Chapter 60
Chapter Sixty
BASTION
The pavement echoed as we walked. Emilia’s voice carried softly. She spoke of little things, casual stories about her brunch, a laugh about some dinner plan that hadn’t gone the way it should have.
It was nothing and everything at the same time. Each word made me want to walk slower, to draw the moment out, to keep her here just a little longer before she slipped away.
She had stayed with us all week. Her bag was still upstairs in the penthouse, waiting for her. But tonight, she was meant to go back to Alexander. Before he arrived in Villain.
The one thing that eased letting her go for the night, was the fact tomorrow we sat down with Damius. The day after that, her family would feel the noose.
I might have to stop Luca from taking a photo of Alexander face. Though. Knowing Luca, he would make sure a camera was pointed to capture the moment.
His message still burned across my screen: Another hour. Don’t let her leave.
I pulled her closer, sliding my arm around her and locking her to my side. I couldn’t stop touching her, needing the proof she was real.
“You cold baby?” I gripped her waist tighter.
She smiled up at me from the crook of my arm. “Not when I’m with you.” She slid her arm around my back and stepped in front of me.
“Guess my career as electric blanket is turning out to be successful then.” My other hand cupped her face.
She frowned at me. I saw her question before she asked it.
I kissed her the top of her head, pulling her in closer. “I hate this part,”
“Only a few more weeks right?”
“Exactly,”
“You might get sick of me.” She pulled back slightly, offering me a piece of candy.
I moved my hand to the back of her neck, holding her still and kissed her taking her piece of candy instead.
“Thief,” she whispered slightly breathless against my lips. Her hand gripped my shirt, she kissed me again, her tongue in my mouth taking it back.
She peeked my lips, barely, when she pulled back the biggest grin on her face.
Movement out of the corner of my eye caused me to look away.
Chrome rims. Parked at an angle across the street.
Every muscle in my body locked.
I pulled my gun from the back of my waist band. My other arm shoving Emilia hard behind me.
The first shot ripped through my shoulder, forcing me back a step. The second into my side, hot and deep.
But I didn’t stop. I raised my arm and fired back, round after round, body blocking hers even as she screamed my name .
I gritted my teeth against the pain and kept unloading until the car screeched, fishtailed around the corner.
I held her to my back, until my legs got heavy, taking me to the ground.
Emilia dropped beside me, her hands frantic, slipping against the blood. Her eyes were wide.
“Bastion—oh God—are you hurt—” Her words broke, tears overpowered her, as her hands pressed to my side, then my shoulder.
“Hey—” I dragged my hand up, cupping her cheek.
My blood now all over her cheek but I held her face anyway, pulled her eyes to mine. “Are you hurt? Tell me you’re not hit.”
She shook her head hard, “No, I’m fine, I’m fine—but you’re—” Her voice breaking, and she couldn’t finish.
“I’m okay, baby,” I lied, my voice low. My thumb brushed her cheek, catching tears I hated seeing on her. “Don’t cry. Not for me.”
“You’re bleeding everywhere.” Her hands pressed down on my chest. “I can’t stop it. I can’t?—”
“Shhh.” My breath hitched, but I kept my gaze on hers. “Look at me. It’s gonna be okay.”
She shook her head violently. “Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say it like you’re leaving me. You’re not—you’re not allowed to?—”
Her words collapsed into sobs. She bent over me, forehead pressed against mine, her voice shaking. “I love you. Do you hear me? I love you Bastion. So you don’t get to do this. You don’t get to leave me.”
Her tears dropped hot against my face. My chest seized, not just from the pain, but from the way she was holding me like I was already gone.
I wanted to promise her more. Wanted to tell her I’d never leave, that I’d fight my way back just to see her smile again. But the weight was dragging me under, heavy, merciless.
I clung to her face, forced my eyes to stay on hers as the edges of my vision blurred. “I’m not going anywhere, angel.”
Her sob hitched into a broken laugh, desperate. “Then fight. Please. Stay with me. I can’t—” Her voice broke off, too much pain.
I tried to hold on, tried to keep my hand on her cheek, but my strength slipped. My arm fell, useless. She caught it, pressed it to her chest, refusing to let go.
She shook her head, “No. We have a life planned remember? So you have to stay. You’re staying.”
Her cry ripped through me.
I fought to speak, to tell her it was okay. Her forehead against mine, her tears running down my face.
“I love you,” she whispered again, over and over, as if the words could chain me here. “I love you. We have a life planned remember? So you have to stay. Please .”
I just registered the cars, doors opening. Men boots.
Emilia didn’t see them. She was bent over me, hands shaking against my chest, eyes locked on mine.
I saw them.
Coming up behind her.
“Run.”My throat ripped raw.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Run!” I forced, but my voice broken, body too weak to push her away.
She shook her head hard, tears falling, her hands fisting in my shirt. “No! I won’t?—”
She didn’t see them closing in.
I did.
My arm twitched, useless, trying to lift, to warn, to shield. Nothing. My body wouldn’t answer .
The first hand grabbed her shoulder. She gasped, shocked, but before she could react, another arm grabbed around her waist.
“No!” she screamed, clutching me tighter, her nails scratching my chest. She tried to anchor herself against me, holding me, sobbing, “I’m not leaving you?—”
They tore her off me.
I felt her grip rip through my shirt, her fingers clawing back toward me as they lifted her off me. I tried to reach, tried to pull her, back but my body was useless.
“Emilia—” Her name weak, too low to be heard over her screaming my name.
She fought them, thrashing, screaming, her body twisting as they yanked her toward the car. She reached for me again.
They shoved her into the back seat, the door slamming on her crying.
I lay bleeding, paralyzed, forced to watch the one thing I swore would never happen. They drove off with her, and I couldn’t move to save her, couldn’t even stand.
I didn’t know who they were.
All I knew was that the car carrying our entire fucking soul had disappeared into the night, and I was too broken to follow.
Another door opened behind me.
Alexander.
He stepped out of the second car like it was a fucking rehearsal dinner.
He looked down at me bleeding on the pavement like I was nothing more than a stain on his shoes.
“You’re bleeding out,” he said. Flat. Matter-of-fact.
I forced air through my throat. “Bastard.”
He smirked faintly, crouching beside me. “I’ll give you credit, Crow. You’re determined. Which is why they added a tranquilizer. You seemed the type to take a full round and keep going.”
My chest heaved shallow, broken, so fucking weak.
“By some miracle you survive this…” He checked his watch. “…the next time you see her, she’ll be tied to another house.”
Blood climbed my throat. I swallowed it back, refusing to let it run from my mouth in front of him.
“You’re not the only one who can buy silence. And I can’t risk you and your brother becoming the owners of the Accord.”
Alexander crouched lower, as if we were in some quiet boardroom and not on a bloodstained street.
“You want to know how I knew?” His head tilted. “I spoke to her this week. Just a casual check-in, nothing unusual. But she sounded… happy. Happier than she’s sounded in years. Almost like she did at the Academy.”
His mouth twisted, humorless. “And you should know something, Crow. Adam Dynasty property is always tracked. Especially the daughters. It’s law. She doesn’t know, of course—I never told her. Why would I?”
And their Dynasty called ours fucking medieval.
“I checked her location after that call.” His eyes narrowed. “And sure enough—she was here. Your penthouse. With you and your brother.”
My jaw clenched, every muscle screaming to lunge at him, to rip his throat out, but my body wouldn’t move.
“And then,” he continued, smoothing the cuff of his sleeve, “I hear whispers about your fucked-up dynasty island being prepared. And I put the pieces together.”
He leaned closer, his voice dropping into something colder. “Do you have any idea how much money runs through the Accord? How much power? You think I’d ever let it slide into Crow hands? I’d ever let my sister—Adams dynasty property—become yours?”
I focused on my hand, trying to will it to get my knife and slice his throat.
“I’d kill her myself before I let that happen. Because that fate, death, would be better than her being cut open, bled, and fucked in front of your Dynasty while they watched. Death is better than her name burned under your crest.”
Rage tore through me, hot and feral. My mouth filled with blood, but I swallowed it back, forcing the word out, broken.
“Bastard.”
“Fitting, isn’t it?” He smirked, as he stood up. “Because I’m the last face you’ll ever see. Not your brother. Not her. Me.”
The words cut deeper than the bullets, colder than the blood soaking through my chest.
He gave me one final look, clear satisfaction across his face before he turned and left.
I tried to drag in another breath, but it felt like drowning. The world tilted, shadows closing in.
I could feel myself slipping, every breath harder than the last.
Luca would find me, and I wouldn’t be here to help him through the pain, or ground him as he spirals.
We were two halves of the same soul—he’d follow me into the dark whether he meant to or not.
This was where it ended. My part in her life, over. And hers… hers went on without me.
Tears slid hot down my face. I stared up at the sky,
I couldn’t protect her anymore. Shield her from the world, the dynasty, from the men who would cut her down just to claim her name.
I’d love her until my last breath, but it came too fast. Grief flooded me, for the life we didn’t get. For knowing I was leaving her, and Luca
My body fought for every burning breath.
I forced my eyes shut and I pictured this morning.
Her between us in bed, her breathing soft against my chest. Luca’s weight on one side.
I dragged it into me like oxygen and pretended I was going to sleep with her right there, Luca the other side. I wasn’t dying alone, I was with them, in bed. Not alone.
I let the memory take me under, held it until everything went black.
And for that last moment, I believed it.