this.
“Lone Star,” someone barks. “On the ground now.”
Everything happens at once.
Kyle’s buddy lunges for something on the counter—maybe his phone, maybe a weapon, I can’t tell?—
A man in black moves faster and takes him down with a hard shove and a twist that ends with the buddy face-first on the floor, pinned, cursing.
Kyle whirls, eyes wild, hand half-raised like he can somehow control this. “What the?—”
“Nash,” I scream.
And then I see him.
He comes through the doorway like a storm given a body—hat gone, eyes burning, jaw carved from granite. His gaze finds me instantly.
Time narrows to that look.
Like the entire world can burn as long as I’m still breathing.
“Laney,” he says, voice rough and wrecked.
Kyle staggers backward, panic and fury battling on his face. “You— you can’t just— this is?—”
Gray Calhoun appears behind Nash, calm as a knife. “Kyle Stroud, you’re done.”
Kyle’s gaze darts around the room like he’s looking for a miracle. “My dad— my dad?—”
“Your dad isn’t here,” Gray says flatly. “But law enforcement is. And you’re going to the ground.”
