I step forward anyway.
His hands shake harder. “I swear I will!”
“I know,” I say calmly. “You’ve always been honest when you’re afraid.”
“Shut up,” he snarls. “You did this to me. All of this. They were going to kill me. Do you understand that? I owed too much. I couldn’t get out.”
“And so you took her?” I shout. “You thought she’d save you?”
His face collapses into something pathetic and raw. “I didn’t want to hurt her. I just needed leverage. I needed time.”
Roxanne looks at me then. The sight of her like this nearly rips me apart. I keep my face still, my body loose, my voice steady.
“Eric,” I say quietly, “this ends now.”
He laughs, broken and high. “No. No, it doesn’t. You don’t get to decide that.” His voice drops, begging now. “I can’t go back empty-handed. They’ll kill me.”
“Yes.” I agree. “They would have. If I hadn’t intervened.”
His grip tightens. Roxanne flinches.
I don’t hesitate.
I close the distance in a heartbeat.
The gun fires, but it’s wild, the shot tearing harmlessly into the trees as I slam into him. My hands close around his throat, driving him backward into the dirt. He claws at my arms, frantic and weak, his strength gone long before his arrogance catches up with him.
I don’t think. I don’t see.
I feel.
I feel his pulse under my thumbs. I feel the moment it falters. I feel the exact second his resistance ends and his weight goes slack beneath me. But even then, I don’t let go. Not until I’m sure.
Choking someone to death takes a long time. Roxanne is making a sound behind me, broken and unbelieving. My grip tightens. The hyoid bone cracks. When I let up just enough, there’s no rise; no pulse.
Eric collapses into the dirt, empty-eyed and silent.
The forest exhales.
Roxanne stumbles toward me with a sound that breaks something open inside my chest. I catch her automatically, wrapping her in my arms, pulling her against me with crushing force. She’s shaking violently, sobbing into my shoulder, her fingers knotting into my shirt as if she’s afraid to let go.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her hair. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
She clings to me, her body fitting against mine with devastating familiarity. I cradle the back of her head, my other arm locked around her spine, anchoring her with my weight and presence.
Around us, my men secure the clearing. No one speaks. No one looks too long. The sound of a shovel striking the ground breaks the silence.
I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in, grounding both of us.
“We’re going home,” I say.
I will never let her be taken again.
Chapter 31
Roxy
Idon’t remember walking into Mak’s private quarters. I remember the moment my knees finally gave out, the instant my body understood the danger was over and the adrenaline has nowhere left to go. One second I’m upright, clinging to him because my legs refuse to work without his permission, and the next I’m folding into his chest with a sound I don’t recognize as my own.
