“Good,” I said.“Believe me.”
Her eyelids drooped again, heavier now.Sleep circled close.“You’ll be here when I wake up?”she asked, voice small.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised.“Even if I’m not in this room, I’ll be in the house.Unless the President calls me away.”
Her mouth softened into the faintest smile.“Good.I enjoy knowing the dog stands on my side.”
I huffed a quiet laugh.“Sleep.”
Her breathing evened out.Her hand slackened.My fingers eased free from hers, and I pulled the blanket up to her shoulders.The lamp stayed on while I watched her chest rise and fall, making sure she breathed steadily.
Sleep erased the tension lines from her face, revealing someone younger.Softer.The woman I remembered from the diner returned -- pouring coffee, laughing quietly at someone’s joke.Fate had thrown her into my lap when she ran for her life, yet here lay the real person beneath all the fear.
I turned the lamp down and left the door cracked.A slice of hallway light cut across the floor.No dark traps.No sudden silence.Back on the couch, I lay down again.My body wanted to collapse.My mind wanted war.
Before sleep won, I made myself a vow.Roth had crawled into Jade’s life through her brother’s choices.He had turned her home into a trap.He had turned her mind into a battleground.That ended here.Patch or no patch, he didn’t get another inch.
I closed my eyes with her name in my head and the weight of that promise steady in my chest.Whatever waited outside my door, I stood ready.
Chapter Four
Jade
For a few soft heartbeats, I hovered on the edge of sleep.Warm sheets hugged my skin.Clean cotton carried the faint scent of laundry soap mixed with something darker -- leather and smoke woven into fabric.My muscles ached less.My head stopped buzzing for the first time in months.
Then wrong details slid into place.
The ceiling hung lower than mine.A fan wobbled overhead on one dusty blade.Sunlight leaked around unfamiliar blinds instead of my crooked curtains.A dresser with a chipped corner occupied the space where my little bookshelf belonged, and an alien quiet pressed against my ears -- the wrong kind of silence, nothing resembling my apartment.Panic surged so fast it stole my breath.
Roth.His hands.His voice.The sound of my door splintering.My lungs seized.Air refused to enter.I tried to bolt, but it felt like something pinned me down, heavy as a hand across my ribs.
Memories flashed through me in jagged pieces.The compound gate.Cold air bit my face.Rows of bikes stood under security lights.Everyone at the long table in the meeting room watched me with eyes sharp enough to cut.Kane spoke to me in the dark when nightmares dragged me under.He told me about Bruno the dog, mean and dangerous -- the kind of story a man shares when he wants you to remember you aren’t alone.
Savage Raptors.
Kane.
I forced myself to examine my surroundings again.The room remained unchanged.No suffocating cologne poisoned the air.No heavy footsteps echoed beyond the door.Kane’s phone lay on the nightstand where he’d left it, screen dark.A thin strip of hallway light crept under the door -- deliberate, I realized.He wanted me to see.
Four in.Hold.Four out.My breath came shaky at first, then steadier.I counted the rhythm until the tremble in my chest eased enough to let me move.Breathing exercises had seemed fake whenever I read them online.Self-help nonsense for people with time to burn candles and fill journal prompts.Now they became my lifeline -- a rope thrown down into my personal abyss.
I eased myself up and swung my legs over the mattress edge.My ribs screamed in protest.The bruise along my shoulder sent sharp signals through my nerves.The pain anchored me to reality, which I needed more than I wanted to admit.
Kane’s T-shirt engulfed me, soft cotton hanging mid-thigh.His sweats cinched tight around my waist while excess fabric pooled over my feet.I shouldn’t find comfort in his scent.I barely knew Kane.My brain understood this.My body refused to care.My body craved safety above all else.
I rose from the bed with caution.The room remained steady.Relief unwound my spine a notch.I crossed over the hideous carpet on bare feet toward the exit.The door creaked when I opened a crack to listen before venturing out -- a habit my old apartment had taught me.Caution had burrowed deep into my bones.Roth had transformed my natural wariness into pure survival instinct.
The hallway stayed quiet.
Kane lay on the couch in the living room, one arm flung above his head, blanket twisted around his hips.His cut hung on the hook near the front door.The Glock sat on the coffee table within easy reach, close enough to grab without thinking.His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, but even asleep he looked alert, like sleep never fully claimed him.
He looked younger in sleep.The hard edges melted away.Stubble shadowed his jaw while a lock of hair fell across his forehead.The lines around his mouth had softened.I stood watching him breathe for too long.My ribs seemed to loosen with each rise and fall of his chest.
The man sprawled before me had given up his bed, his sleep, and maybe his future in the club for me.He barely knew me -- a woman wrapped in bruises and bad timing.Yet he never treated me as a debt or a prize.
He saw me as a person.
My throat tightened.I cleared it softly before emotions could betray me.His eyes snapped open, and his gaze found me and locked on, precise as a marksman with a target.
