Breeding Justice

16. Chapter Sixteen Skylar

Chapter Sixteen: Skylar

W e burst through the lobby doors and into the night. The cool air was a slap to the face, shocking us back to life after the stifling heat of the building. I scanned the street, looking for anything we could use—a car, a bike, even a makeshift weapon. The block was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that hummed with potential violence.

"This way," I said, pulling them toward a dark alley that cut between two dilapidated buildings. Our footsteps echoed off the brick walls, creating a dissonant rhythm with our ragged breathing. I could feel the adrenaline starting to wear off, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion. We weren’t out of this yet.

A shout rang out behind us, and I turned to see three of Vito’s men sprinting from the hotel entrance. One raised a gun, and I tackled Justice to the ground as a shot cracked the night air. The bullet ricocheted off a dumpster, sending sparks into the alley. Justice, with a sudden burst of strength, grabbed a loose pipe lying nearby and swung it at the nearest man. The pipe connected with a sickening thud, and the man stumbled back, clutching his leg. She dropped the weapon immediately, her strength giving out, but it bought us precious seconds.

"Go, go!" I yelled, pulling Justice to her feet. Bash had already rounded the corner, and we stumbled after him, our bodies running on sheer willpower.

We emerged onto a side street, and I spotted an old sedan parked under a broken streetlight. Its paint was peeling, and one of the tires looked low, but it was our best shot. I pointed to it, and Bash nodded.

"Get my wife," he said, already moving toward the car. I didn’t argue. I put an arm around Justice’s waist and half-carried her across the street. Her body was hot and clammy, and I could feel her strength slipping away.

Bash shattered the driver’s side window with his elbow, then reached in to unlock the door. Glass tinkled to the pavement as he slid into the seat and ducked down to check the ignition. I set Justice against the car’s rear fender and drew my gun, looking back toward the alley. Shadows moved in the distance.

"How’s it look?" I asked Bash.

"No keys," he said, sitting up. He tossed me a tire iron. "Make it quick."

I opened the passenger door and grabbed the steering column, wrenching it with the tire iron. The plastic casing cracked, and I pulled it away to reveal a tangle of wires. My fingers worked with a practiced speed, stripping the right ones and twisting them together. Sparks flew, and the engine coughed but didn’t catch.

"Come on," I muttered, giving it another go. The engine sputtered to life, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Bash got out and opened the back door for Justice. She tried to climb in on her own, but her body betrayed her, collapsing into his arms. He lifted her gently, and for a moment, I saw the tenderness he usually kept hidden. He laid her across the backseat, then closed the door with a soft click.

I slid into the driver’s seat as Bash walked around to the passenger side. He paused, looking back toward the alley, and I saw his shoulders tense. He opened the door just as two of Vito’s men rounded the corner, guns drawn.

One of them shouted, and Bash turned with the speed of a striking snake, his new pistol barking twice. The first man dropped, a neat hole in his forehead. The second stumbled, clutching his chest, then raised his weapon. Bash was on him in three strides, knocking the gun away and driving a knee into the man’s ribs. Bones cracked, and the man let out a wheezing scream.

"Bash!" I yelled, but he was lost in it, a hurricane of fists and fury. The man went limp, and Bash stood over him, chest heaving, eyes wild. Blood dripped from his knuckles.

I revved the engine, and Bash snapped back to reality. He opened the passenger door and got in, not bothering to close it as I peeled away from the curb. The door swung shut with a clang as we sped down the empty street.

I checked the rearview mirror. Justice lay motionless, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow but steady. "She’ll be okay," I said, more to myself than to Bash.

He stared out the window, his face a stone mask. "She has to be." We drove in silence for a few minutes, the city’s neon glow casting shifting patterns on the car’s interior. I took a winding route, avoiding main roads and potential checkpoints. The sedan’s engine whined like a tired dog, and I prayed it would hold together long enough to get us clear.

Bash’s voice broke the silence. "We need to get Justice to Zane first. She won’t make it without proper care."

“You don’t think they’ll be watching the Brickell building?”

“I don’t know, but I know Justice can’t just bleed out because we don’t have access to a doctor. And I’m sure you’re dying to see him.

He was right. Zane was my anchor, the one person who could steady me when everything else was in flux. If something happened to him…

"Skylar," Bash said, and I looked over. His green eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw the weight he carried. The responsibility. The fear. "We’ll get them out. All of them."

In the backseat, Justice stirred. "Bash," she whispered, and he turned to her. "I’m sorry."

"Don’t," he said, but she was already drifting back to sleep. I drove through the night, the city blurring into a wash of colors and shadows.

“We’ll get you help, pet,” I said.

Justice smiled. “I know.”

And then she went quiet.

Our breathing was the only sound, a slow, tired rhythm. Justice slept, her face finally at peace. Bash watched her, his features softening.

The night stretched ahead of us, long and uncertain, but for the first time in hours, I felt a flicker of hope. We were battered, but we were alive. And as long as we had that, we had a chance.

***

The city blurred past us, a kaleidoscope of neon and shadow. I took a winding route through back roads and empty streets, the kind where even the streetlights seemed too tired to do their job. The old sedan wheezed and rattled, but it held together. For now. In the backseat, Justice slept, her breathing shallow but steady.

Bash had his head back against the seat, eyes closed, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping. His body was too tense, coiled like a spring. I let the silence stretch, not wanting to be the one to break it.

We needed this moment, fragile as it was. My mind drifted to Zane and Hassan. We’d planned the wedding with military precision, but the best-laid plans were always the first to go up in smoke.

I pictured Zane’s calm, unflinching eyes, the way he could steady me with just a look. I pictured him lying there, almost bleeding to death.

The knot in my stomach tightened.

"I really hope Vito hasn’t gotten to them. I hope SJ is okay," Bash said, his voice cutting through my thoughts. He still had his eyes closed, speaking more to the universe than to me. "I don’t want him to fall into Vito’s hands."

I didn’t disagree. Sebastian was Bash’s heart, the one person who could pull him out of this life if given the chance. But SJ was also one of us, and leaving him behind had never been an option. He was their son. They were never going to leave him.

"They’ll be fine," I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it. "Zane and Hassan know what they’re doing."

Bash opened his eyes and turned to me. The green of his irises looked dull in the washed-out glow of the dashboard. "Do they? Because right now, it feels like we’re all just making this up as we go."

I shrugged. "That’s how it always is, isn’t it? We improvise, we adapt. We survive."

He let out a long, slow breath, then looked back at Justice. "She’s tougher than I give her credit for. She always has been.”

I didn’t say anything. Bash knew how tough Justice was. He just didn’t like admitting it, because to acknowledge her strength was to acknowledge her as an equal. And that meant facing the reality that she was just as capable of making her own choices, and her own mistakes.

It meant that the deal, the way she had come into our lives, it was all shades of fucked up.

"We need to figure out our next move," I said, trying to shift his focus. "If they’re gunning for all of us, we can’t just go back to the house and hope for the best."

Bash sat up a little straighter, his mind clicking back into gear. "We find SJ first. Then we link up with Hassan’s team."

I took a left turn onto a deserted avenue. The buildings here were tall and oppressive, like the skeletons of giants. "Maybe we should lay low for a bit. Get off the grid until we know what’s coming next."

"Skylar," Bash said, his tone warning.

"I’m serious. We don’t even know how deep their reach is. Running back to Miami could be a death sentence."

Bash rubbed his temples, the gray in his hair more pronounced than ever. "We’re not running. We’re regrouping."

"Call it whatever you want. I’m just saying we need to be smart about this."

"We will be." I glanced over at him.

"Will we? Because right now it feels like we’re charging in blind."

Bash’s jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought he might explode. Instead, he slumped back in his seat, deflated.

"I dragged her into this, you know," he said, almost softly.

I knew who he meant, but I stayed silent, letting him work through it.

"Justice wanted out years ago. She probably wanted to take SJ and start fresh, somewhere far from all this, but by then, it was too late. I convinced her to stay, to keep fighting." He paused, and I could see the conflict in his eyes, the war between duty and regret.

"Convinced her, or forced her?" I asked, knowing the answer but needing him to say it.

“Don’t be coy. You were there. You enjoyed the spoils just as much as I did. You’ve fucked her just as much as I have,” she said. “This concerned citizen shit looks very fake on you.”

I supposed he had a point, but I was worried. Worried about Justice, worried about Zane.

Worried about Hassan.

Worried about the baby.

Worried about every single person it felt like I had ever loved.

I shook my head. "You didn’t drag her into anything, Bash. She’s here because she wants to be. Because she believes in what we’re doing."

We fell back into silence, the kind that comes after hard truths. I focused on the road, on the twists and turns that would keep us hidden. The city was a maze, and we were the rats trying to find our way out. In the backseat, Justice shifted in her sleep, murmuring something unintelligible. Bash turned to check on her, and I saw his features soften again, the hard lines of his face giving way to something more human.

"We’ll get them out," he said, as if making a promise. "All of them." I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road.

"Yeah," I said. "We will."

The night stretched ahead of us, long and uncertain, but we drove on, propelled by the fragile hope that we could still set things right.

***

The moon hung low in the sky, casting a silvery glow over the open road. The old sedan’s engine droned, a constant, hypnotic hum that threatened to lull us into a false sense of security. I kept my hands tight on the wheel, my eyes flicking between the road and the rearview mirror. Justice still slept in the backseat, her body shifting with the car’s gentle sways.

Bash had his arms crossed, staring out the window at the passing landscape. We were in farm country now, a patchwork of fields and orchards that looked desolate in the moonlight. “We need a phone,” he said. “I need to call Zane or Hassan.”

“I think there are burners in the safehouse in Naples.”

“That’s so far away,” Bash said.

“I’m not stopping—not if there’s a chance they catch her and kill her.”

It was the kind of place where time seemed to stand still, where the modern world’s troubles felt miles away. But our troubles were closer than ever.

Every mile we put between us and the city felt like a mile deeper into the unknown. We had no idea what we were driving into, only that we had to keep moving.

Bash exhaled sharply, the frustration evident in the rigid set of his jaw. "Fine," he said. "Naples it is. But we need to get there fast. If Vito’s men are on us, they’ll expect us to head for the obvious places. We need to stay one step ahead."

I nodded, pushing the sedan harder. The engine whined in protest, but it held. The road stretched out before us like an endless ribbon, flanked by fields that seemed to glow faintly under the moonlight. The silence inside the car wasn’t uncomfortable—it was heavy, filled with the weight of everything we were running from and everything still ahead of us.

Justice stirred in the backseat, her brow furrowing as though even her dreams couldn’t escape the chaos we’d left behind. Bash turned to look at her again, his hand resting on the seat near her shoulder, though he didn’t touch her.

“She needs more than a safehouse,” he muttered, almost to himself.

“She’ll get what she needs,” I said. “Once we’re out of this, we’ll find Zane. We’ll get her stable. She’ll pull through.”

Bash didn’t respond, but his shoulders remained tight, his gaze fixed on Justice like she might disappear if he blinked.

The road curved sharply ahead, and I eased the car around the bend, the tires skidding slightly on loose gravel. The faint outline of a gas station appeared on the horizon, its single fluorescent light flickering weakly.

“We can’t stop,” Bash said quickly, reading my thoughts.

“We need fuel,” I replied, my tone firm. “And if there’s a chance they have a payphone, I’m taking it. We can’t keep driving blind.”

Bash clenched his fists but didn’t argue. Justice murmured something unintelligible in her sleep, her voice weak but alive. That was enough to keep me moving.

As we pulled into the station, I scanned the area for any signs of trouble. The place was deserted, its small convenience store dark except for the glow of a vending machine near the window. A rusted pickup truck sat abandoned near the side of the building, its tires flat and its hood propped open like a mouth frozen mid-scream.

“Stay with her,” I said to Bash, my voice low. “I’ll pump the gas and see if I can find a phone.”

Bash nodded, his hand instinctively resting on the pistol tucked into his jacket. I stepped out of the car, the cool night air biting at my skin. The gas pump was ancient, its paint chipped and peeling, but it hummed to life as I fed it a few crumpled bills.

While the tank filled, I made my way to the convenience store. The door creaked as I pushed it open, and the smell of mildew hit me like a wall. Dust coated the shelves, and most of the items looked like they’d been sitting there for decades. But in the corner, tucked behind a rack of expired snacks, I spotted a payphone.

I fished a coin from my pocket and dialed Zane’s number, my heart pounding with every ring. On the fourth ring, someone picked up.

“Hello?” The voice was low, cautious. It was Zane.

“Zane, it’s me,” I said quickly. “We’re out.”

“You’re out? Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is Justice?”

I held back a smile. “Slow down, doc,” I said. “Justice is…wounded. She needs attention, but she’ll live. Are you okay? Are you with Hassan? Is SJ safe?”

There was a pause, long enough to make my chest tighten. “We’re okay,” Zane said finally. “But Vito’s men are everywhere. We headed to New York City to meet Dante Moretti. He was going to broker peace with Vito. It didn’t go well, so now we’re going back to Miami. We were planning on rescuing you. Nothing happened, by the way. We’re all okay. I’m recovering, before you ask.”

Relief flooded through me, but it was short-lived. “We’re heading to Naples. Justice is hurt. We need a doctor, and we need to regroup.”

“What happened?” Zane asked, his voice sharp with concern.

“Well, we got out, but not without a fight. They’re coming for all of us, Zane. If they get SJ...”

“They won’t get SJ.”

“I’ll explain everything when we get there,” I said. “Just keep him safe, Zane. We’re trusting you.

“You know I will,” Zane replied, his tone resolute. “Get here in one piece. Skylar? I love you.”

“I love you,” I said.

“Do you need first aid instructions for Justice?”

“No, I got it,” I said.

I hung up and hurried back to the car, my mind racing. Bash rolled down the window as I approached, his expression hard.

“They’re heading to Naples,” I said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Hassan’s got SJ, and Zane’s with them. We’re about an hour behind.”

Bash let out a breath, a flicker of relief crossing his face. “Then we push through. No stops.”

I nodded and slammed the car into drive, the old sedan lurching forward as we pulled back onto the empty road. The gas station faded into the darkness behind us, and the miles stretched ahead like a challenge.

Justice stirred again, her eyes fluttering open. “Skylar?” she murmured, her voice barely audible.

“I’m here,” I said, glancing back at her in the rearview mirror. “We’re almost there. Just hold on.”

She gave a faint nod, her head lolling to the side as she drifted off again.

Bash turned to me, his voice low but steady. “If they’re waiting for us in Naples…”

“They won’t be,” I said firmly, though I wasn’t entirely sure. “We’ll get to them first. We’ll protect SJ. We’ll end this.”

Bash didn’t reply, but the look in his eyes told me he believed it. Or maybe he just needed to.

The road stretched endlessly ahead, the weight of what was to come pressing down on all of us. But we kept moving, the promise of safety just within reach. We were battered, we were hunted—but we weren’t done. Not yet.

And when we were out of this, we were going to kill Vito.