Pain explodes through my hand. It barely makes a dent in the pressure inside my chest.
I yank open a drawer, throw on the first clothes I find. My jacket feels like it’s sticking to my skin as I shove my arms through it with trembling hands. I grab my keys. My helmet.
And I’m out.
Out of the penthouse.
Out of the thick, suffocating silence.
My body moves faster than my thoughts, like I’m trying to outrun something I can’t name.
I need out. I need speed. I need to fucking burn.
Because I hate this.
I hate how he broke down and found safety in someone else’s arms, not because he chose Tyler over me — no, fuck that, but because I do not know what caused it and how to stop it.
And worst of all? He flinched. He flinched when I touched him. He looked at me as if I were the threat.
I take a sharp breath, but it doesn’t steady me. Nothing does.
My bike growls to life beneath me, but even that sound isn’t loud enough to drown out the roar in my head.
I twist the throttle harder than I should and speed off into the night, eyes burning.
The city blurs past me in streaks of red and silver, but it doesn’t help.
Not the wind.
Not the speed.
Not the way the engine growls like a beast beneath me.
None of it is loud enough.
None of it drowns him out.
I’m still burning.
Still clenching.
Still hearing that sound he made in my head—like he was choking on fear, on pain, on a memory I wasn’t part of and couldn’t tear apart for him.
My jaw throbs. My fingers are numb on the throttle.
Eventually, I pull off into an empty lot, kill the engine, and just sit there, helmet still on, heart racing like I’m still in motion.
I pull out my phone, then dial Maksim’s number
It rings once.
“Well, well, look who it is. Big brother’s alive. What, you finally miss my voice or just called to—”
“Put me in a fight tonight,” I say, voice low and flat, cutting through his teasing.
A beat of silence.
“Wait, what?”
