“I have to go,” he breathes. “If I stay… I won’t be able to stop myself.”
He presses a brief, almost reverent kiss to my lips, soft this time, dangerous in its restraint, then the warmth of him retreats.
I watch, stunned and breathless, as he moves toward the door. He unlocks the deadbolt, pauses, then turns back to look at me one last time. His gaze sweeps over me slowly, possessively, like he’s committing the sight to memory.
“Lose the security guard,” he says quietly. “Or I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”
It isn’t a suggestion.
The door closes behind him with a final, hollow click, leaving me sitting there, heart racing, lips still burning, knowing with terrifying certainty that nothing in my life will ever be untouched by him again.
Chapter Twelve
Khai
Blood coats my hands.
Not splatter. Not streaks.
Soaked.
It fills the creases of my palms, sinks under my nails, dries sticky against my skin like it belongs there. I stare down at them, flex my fingers slowly, watching the red pull and crack.
I don’t remember pulling the trigger.
The warehouse hums around me, low, vibrating, wrong. Concrete walls slick with gore. Bodies everywhere. Some whole. Some not. The air smells like iron and gunpowder, and something burned past recognition.
Someone screams.
It might be me.
Jaxon laughs somewhere to my right, sharp and unhinged. “Jesus, Khai,” he says, wiping blood from his face like it’s sweat. “You really made a mess of this one.”
I look up.
The body at my feet is missing its face.
I blink.
It’s whole again.
The lights flicker. The world stutters like it skipped a frame. My hands,
Clean.
No.
Bloody again.
My stomach drops.
Something beeps.
Soft. Steady. Rhythmic.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I turn in a slow circle, gun raised on instinct, but there’s nothing. Just the warehouse stretching too long, the ceiling too high, the shadows bending at angles that make my head ache.
