Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
How did everything go so wrong? That’s the only thought I can hold onto as the sound of the gunshot keeps replaying in my head, over and over, louder than the ringing in my ears, louder than my own screaming. I had the gun. I was supposed to be in control.
My hands were shaking, yeah, but I had it pointed at him.
I remember that part so clearly. I remember how heavy it felt, how my arms locked, how my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. I remember Blade behind me, hurt and bleeding, still trying to put himself between me and danger like his body wasn’t already wrecked. He trusted me. And then the man lunged.
Everything after that blurs into chaos and panic. He moved so fast, faster than my brain could catch up, and all I remember is screaming and pulling the trigger because I thought I had to. Because I thought if I didn’t, he would take me. Because I thought I was protecting us.
The gun went off.
But I didn’t hit him.
I hit Blade.
I see it every time I blink. The way his body jerked. The sound he made, like the air was punched out of him. The blood. So much blood.
“No,” I sob, even now, my chest tightening like I can’t get enough air. “No, no, no.”
I crawl toward him, dropping the gun like it burned me, my hands slick with his blood as I press them against his chest, trying to stop it, trying to undo what I just did.
I shot him.
I shot Blade.
He’s bleeding out, his face already pale, his eyes glassy but still on me. Still worried about me.
“Bri,” he tries to say, his voice wrecked, barely there. “It’s okay.”
It’s not okay.
Nothing about this is okay.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, my whole body shaking. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t—I was trying to—”
I don’t even know what I was trying to do anymore.
Then the man is there.
I don’t hear him come up behind me. I just feel it. A shadow falling over us, heavy and cold. Before I can turn, his fist slams into my face.
Pain explodes.
My head snaps back, stars bursting behind my eyes, and I go down hard. The world tilts, spins, and then everything goes black.
—
I wake up choking on air.
My body jerks, muscles screaming, and pain floods in all at once like I’ve been dropped into fire. My head throbs. My face aches. My arm feels like it’s been shattered and put back together wrong. Every breath hurts.
I blink, trying to focus.
This isn’t the road.
This isn’t the crash site.
I’m in a room. A small one. Beige walls. Cheap hotel art hanging crooked. The hum of an air conditioner rattling in the background. The smell of stale cleaner and something metallic that makes my stomach turn.
I try to move.
I can’t.
My wrists are restrained above me, metal biting into my skin. Handcuffs. One wrist is secured to the headboard, the other… something solid. The bed frame, maybe. I test it gently and hiss when the movement sends pain shooting through my shoulder.
Panic slams into me.
“No,” I whisper, my voice cracked and dry. “No, no, no.”
I look down at myself. My clothes are still on, torn and dirty, streaked with blood that I don’t know how much of it is mine. My arm is wrapped badly, like someone did it just enough to keep me from bleeding everywhere but not enough to help.
My whole body hurts. Deep. Bone-deep.
And Blade—
The thought hits me like a punch.
Blade.
My chest tightens until it feels like it’s caving in. I twist my head, scanning the room wildly, like there’s any chance he’s here. Like he’d be sitting in a chair or leaning against the wall or standing guard like he always does.
He’s not.
The room is empty.
“Oh god,” I whisper, my throat burning. “Blade?”
Nothing answers.
The silence stretches, thick and cruel, and the truth starts to settle in.
He’s gone.
He has to be.
I shot him. I felt his blood on my hands. I saw the way his eyes looked at me like he was already slipping away, and I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop it.
I killed him.
The realization crushes me, heavy and suffocating. A sob tears out of my chest, raw and broken, and I turn my face to the side, pressing it into the pillow like I can hide from it.
He tried to warn me.
Over and over again, he tried.
He told me how dangerous his world was. He told me it wasn’t like the movies, that there were rules and consequences and people who didn’t play fair. He tried to protect me, tried to keep me out of the worst of it.
And I thought I understood.
I had no idea.
I didn’t know what monsters really looked like. I didn’t know how dark it could get, how fast, how merciless. I didn’t know how quickly everything could be taken away.
I was so stupid.
A sound makes me freeze.
The door opens.
My heart slams against my ribs as footsteps cross the carpet, slow and deliberate. I don’t look at him at first. I can’t. I’m afraid if I do, it’ll make this real in a way I’m not ready for.
“Awake already?” he says casually, like we’re having a normal conversation. Like he didn’t destroy my life.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Where is he?” I whisper.
He chuckles softly, and the sound makes my skin crawl. “That’s the first thing you ask? Not how you got here? Not what’s going to happen to you?”
My voice shakes. “Where is Blade?”
I feel him move closer. The mattress dips beside me, and I flinch despite myself.
“You really don’t know how this works, do you?” he says, almost amused. “You drop into a war without understanding the rules, and then you look surprised when someone gets hurt.”
Tears spill down my temples. “I didn’t mean to shoot him.”
“I know,” he says lightly. “That’s the best part.”
My stomach twists violently.
“You were trying to be brave,” he continues. “Trying to play hero. And now?” He leans closer, his voice lowering. “Now you get to live with it.”
I finally turn my head and look at him.
He’s watching me like I’m something he owns now. Like I’m a problem he’s already solved.
And in that moment, bound to a bed in a cheap hotel room, my body aching and my heart shattered, one truth becomes terrifyingly clear.
Whatever happens next… Blade was the only thing standing between me and this. And I don’t know if he’s alive anymore.
He doesn’t answer me right away.
That’s how I know whatever he’s about to say is going to hurt worse than the punch did.
I lie there, wrists burning where the cuffs bite into my skin, chest heaving as I wait. The silence stretches, thick and suffocating, until it feels like it’s pressing down on me from every direction.
Then he sighs, almost gently.
“You know,” he says, “this is the part where people usually beg. Or scream. Or ask me to promise things I was never going to give them anyway.”
I swallow hard. My throat feels raw, like I’ve been crying for hours instead of minutes. “Where is he?”
He shifts, and I hear the scrape of a chair being pulled closer. The mattress dips slightly as he sits down, not touching me, not yet. Somehow that’s worse.
“You really loved him,” he says, like it’s an observation, not an accusation. “That biker of yours.”
My chest tightens violently.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
He ignores me.
“You know what’s going to happen now, right?” he continues calmly. “Once they find the bike. Once they find the blood. Once they start piecing together what went down on that road.”
I shake my head, even though some part of me already knows.
“They’re going to look at you,” he says, voice smooth, measured, “and they’re going to see a problem.”
My pulse spikes. “No. They won’t. They know me.”
He hums softly. “Do they?”
I close my eyes, but his words keep coming, slipping into every crack in my fear.
“Think about it,” he says. “You’re alive. He isn’t.” He lets that hang there, then adds quietly, “At least, that’s how it’s going to look.”
A sob claws its way out of my chest.
“They’ll find the shell casing,” he continues. “They’ll find the angle. They’ll see that the shot came from your position.” His voice drops. “And they already know we’ve been watching them.”
My stomach twists.
“I’ll make sure they know you were talking to me,” he says easily. “That you hesitated. That you had doubts. That you were looking for a way out.”
“That’s not true,” I cry. “I would never—”
“Truth is flexible,” he interrupts. “Especially when grief gets involved.”
My breathing starts to come apart, fast and shallow, panic clawing up my throat.
“They’ll think you flipped,” he continues. “That you got scared. Or greedy. Or tired of playing biker girlfriend.” His gaze locks onto mine. “They’ll think you helped set this up.”
“No,” I whisper. “Blade wouldn’t believe that.”
He tilts his head. “Blade isn’t around to argue.”
That one breaks something in me.
A sound tears out of my chest that doesn’t even feel human, and my vision blurs completely as tears spill over. I shake my head over and over, like I can physically undo what he’s saying if I refuse to hear it.
“They’ll come after you,” he goes on, relentless now. “Not gently. Not with questions. Because to them, you won’t be a victim. You’ll be a liability.”
My whole body starts to tremble.
“You won’t be able to go back,” he says softly. “Not to your life. Not to your home. Not to your sisters.”
My heart lurches painfully. “Don’t bring them into this.”
“And you definitely won’t be going back to your dead fucking boyfriend,” he adds, his voice sharp with finality.
That’s it.
I crumble.
A sob rips through me, raw and uncontrollable, and I turn my face into the pillow, crying so hard my ribs ache. I can’t stop it. I can’t slow it down. Everything I’ve been holding inside since the crash finally collapses in on itself.
“I didn’t mean to,” I sob. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean for any of this.”
“I know,” he says quietly.
And that scares me more than anything else.
“Which is why you’re going to listen to me now,” he continues. “Because whether you meant to or not doesn’t change how this ends for you.”
I lift my head, tears streaking my face, my eyes burning. “What do you want?”
He smiles then. Small. Satisfied.
“I want you alive,” he says. “And breathing. And smart enough to understand that the only way you survive this is if you stay exactly where I put you.”
My chest heaves. “They’ll kill me.”
“Yes,” he agrees calmly. “If they find you.”
He stands, straightening his jacket like we’re done here. “So you don’t let them.”
The door clicks softly as he moves away, leaving me alone with the sound of my own crying and the crushing weight of his words.
And as I lie there, cuffed to a bed in a cheap hotel room, my body aching and my heart in pieces, the fear finally settles deep in my bones.
I didn’t just lose Blade.
I lost my entire life.
And whoever I am now…
she doesn’t get to go home.
He watches me cry for a long moment without saying anything.
Not impatient.
Not uncomfortable.
Interested.
I hate that more than the words.
When he finally speaks, his voice is calm, almost thoughtful, like he’s answering a question he’s been turning over in his head for a while.
“You know what I want from you,” he says.
I shake my head weakly. My throat burns too badly to talk.
“No,” he corrects. “You don’t. And that’s why you’re still fighting this.”
He stands and walks slowly toward the bed, stopping just far enough away that he isn’t touching me. That feels intentional. Like he knows exactly how much space to give before I break.
“I don’t think you’re a whore,” he says plainly.
The word still lands like a slap.
“I never did,” he continues. “Men like Blade? They don’t keep women like you around for that. You’re not soft. You’re not stupid. And you’re definitely not weak.”
My breath stutters.
“I saw it,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “Out there. When you picked up the gun. When you held it on me even though you were shaking so hard you could barely stand. You didn’t freeze. You didn’t beg.”
He tilts his head, studying me like a problem he enjoys solving.
“You stood your ground.”
My stomach twists.
“That,” he says quietly, “is what I want.”
I swallow hard. “You want to hurt me.”
He smiles, but there’s no humor in it. “No. If I wanted that, this would already be over.”
He leans closer now, bracing one hand on the mattress, careful not to touch me. His voice drops, steady and sure.
“I want to take you.”
The word sinks into me, cold and heavy.
“Not your body,” he adds, like he’s correcting a misunderstanding. “Your will. Your loyalty. Everything you think makes you theirs.”
My chest starts to ache.
“An Iron Reapers woman choosing me?” he continues softly. “Not because she was forced. Not because she was dragged away screaming. But because she had nowhere else to go.”
I shake my head, tears spilling again. “I would never choose you.”
His smile widens just a little.
“No,” he agrees. “Not yet.”
He straightens, hands in his pockets, relaxed.
“You’ll fight me. You’ll hate me. You’ll tell yourself this is temporary, that they’ll come for you, that Blade will walk through the door and fix everything.” His gaze sharpens. “But every hour that passes, that hope gets thinner.”
My chest tightens painfully.
“And eventually,” he continues, “you’ll realize something.”
I whisper, “What?”
“That the club won’t come for you,” he says. “Because they can’t. Because they’ll believe what I tell them.”
I start crying again, harder this time.
“When that settles in,” he says, voice low and certain, “when you finally accept that your old life is gone, you’re going to need something to hold onto.”
He steps back, giving me space again, like he’s confident he’s already won.
“That’s when you’ll look at me,” he finishes, “and realize I’m the only one left.”
I shake against the cuffs, anger and terror and grief twisting together in my chest. “You’re sick.”
He nods, unbothered. “Probably.”
Then his eyes meet mine one last time, sharp and possessive.
“But you’re strong,” he says. “And I don’t break strong women all at once.”
He turns toward the door.
“I take them apart slowly,” he adds. “Until they stop fighting because they don’t want to anymore.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
And alone in that room, cuffed and aching and terrified, I finally understand something that makes my blood run cold.
He doesn’t want to destroy me. He wants to own the fact that he didn’t have to.