Page 78 of Reckless

Then he turns.

The brothers instinctively make room for him, stepping aside without anyone asking them to. Even Sin steps aside, simply watching Ghost walk past, reading something in him the same way I’d been trying to only seconds earlier.

The two men from the SUV watch him approach.

The driver shifts his weight, trying to square his shoulders despite the blood running down the side of his face. Whatever confidence he’d been holding onto evaporates the second Ghost stops in front of him.

I see it happen, the realization—this isn’t an interrogation anymore.

Ghost reaches behind his back, his movements smooth and unhurried, drawing his pistol with the same ease he’d shown a hundred other times handling a keyboard, a camera, or a lockpick. There isn’t a trace of hesitation in him.

No anger.

No satisfaction.

Only purpose.

A cold rush sweeps through my body.

“Ethan…” His name leaves my mouth quickly.

He doesn’t look back.

The first shot tears through the silence. The sound punches the air from my lungs, and my body jerks with the shock. The driver’s head explodes, blood ricocheting and splashing in a wave of crimson across the SUV as his body collapses into the dirt before my brain has caught up with what my eyes have just witnessed.

“What the fuc—” the passenger yells just as the second recoil of the Glock follows so quickly it almost overlaps the first. Blood blooms across the SUV, brain matter dripping off the number plate as the passenger drops beside him.

Just… gone.

My heart slams against my ribs so hard it hurts as I dry-retch.

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

I stare at the two bodies lying in the dirt, my mind desperately trying to make sense of the impossible jump between the man who kissed me goodnight outside my apartment and the man standing twenty feet away with a pistol still smoking in his hand.

A strange ache spreads through my chest.

Not fear.

Not of him.

The realization catches me completely off guard.

I should be horrified, and part of me is.

But a louder, deeper part understands without needing the explanation.

Whatever was on that photograph, those men had signed their own death warrants long before Ghost pulled the trigger.

The desert falls silent again.

Ghost lowers the Glock with the same steady control he’d raised it, holsters it without so much as glancing at the two men on the ground, and finally turns back toward me.

Our eyes meet.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.