Nate looked away.
Callum saw everything.
Of course he did.
“Sit with her,” he said.
It sounded like an order.
Good.
Orders were easier than choices.
I climbed in and settled her half across my lap, half against my chest, keeping pressure away from her ribs as best I could. Her head tucked under my chin. Her hair smelled like smoke, desert, tequila, and something softer underneath that did not belong in a night like this.
I stared over her head at the opposite door.
Do not think about it.
Do not think about her skin under the dirt.
Do not think about the shape of her mouth split with blood.
Do not think about how she looked like sin and sorrow and seventeen years of men failing to protect her from the one thing they couldn’t shoot.
Shame.
Callum climbed into the front passenger seat. Nate got behind the wheel because he drove like he had made a personal enemy of roads.
“Where?” Nate asked.
Callum was already on his phone.
“Edge,” he said when the call connected.
I felt Destiny go rigid against me.
Even through the haze, she knew that name like home and judgment at once.
Callum didn’t waste words.
“We found her.”
Silence on the other end.
Then a voice loud enough I heard it from the back seat.
“Where?”
Callum’s eyes flicked to me in the mirror.
“Alive. Injured. Conscious some of the time. We have her.”
Another pause.
Then Edge Rourke’s voice came through so low it barely sounded human.
“Who has her?”
