The van lurches, a hard sideways sway, and we both move on instinct.Our hands find each other and clutch tight, bracing against the slide.
When the rocking eases, our grip loosens but doesn’t break.Neither does our eye contact.
We hold each other’s stare, close enough that I feel the warmth of his body, the proof that he’s still breathing, still fighting.There’s no rush in it.No claim.Just shared ground after an ugly battle.
Ten days.
That’s how long they worked him.Beat him.Strapped him down, forced his eyes open, and made him watch Dove suffer on a loop.
By every rule I know, his brain should be soup.He should be curled in the fetal position, rocking, empty, gone somewhere I can’t reach.
It hasn’t hit him yet.
Shock is holding the line.Purpose is holding the line.Dove, being out there somewhere, is holding the line.He doesn’t have room to fall apart because this isn’t finished.Survival hasn’t loosened its grip.
I see it in the way his eyes never stop moving, and how his jaw remains fixed despite the threat being gone.
He’s functioning on borrowed time and unfinished business.His system hasn’t caught up to what his body just escaped.
Maybe he won’t break the way people expect.But I know this much.When we’re alone, when the noise drops and the danger clears, the demons will come.In the quiet moments.In the dark.In ways neither of us can outrun.
I’ll be there for it.
He continues to stare at me, never letting his gaze drift as if I might vanish.His focus isn’t frantic.It’s fierce and clinging, threaded with the heaviest, most pressing thought.
“Dove.”A wet sheen veils his eyes, and he blinks.“I can’t breathe.She’s…”
“I know.”My heart hurts.It fucking howls and thrashes and doesn’t stop.
I press a hand against my chest, rubbing the stabbing pain as everything inside me tries to rupture right there.
But I don’t let it.I can’t.He needs me stitched up and sane.So I fight the urge to spiral.Fight the images.Fight the clock that’s suddenly loud again.I don’t know where she is, but panic won’t help him.Panic won’t find her.
“Mikhail.”I twist toward him, where he hunches over a laptop.“Pull up the video of Dove’s capture.”
His fingers tap over the keyboard.Moments later, he swivels the screen toward us and hits play.
I shift to sit beside Jag and force myself to watch Dove’s capture again.
“That’s my camera.I hid it on the street outside the mechanic shop.”Jag leans in, eyes locked.“That’s not what they showed me when I surrendered.Their video had her dragged off the pier and thrown onto a boat.”
“Another fake.”Mikhail turns away with the laptop.
“How was she taken from your guards?”Jag stares at me.No accusation.He seems genuinely baffled.
“There was a decoy.”
I walk through every detail of that vile day from the moment I left her in the shop.I describe the slaughter I found in the tattoo parlor, the decoy that ran from the security team, the realization that we fucked up, and Dove’s disappearance without a trace.
“A decoy.”Something ignites behind his eyes.Not panic.Realization.
“What?”I clasp his arm.“You know something.”
“Show me the video again.”He looks at Mikhail.“Pause on the man who took her.”
“He was masked.”Mikhail twists toward us, the video already cued up.
“Zoom in on his hands.”Jag grips my thigh as he bends toward the screen.“There.”
