He tries to lift a hand, weakly brushing my arm. His fingers curl into the fabric of my jacket as if anchoring himself. Then they loosen, and his head drops back. The forest swallows the last sound of his breath.
Rage hits me so violently I have to close my eyes for a moment just to contain it. The rain falls harder, drumming against leaves and armor, a relentless percussion that only feeds my fury.
“Tracks,” Jesse says, voice shaking with controlled anger. “Boss, they doubled back. They circled around us.”
I stand. Cold. Focused. A blade honed to one lethal edge.
“Where are they now?”
He points northwest. “Moving fast. Four of them. Armed.”
“Go,” I say.
We chase them; shadows through rain, boots pounding through slick earth. I catch a glimpse of them as the last of the daylight bleeds out of the sky: four men dressed in dark tactical gear, faces covered, rifles slung across their backs. They’re too clean to be from around here; my men blend in with the forest, but these stand out in all black and glinting metal.
They look back once.
They know exactly who we are, and they’re not afraid.
They disappear into the trees before we can close the distance. The darkness swallows them whole. For a long moment, the only sound is the rain and my own pulse, roaring like something alive.
This was planned.
Someone sent these men to my land, to my forest, to kill my people. A message? A warning? Or an opening move?
I stand over the bodies long after the others, letting the anger settle like iron in my blood.
Two dead. Two families who depended on me. Two debts I now owe in blood.
The old version of myself: the cold, ruthless, unstoppable one pushes to the surface like a shadow reclaiming its shape.
By the time we return to the estate, the sky is a pale, washed-out gray, the kind that comes just before dawn. My clothes are soaked and heavy. My hands are stiff from dried blood. Some theirs, some mine, none of it washed away by the rain.
I push through the side entrance, not expecting anyone awake at this hour.
But she’s there already. It must be later than I realized.
Roxanne is walking down the hallway, hair falling over her shoulders, a wrap dress cinched at her curvy waist. Something in my chest cracks open, vulnerable, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from going to her and begging for relief or forgiveness or the oblivion of sleep. To forget the blood on my hands and the gasp of last breaths.
She stops when she sees me; absolutely frozen, eyes widening as she takes in the state I’m in.
“Mak…” Her voice breaks on the syllable. “Oh, my God! Are you…are you hurt?”
“No.” I shake my head once. “Not my blood.”
She steps closer, reaching for me on instinct, then pulls her hand back as if unsure whether she’s allowed to touch this version of me. Her eyes search mine, worried, confused, trying to understand what she’s seeing.
“What happened?” she whispers.
I look at her—really look at her. The softness of her skin, the warmth in her face, the vulnerability she doesn’t try to hide. Everything about her feels like a different world entirely.
A world I stepped out of. A world I can’t take into the one I’m walking toward now.
I straighten, wrestling to gain control once more.
“I lost two men tonight,” I say. “Before the week is over, I’ll take four more in their place.”
She flinches at the calm certainty of my words, but she doesn’t look away.
