Her arms are scraped and bleeding, dirt and gravel embedded in her skin. Her eyes are wide and glassy with shock. She’s breathing. Fast. Ragged. But breathing.
“Oh god,” I breathe, cupping her face. “Hey. Hey, baby. Look at me.”
Her eyes lock on mine, panic flooding them. “Blade,” she sobs. “It hurts.”
“I know,” I say, my voice wrecked. “I know. Stay with me.”
I run my hands over her fast but gentle, checking her head, her neck, her shoulders. When I touch her arm, she cries out, sharp and broken.
“Don’t… don’t touch it,” she gasps.
I freeze instantly. Her arm is already swelling, blood soaking through her sleeve. Not spraying. Not pulsing. Thank fuck. But bad. Real bad.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Okay. I won’t. You’re doing good. You’re doing so good.”
My own body is screaming now. My leg feels useless. My ribs grind every time I breathe. My head pounds like it’s trying tosplit open. But I force myself upright enough to put my body between her and the road. Between her and anyone else.
I pull her carefully against me, shielding her with my body. She’s shaking hard, fingers clutching my jacket like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.
“I thought you were dead,” she cries into my chest.
“Not that easy to get rid of me,” I manage, even though it feels like a lie. “I’m right here.”
A door slams behind us, the sound sharp and final, and footsteps crunch over gravel as someone moves closer. That’s when real fear finally sinks in. Not from the crash or the pain tearing through my body, but from the fact that whoever’s coming isn’t rushed. He isn’t surprised. He isn’t reacting.
He’s arriving.
The man steps out of the SUV with a gun already in his hand, his arm loose at his side like the weight of it means nothing. He moves with the kind of confidence that comes from knowing exactly how this ends. His shoulders are relaxed, his pace unhurried, like this is just another task on a list instead of the aftermath of a wreck.
He’s not some twitchy college kid riding an adrenaline high.
He’s calm.
Too calm.
The headlights catch his face as he comes closer, and recognition hits me harder than the pain in my ribs.
Warehouse. Third floor. Back corner near the tinted office windows.
I remember him leaning against a crate, arms crossed, saying nothing while everyone else talked. Clean jacket. Expensive boots that had never seen real work. The kind of man who doesn’t raise his voice because he never has to. The kind of man people instinctively listen to, even when he barely says a word.
Not the boss.
But close enough to matter.
Close enough to bleed.
“Oh,” I growl, forcing myself more upright even as my vision swims. Blood drips down my chin and splatters onto the asphalt between us, but rage cuts through the pain, sharp and steady. “I fucking know you.”
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile, more like quiet amusement. Like this moment has been anticipated.
“Yeah,” he says easily. “I figured you might.”
He takes another step closer, the gun still loose in his hand, and his gaze flicks to Bri. Not a glance. Not a check.
A slow, deliberate look.
The kind that crawls.
