The only thing with gravity is the man standing ten feet away.
Blake.
He resembles a demon dredged up from the darkest pit of the earth. Soot and dirt smear his tactical vest. His hands are split and bloody—not his blood, I know, but Ramon’s. His chest heaves with the aftershocks of violence, heavy, rhythmic breaths I can almost feel vibrating in the air between us.
He speaks to Logan, the President of the MC, and an older man in a suit I don't recognize, but his eyes never leave me. Dark. Intense. Filled with a terrifying amount of concern.
The chaos of the last hour—the standoff, the threat of the bomb, the way Blake launched himself like a missile at the man whohaunted my nightmares for two and a half years—crashes down on me at once. My knees turn to water.
Before gravity can claim me, Blake is there.
He moves faster than a man his size should be able to move, closing the distance in a blur. One second he stands with his brother, and the next, his massive arms wrap around me, holding me up, crushing me against the hard ballistic plate on his chest.
"I've got you," he murmurs, his voice a rough vibration against my ear. "I've got you, Tiff. Breathe."
I bury my face in his neck. He smells of gunpowder, iron, sweat, and that deep, woodsmoke scent uniquely him. That heavy musk grounds me. For years, the metallic tang of aggression terrified me. Now, it keeps me tethered to the earth.
"Is he..." I can't even say the name. My throat feels full of glass shards.
Blake pulls back just enough to cup my face in his large, rough hands. His thumbs sweep over my cheekbones, wiping away tears I hadn't realized I shed. His gaze burns, searching my face for any sign of physical harm.
"He's done," Blake says, his voice a low, vibrating growl that settles the chaos in my chest. He doesn't look back at the blacked-out van pulling away, and neither do I.
"The brothers have him. He’s going to a place where the law can’t find him, and where he can’t ever hurt you again. He’s been erased, Tiffany. You hear me? The hunt is over. You’re safe."
The hunt is over.
I shudder, a sob ripping through my chest. For thirty months, I have been the prey. Two years of his belt and six months of his shadow. I lived my life looking over my shoulder, checking locks three times, flinching at loud noises. And for the last few months, I have been hunted by Blake, too—my silent shadow, my guardian in the dark.
"Take me home," I whisper, gripping the tactical straps of his vest. "Please, Blake. Just take me home."
He doesn't ask which home I mean. He doesn't ask if I want to go to my apartment above the bakery or to a hotel. His chin drops in a single, sharp snap of agreement. He scoops me up into his arms as if I weigh nothing more than a bag of flour and marches toward his truck.
The town watches. I feel the eyes of the rescue team, the shop owners, the people I served coffee and pastries to every morning. They watch the monster carry the baker away. For the first time in my life, I don't care about the spectacle. Let them watch. Let them see who keeps the darkness at bay.
The drive up to the Grizzly Peak District passes in silence. Blake drives with one hand on the wheel, his other hand gripping my thigh with bruising intensity, as if he needs the physical contact to assure himself I remain beside him.
We wind higher, leaving the lights of Pine Valley behind, ascending into the thick, ancient pines where the air grows thin and cold. When the iron gates of The Forge come into view, something inside my chest uncoils. The massive, fortress-like structure clinging to the cliffside isn't just a house; it is a vault. And I am the treasure he has locked inside.
Blake kills the engine in the courtyard. The silence of the mountains rushes in, heavy and profound. He sits there, staring out the windshield at the steel doors of his sanctuary, his grip on my leg tightening.
"I lost control," he admits. His voice scrapes against the silence. "Back there. On the street."
I look at him. In the pale moonlight, the sharp angles of his face appear carved from granite. Exhausted. Haunted.
"You saved my life," I say.
"I wanted to kill him right there on the pavement," Blake confesses, turning his head to look at me. His eyes are dark pools of turmoil. "I wanted to tear his throat out with my teeth for what he did to you. For the fear he put in your eyes. It took everything I had—everything Logan and Austin taught me—not to execute him in front of half the town."
He pulls his hand away from my leg, looking down at his blood-stained knuckles.
"I’m a man of violence, Tiffany. That’s all there is," he rasps, his voice scraping against the moonlight. He holds up his hands—the skin split and stained dark with the blood of the man who tried to break me.
He is offering me an out. The realization hits with piercing clarity. He is showing me his bloodied hands to tell me that now the threat is gone, now that I don't need a protector, I can choose to walk away from the monster.
I don't move away. I reach out and take his damaged hand in mine. My fingers look pale and soft against his battered, scarredskin. I bring his hand to my lips, kissing the split skin, tasting the copper and the salt of the war he’d just fought for me.
Blake hisses in a breath, his whole body going rigid as a granite slab. "Tiffany..."
