Because if she asks too much, I might break.
Cobra stands with me in his arms before I realize he’s moved. The world tips again, and I grab his shirt, pressing into him as my stomach rolls. “Easy,” he says again, voice low near my ear.
I close my eyes for one second. When I open them, he’s looking down at me. The fear is gone from his face now. Locked away. But I saw it. I won’t forget it. And I think that scares me more than anything else tonight. Because now I know what I am to him. Not because he said it.Because for one terrible second in that alley, he couldn’t hide it. And something in me answers back. Even through the pain. Even through the guilt. Even through the cold.
I’m not just safe with him.
I matter.
And that truth feels more dangerous than the knife ever did.
Olivia lies without blinking. “Drunk idiots knocked me over.” Her voice is steady enough to pass if someone doesn’t know what to listen for.
I know. I hear the break underneath. The tight thread of pain. The small catch where her breath doesn’t fill all the way because her head hurts and she’s trying not to show it. She’s sitting against me on the pavement outside the club, one hand braced near my thigh, the other curled around her phone like she can hold herself together if she grips hard enough.
Tessa and Mia stand in front of us, pale and scared under the streetlight. Tessa doesn’t buy it.
I see that too.
Her gaze cuts from Olivia’s face to mine, then to the alley behind us, then back again. She’s mouthy. Smart. Protective in that way women get when someone they love is hurt and nobody’s giving them enough information to satisfy the panic.
Mia looks closer to falling apart.
“What drunk idiots?” Tessa asks, voice sharp. “Because I’ll go back in there and find them myself.”
“No,” I say. One word.
Her eyes snap to me.
Good. Let it land.
Olivia shifts against me. “Tess, don’t. It was the crowd. Everyone was pushing. I went down.”
“You hit your head,” Mia says, her voice trembling.
“I’m okay.”
“She’s not,” I say.
Olivia turns her head toward me too fast and winces.
My jaw locks.
That tiny wince. The way her pupils don’t track quite right for half a second. The fact that a man put a knife to her throat, dragged her backward into the dark, then shoved her hard enough that her skull cracked against pavement.
My hand curls around her waist. Not tight enough to hurt. Tight enough to keep myself from doing something else.
Tessa’s eyes sharpen again. “What aren’t you saying?”
Olivia opens her mouth.
I cut in before she can spend herself on another lie. “She needs to get checked.”
“I don’t need—”
“You do.”
Her mouth presses into a line. Normally, I like that look on her. The stubborn one. The one that says she’s getting ready to plant her feet and make me work for every inch. Not tonight. Tonight, it almost breaks what’s left of my control.
