Page 158 of No Good Fight

Josh looks over his shoulder and swears.

Remy reaches Ryder first, grabbing his arm before the next punch lands. Ryder jerks away so violently that Remy nearly loses his footing.

“Cook.”

Ryder doesn’t respond.

Preston smiles up at him through blood.

“She knows now.”

Ryder’s fist closes in Preston’s shirt.

“She knows exactly what you are.” Preston’s words are slurring together, but that doesn’t matter.

I understand what Preston is doing before Ryder does. Maybe because Preston spent years doing it to me.

Find the wound. Push until the person gives you the reaction you want. Then point at the reaction and call it proof.

Ryder catches Preston by the front of his shirt and hauls him off the floor so violently that Preston’s feet barely find traction beneath him. There’s nothing controlled about Ryder anymore. The man who checks doors twice, who notices exits before he sits down, who can walk into a burning building and somehow make every movement look deliberate is gone. His knuckles are split, Preston’s blood is smeared across one of his hands, and when he slams him against the wall again, the sound carries through the room hard enough that Josh shifts beside me.

I’ve seen Ryder angry. I’ve seen him frightened and possessive and so tightly wound around protecting me that I wanted to shake him. I’ve even imagined what he might do if he ever got his hands on Preston after everything that happened.

I was wrong.

Ryder isn’t trying to stop him anymore.

Preston can barely stand, and Ryder is still holding him upright by his shirt, dragging him back every time his knees start to buckle. Remy says Ryder’s name from somewhere behind them, sharp enough that I know it’s a warning, but Ryder doesn’t react. His attention never leaves Preston’s face.

Preston notices too.

Blood runs from the corner of his mouth when he smiles.

That smile makes the fear in my chest turn cold.

He wants this.

All those photographs. Every comparison he made between them while I was tied to that chair. The way he kept insisting Ryder watched me the same way he did, controlled me the same way he did, wanted to own me the same way he did. Preston didn’t bring Ryder here just because he wanted him to see what happened to me.

He wanted Ryder to become part of it.

“Ryder.”

My voice comes out rough enough that I’m not sure anyone hears me over the movement in the room.

Ryder draws Preston away from the wall and drives him back into it.

Josh shifts beside me, taking his hand away from my shoulder as he starts to get up. I catch a fistful of his sleeve before he can.

He looks down at me immediately. “Alex, I need to⁠—”

“Don’t.”

His expression tightens. Across the room, Remy has moved closer to Ryder, but he hasn’t put his hands on him yet. Maybe he sees the same thing I do. Maybe he knows that someone physically dragging Ryder away from Preston isn’t going to solve what’s happening inside him.

I tighten my fingers in Josh’s sleeve. “Please.”

Josh stays beside me.