One shot.
Clean. Final.
The body dropped behind the brush.
Silence crashed down harder than the gunfire had.
Trigger was at her side seconds later, breath hard, eyes sharp, hands gripping her shoulders.
“You okay?” he demanded.
She nodded, heart slamming so hard it hurt. “He was going to—”
“I know,” he said, pulling her into him before she could finish. His arms locked around her, tight and unyielding, like he was anchoring himself as much as her.
She clutched his jacket, shaking now that the moment had passed. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry, I just—”
“Youacted,” he said fiercely. “You saw it. You warned me.”
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his hands still firm at her waist.
“You saved my life.”
The words hit harder than the gunfire.
Her throat tightened. “I didn’t want you to die.”
His expression shifted—something raw breaking through the control.
“Neither one of us will die,” he said quietly.
More movement echoed below—retreating this time. Disorganized. Broken.
Trigger glanced toward the ravine, then back to her.
“That was Thomas’s mistake,” he said. “He underestimated you.”
She lifted her chin. “He won’t do that again.”
“No,” Trigger agreed. “Which means this isn’t over.”
He brushed his thumb across her cheek, grounding her, steadying them both.
“But he knows now,” he added. “We’re not running.”
And somewhere below, as the cartel regrouped and pulled back into the trees, Thomas was learning a brutal truth—
The woman he thought he owned had become the reason he was losing.
25
Thomas
Thomas snapped.
Not outwardly—not yet—but something inside him fractured cleanly and sharp.
They were bleeding.
