His breath stutters.
The gun lowers a fraction of an inch.
I look at his face, really look at him. The tension carved into his jaw. The panic he’s holding back with brute force and sheer will. He doesn’t look like a killer.
He looks like a man on the brink of losing it.
“I know you’re trying to protect me,” I whisper. “I know. But I’m okay. I’m right here.”
Another beat.
Damian exhales, long and shaky, like he’s been holding his breath.
The gun drops fully.
He presses his forehead to the floor, eyes squeezed shut, like he’s reining himself back in from somewhere dark. I notice the way his chest heaves, how he’s shaking slightly. It reminds me of back in the car, how he almost had a full-blown panic attack.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. To me.
Not Marco. Never Marco.
“It’s okay,” I say, tugging on his shirt to pull him off the floor and back onto his heels. I rub my hand up and down his arm until I feel his breathing slow. His tremors subside. “You did good.”
He looks at me.
And in his eyes, I see it. The relief. The terror. The tenderness.
The man behind the weapon.
Behind us, Marco lets out a breath he definitely doesn’t deserve.
Damian looks over at him, all warmth gone again.
“Don’t move,” he says flatly.
He turns back to me, his voice softer than I thought it could be in a moment like this.
“Stay close to me, Hannah. Okay?”
I nod and grab his sleeve, digging my fingers in.
I won’t let go.
Damian
Outside the table, the restaurant is unraveling.
Glass shatters somewhere to my left, sharp, violent. A woman screams, high and piercing, the sound slicing straight through my skull. Chairs scrape and topple as people scatter, bodies colliding in blind panic. Someone trips. Someone else cries out.
Another gunshot cracks through the room.
Closer.
A bullet slams into the bar, bottles exploding in a rain of liquor and glass. The smell of alcohol floods the air, sweet and acrid and choking.
“Everybody down!” someone shouts.
I hear footsteps pounding, followed by a table flipping over with a thunderous crash. Silverware clatters across the floor.
