She’s still kicking, still pounding on the inside of the trunk, muffled shouts bleeding through the metal like she thinks sheer willpower can bend steel.
They said I was vulnerable.
Fucking vulnerable.
Vaska with his calm eyes and quiet judgment.You’re in too deep with her too fast. That makes you vulnerable.
Maybe I am.
Because she has a townhouse that most people would kill for. Clothes. Food. Guards on rotation. My bed. My time.
And her ass is with Fuentes’ crew in a warehouse that smells like rot and regret.
I slam my palm against the steering wheel, jaw grinding.
Of course she ran back to them. Of course she did.
I take the turn too fast, tires skidding, anger tightening my grip until the leather creaks.
The music swells, some Russian track I’m not even hearing. All I hear is her in the back—thuds, kicks, the dull echo of her voice, stubborn and stupid and so fucking her.
“Should’ve left you there,” I mutter under my breath. “Shot all four of you in the skull.”
The thought lands like a punch to my own sternum.
I slam the brakes.
Hard.
The car screeches, nose dipping. From the back, there’s a heavy thud followed by a pained gasp that’s more felt than heard.
Then—Silence.
The music keeps going.
But she doesn’t.
My fingers tighten around the wheel until my knuckles go white.
Good, I tell myself. Maybe she finally passed out. Easier to deal with. Easier to carry without all the kicking and screaming.
Except the image that hits me isn’t her yelling.
It’s her sitting on Moronov’s exam table. Skin mottled with bruises, purple and yellow and sick blue over ribs that weren’t knitting right. The way she flinched when she pressed on her skin.
And she still won’t tell me who did that to her.
“Fuck,” I snarl, slamming my foot back on the gas.
The car lurches forward, engine growling as I push it harder, faster. Streets blur—sidewalks, neon, the city’s rotten heartbeat pounding against the windows. I cut through traffic without thinking, every second she stays quiet in that trunk scraping down my nerves.
If she hurt herself when I hit the brakes—if I hurt her…
Another curse tears out of me, low and rough.
I take the alley behind Exile on instinct, tires spitting gravel as I whip the car into the lot. The back of the club looms ahead, brick and metal and the faint thump of bass vibrating through the walls.
I kill the engine.
