He tilts the phone again.
The video is live now.
Mason.
A man steps into frame.
A gun rises and presses against Mason’s temple.
My breath stops.
“At my signal,” Russel says quietly, “he dies.”
A sob tears through me.
“You don’t leave any doubt with him,” he adds. “You walk away and make sure he won’t follow.”
My vision blurs.
“And then…” he straightens, slipping the phone away, “…you come back to me.”
“Try anything,” one of the men mutters, “and your brother is dead.”
I suck in a shaking breath as Russel steps back.
“Go on,” he says softly.
Like I have a choice.
My feet don’t move at first.
Then they do.
One step.
Then another.
Back toward the person I’m about to break.
And I know I’ll break my own heart in the process.
By the time I step back into the light, I feel like I’m walking through water.
Everything is louder. Brighter. Too normal. The music swells, laughter spilling across the fairgrounds like nothing just changed.
Like my world didn’t just split in two. Like I didn’t just sign my heart and happiness away.
I spot him immediately.
Dex.
He stands near the dance floor, talking to Ethan and Cas, but the second I come into view, his head turns.
Like he feels me.
His eyes find mine instantly, and just like that, everything in me shatters.
He smiles at me, and his eyes hold such love and devotion they feel like a knife to the heart.
