My jaw aches from how hard I’ve been clenching it.
I turn toward her. The mask slips a fraction.
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
I don’t let go.
I won’t.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Seraphina
Fallout – UNSECRET, Neoni
The world outside the car dissolves into noise and movement. What had at a time been wonder and sparkling lights, has twisted into oppressive walls leaning in, crowding me, making me feel claustrophobic.
Everything blurs.
The city. The streets. The endless stretch of Las Vegas flashing past the tinted windows. I barely register any of it. My body is here, pressed into the leather seat, Trey’s hand wrapped tightlyaround mine, his thumb moving in slow, grounding strokes over my skin, but my mind is still back there—on the pavement, under the weight of those voices, beneath the echo of their venomous words sinking into my skin.
I try to steady my breathing. I try to stop the tremor that won’t leave my hands.
I fail.
It’s subtle. Barely noticeable. But it’s there, threading through me, tightening in my chest, crawling under my skin. Fear. Real, consuming fear. The kind that doesn’t fade when the danger passes because it never really passes at all.
I thought I had been steeling myself, my resolve, but that many strangers with so much ire toward me, makes me feel ill.
I shift slightly, pressing closer into Trey’s side without thinking, like proximity alone might stop the spiral before it drags me under completely. He doesn’t say anything, but his arm tightens around me instantly, pulling me in, his body solid and warm and unyielding at my side.
Safe.
He feels like safety.
Even when everything else is falling apart.
The car slows.
I barely notice at first, lost somewhere between memory and panic, until the movement changes and the engine quiets, and the vehicle rolls to a smooth stop.
An airstrip.
Private. Isolated.
The door opens, and one of Niko’s men steps out first, scanning the surroundings with sharp, practiced precision before stepping aside. Cool air spills in. The distant hum of aircraft. The faint echo of voices. Chace.
He slides into the SUV in one controlled movement, shutting the door behind him as his presence fills the space in a way thatshifts the air entirely. There’s nothing casual about him now. Nothing easy. Whatever mask he wears most of the time—it’s gone.
His eyes flick to Trey. Then to me. Then back again.
Something cold settles in my stomach.
“I’ve got information,” he says, cutting clean through the lingering noise in my head.
I can feel the tension in Trey. His reassuring touch, pauses. “I really hope it’s a location for that pussy ass preacher.”
Chace leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, he breathes deep, slow, trying to compose himself, for whatever revelation or news he has been holding onto.
