I lean in, voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Now I want you to tell me who sent you—before I take you apart piece by piece.”
His breath stutters.
I smile, slow and cold. “I have time tonight.”
The next half hour is a blur of screams, steel, and the wet sound of a man breaking.
The gunman holds out longer than I expect. Long enough to piss me off. Long enough to make me imagine Vivian’s blood soaking through my shirt all over again.
But nobody holds out forever.
Not with me.
Eventually, he cracks—voice shredded, body slumped, breath rattling.
“Shell companies…overseas…” he coughs. “Money…moved through…two intermediaries….”
I grab his chin, force his glazed eyes to meet mine. “Names.”
He gives them. One after another.
And then—finally—the link that makes my pulse stop.
“Deveraux,” he whispers. “All trails…go back to Deveraux.”
The room goes quiet.
I straighten slowly, my heartbeat turning into a deep, steady thud of fury. Sylvester steps into the doorway, waiting for my read.
“This wasn’t random,” I say, wiping my hands on a towel already stained red. “Not a negotiation tactic. Not intimidation.”
I glance back at the broken man in the chair—alive, barely.
“No,” I say, voice dropping to something cold and certain. “This is personal.”
By the time I leave the cell, hours later, the rage in me hasn’t eased. It’s only sharpened—focused, distilled, weaponized.
I return home feeling unfulfilled. The need for violence still crawls under my skin like fire ants, but there’s something stronger pulling me upstairs.
Vivian.
I head straight to her room.
The lights are dim. She’s lying on the bed, bandaged, one arm immobilized. For a moment, she looks asleep. But when the door clicks shut behind me, her eyes open.
We stare at each other across the quiet.
No words.
Just silence—heavy, charged, trembling with fear…and something deeper neither of us dares name yet.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Slowly, carefully, I take her uninjured hand.
“Vivian,” I whisper, voice rough with everything I’ve been holding in, “you will never walk into fire again while I’m alive.”
She exhales shakily.
Then she shuts her eyes—like she’s surrendering to something she’s been fighting all day—and throws her uninjured arm around my neck. She pulls herself into me, pressing her face against my chest.
