I swallowed. My throat hurt. “I d-did…. my-myself.” I was choking, couldn’t catch my breath, then winced when the scary big guy held water and a straw, still with the snarl on his granite features.
“Well, you fucked them up,” DaemonRaze said, then sighed. “I’m Jamie,” he said as he straightened, then crossed his arms. “And you are?”
I didn’t know what to say or who to trust. I’d survived this far by running and hiding, and I wasn’t going to break that now.
“Talk to him,” Scary Dude ordered, curling his hands into fists, every inch of him radiating tension. I tried to curl my uncuffed hand into a fist, but a jolt of pain as the catheter there tugged stopped me cold. I had no choice but to lie still, heart racing, pinned as some half-dead offering waiting to be sacrificed.
“Fuck Rio, what do you want me to say?” Jamie snapped.
Jamie had to be different. If anyone could get me a shot at living, it’d be him.
Maybe it was the way he didn’t flinch when I spoke. Or the way he didn’t rush to fill silences with threats like the big guy—Rio, I assumed. Jamie looked at me as if I were a puzzle worth solving, not a problem to eliminate. I wasn’t sure I trusted him—not fully—but the fact that I wanted to, terrified me. Trust was a luxury I couldn’t afford, but hope? Hope was worse. Hope meant there was something to lose.
Still, when he was in the room, I didn’t feel as if I was already dead. If anyone could convince these men that I wasn’t a threat, it was the guy I’d spent years watching from the shadows. I didn’t need Rio—I needed Jamie. Needed him to believe me before the rest of them decided I wasn’t worth the risk.
“RootNightJar,” I blurted, my voice hoarse. Then, I added the full string of letters, numbers, andsymbols that marked me online. An identity I hadn’t used in years.
Jamie stared at me. “Blast from the past.”
I didn’t even know what I’d say—just that if anyone could help me, it was him. If anyone could stop this before it turned lethal… it had to be Jamie. I wasn’t here to mess with them. I just didn’t want to die. “I was looking for DaemonRaze.”
He exchanged glances with the scary dude, who rolled his eyes, and then, sighed.
“You found him,” he said, “and this is Rio.”
Rio growled at his name being offered.
Jamie didn’t seem fazed by that at all. “You’ve been off-grid since before I did time. People thought you were dead.”
All I could focus on there was that he’d done time. Fuck. Did I have to add him to the list of people I needed to outrun?
“I was,” I said, meaning it more than he could know. “I am.”
Jamie didn’t reply.
Out there, the plaything of the richest man on the planet was creating contracts for people to hunt me. Bounties and whispers were traded across dark-nets and message boards. I couldn’t breathe in the openwithout wondering who had been paid to put a bullet in my back.
And in here? In this strange room with two men I didn’t know? If I said the wrong thing, I knew Rio would break me in half. I saw it in the way his jaw clenched, the way his hands never stopped curling into fists as if he needed somewhere to put all that fury.
But between death at the door or the devil in front of me, I chose the one that hadn’t pulled the trigger—yet.
“I need to sit up,” I muttered. I shifted, trying to scramble upright, but the movement lit a fire along my ribs, and I couldn’t hold back the groan that tore out of me. Pain radiated from my side, hot and sharp, and just when I thought I might pass out from it, strong arms caught me. They didn’t lift so much as guide, firm but careful, easing me upright and propping me against a pillow. I let out a shaky breath, muscles trembling as I leaned into the support, too exhausted to care whose arms they were.
“Fuck’s sake,” Rio growled in my ear, as he settled me, then backed away.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
“Don’t get fucking comfortable,” he snarled. “We haven’t decided what to do with you yet.”
“Latest contract I found on him, thirty million. Dead or alive,” Jamie said, all matter-of-fact. “Could be more since I last checked.”
Rio’s mouth dropped. “The fuck?”
What? Dead? And thirty million. My chest ached, every inhale thin and strained. How was I supposed to survive with that kind of bounty hanging over me? It was way more than was normally posted on the forums.
I sank deeper into the pillow, skin clammy, heartbeat erratic. It wasn’t a bounty anymore—it was a death sentence. A target branded on my back that would never fade.
My gaze shifted from Jamie, to Rio, and the room that wasn’t mine, and my fighting voice grew quiet in my head, smothered by the swell of dread crawling up my spine. My skin buzzed with raw panic. Something colder than fear slid into my gut. I couldn’t breathe right. Every sound felt too loud, every glance too much. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, but I couldn’t make myself speak—couldn’t make my brain string the right words together. My body remembered too much. I flinched when Rio shifted beside me, his presence too big, too close, and I couldn’t stop the tremor tearing through me as sudden desperation took over. Who in their right mind wouldturn down a million-dollar payout? My voice cracked as I whispered, “Help me.”
