Then training slammed back in like a physical blow.
Miles shoved Titus backward, frantic and wild, trying to create distance with force instead of sense. Viper was already moving. No hesitation. No choice. He caught Titus hard, arms locking around his torso, hauling him in as the impact landed.
Blood came immediately.
Hot. Slick. Real.
Viper turned with it, pivoting on instinct, rotating his body without loosening his grip. He felt the angle of the shot even as he shifted—where it should have gone, where it didn’t. Shoulder forward. Chest angled.
He put himself between Titus and the threat without thinking about it, muscle memory older than fear.
If there was another round, it would hit him first.
That calculation registered and settled—accepted without debate.
Only seconds had passed, but it felt like a lifetime.
He folded over Titus, shielding him with his body, one hand locking hard between Titus’s shoulder blades, the other braced against the floor as they went down together. Pain flared—sharp, bright, contained.
Rip closed in, big, dark, and lethal—but Miles moved at the same time.
Viper caught it peripherally—desperation breaking pattern.
Miles lunged for John, hauling him upright with a wild jerk, arm locking across his chest as the gun jammed tight beneath his jaw.
Rip couldn’t get a clean shot.
John gasped, hands scrabbling uselessly as his feet barely found the floor.
Titus made a sound—short, tight.
Alive.
Viper’s heart kicked back into rhythm with a violent lurch. Vision snapped into focus. The room resolved into angles and edges, threats and exits, weapons and bodies.
“Lock it down,” he snapped.
The command cut clean through the chaos.
Genesis responded instantly. Guns rose. Feet shifted. The room froze—not in panic, not in shock, but in readiness.
No one fired. No one spoke. Every eye tracked Viper.
Miles screamed, spit flying, eyes blown wide. Sweat streaked down his face. The gun shook beneath John’s jaw.
“Back up!” he shouted. “Back the fuck up or I swear—”
Viper didn’t move.
He registered Titus’s weight against him—still braced, still trying to push upright despite the blood soaking into the fabric. Breathing fast but controlled. Conscious. Tracking.
That mattered more than anything.
Viper tightened his grip just enough to anchor him, his voice dropping low where only Titus could hear it. “Stay with me.”
Not an order. A line thrown across dark water.
Miles kept shouting, the sound cracking as his control unraveled. He was past reason now—dangerous in the way only desperate men became.
