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I blink, slowly, like maybe I didn’t hear him right. But I did. My body goes cold.
I hadn’t seen it. Not the glint of it, not the weight in her waistband, not the shape of danger tucked just out of sight. All I’d seen was her face—her smug, lying mouth, her eyes that looked at me like I was still some small thing to be broken. That’s what I hit. That’s all I hit.
If she’d pulled that gun—
If she’d—
I feel my stomach twist, slow and ugly. My knees weaken without moving. I can’t breathe right. The image lurches through my mind—blood, mine, on the sticky bar floor. The look in Sophie’s eyes. Henry kneeling beside my body, too late. Dallas watching them drag me out under a sheet.
I can’t move.
He laughs, but it’s a cold, bitter sound, scraped raw. “No. You didn’t. You didn’t think about that little boy. About Sophie. About me.”
I feel it now—the weight of it, pressing down on my chest like lead. He’s not wrong. I hadn’t been thinking. I’d let rage swallow me whole, let it carry me out where nothing existed except the heat of her voice and the ghost of every time she’d left me bleeding. I thought I’d done the right thing. I thought maybe, just once, I could be the one to land the first blow.
But I hadn’t seen the gun.
Now all I can see is what could’ve happened. What almost did.
My breath is shallow. My arms are heavy. I look at him, and I know he sees it—the shift. The quiet kind of panic that settles in once the fire burns out and leaves only the smoke behind.
“Henny…” My voice is hoarse, cracked somewhere down the middle. I don’t even know what I was going to say.
Before I can finish, a large, rough hand clamps around my throat, crushing my words and stealing my breath like a tightening vise.
“For once in your life, just shut the fuck up, Louisiana.” His voice is cold, hard—a command that leaves no room for argument.
His thumb presses against the hollow of my throat, right over the frantic thrum of my pulse. He feels it—knows I’m alive, knows I’m scared, knows I’m not backing down. His fingers don’t squeeze harder…but they don’t let go either.
His jaw is rock hard, tight enough to crack, and we just stand there—breathing each other in like we’re both on the edge of combustion.
His chest heaves with rage, but there’s something else behind it—something darker. Hungrier. And God help me, I feel it too.
I should be backing down, apologizing, running. I should be shaking—reeling from the fact that the woman who bled me into this world strolled back into my life with a pistol tucked into the back of her jeans like it was just another day.
But I’m not.
No, I’m standing here with adrenaline roaring in my ears and every nerve ending lit up like a fucking wildfire. All I can think is I want him to break me open. I want to sink my teeth into that fury. I want to feel everything he’s been holding back—all of it.
I want the anger, the fury, the grief. I want to feel it. All of it. I want him to take everything he’s been burying and throw it at me so I don’t have to keep carrying mine alone. I want to lose myself in the chaos of Henry Wilder and deal with the fallout later.
His eyes rake over my face like he’s trying to decide whether to kiss me or kill me.
I swear to God, if he touches me, I’ll let him do both.
He steps closer, closing the sliver of space between us, his breath hot against my mouth. The air crackles. My pulse pounds.
Still gripping my throat like he owns it, he yanks open the back door and shoves me inside—rough but controlled, like he’s barely keeping himself from unraveling. The door slams shut behind me with a final, echoing thud.
I’m still catching my breath, heart pounding like war drums, when the back door opens again. Henry leans in, jaw clenched, eyes darker than sin.
“What now? Are you going to bark orders from the front seat?” I sneer, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he grabs my wrists—fast, firm—and before I can process what’s happening, I hear the unmistakable click of metal on metal. My arms jerk as the cold bite of steel snaps around them.
“What the fuck—are you seriously cuffing me right now?”
