Chapter 27 #2
Instead, she moves. It’s small, almost instinctive, her hand darting toward the table beside her where a knife lies half hidden beneath a stack of mail. Panic makes people stupid.
The gun bucks in my grip, the first shot cracking through the small space.
It slams into her hand, shattering bone and tearing through flesh mid-reach.
Blood sprays across the mail, her fingers curling involuntarily as she yanks back, a choked scream ripping from her throat.
The knife clatters, untouched. to the floor.
“That’s for daring to touch what’s not yours,” I tell her.
She stares at her ruined hand, shock widening her eyes, but rage flickers back in. She lunges forward anyway, clutching her side with her good arm as if to charge me.
The second shot comes faster, lower. It punches into her gut, right below the ribs. She folds around the impact, gasping wetly as blood blooms dark through her shirt. No instant kill—just enough to let her bleed out slowly, the pain twisting her features as she staggers back against the wall.
She freezes there for a beat, shock replacing rage as she looks down at the spreading stain, then collapses hard, sliding to the floor in a heap. Her breaths come ragged, labored, each one pulling a whimper from her lips as the wound seeps.
Silence rushes in behind the sounds, heavy and absolute.
I don’t linger. I don’t look back.
Abi made her choice the moment she helped take Constance.
I leave her there and move into the hall, my focus narrowing to a single purpose. The house has another level above this one. I look for a pull-down door, but there isn’t one. Instead, there’s a door at the end of the hall. I go straight to it, opening it.
Of course, it’s an attic. There’s a set of stairs leading up to another door. The air changes as I rise. It turns stale and dusty, carrying the smell of old wood and insulation.
At the top, I pause, listening.
There’s breathing, but it’s not calm breathing. It’s the rough inhale of someone who’s been fighting.
My chest tightens in a way that feels like pain.
I push the attic door open and step into a dim space lit by a single bare bulb. The light casts harsh shadows, making the corners of the room look like they could hide monsters.
She’s in the center of it.
Constance sits tied to a chair, wrists and ankles bound, hair messy, face bruised, eyes bright with fury and fear that makes her look feral.
Her cheek is swollen, and there’s dried blood at the corner of her mouth.
Her clothes are wrinkled, her posture stiff, but her chin is lifted like she’ll spit in the face of anyone who thinks she’s broken.
Her gaze locks on me.
For one second, her expression doesn’t change, and then something in her face fractures.
“Morgan,” she rasps, voice hoarse.
I don’t answer right away, because if I speak her name, if I let my voice carry what I feel in this moment, I will lose the calm that’s holding my hands steady.
I quickly move to her, dropping to a crouch at her side, scanning her the way I would scan a wounded soldier, eyes cataloging every mark, every bruise, every place rope has bitten into skin.
I can see the redness around her wrists.
I can see the trembling in her thigh where the muscle keeps twitching like it cannot stop bracing for impact.
Her breathing catches when I get close, like her body’s still trying to decide if my touch is dangerous.
My jaw clenches hard enough my teeth ache.
“You’re here,” she whispers, like she can’t quite make herself believe it.
“I’m here,” I say, voice low and steady, and I keep my gaze on her face because she needs to see me. “I’ve got you.”
Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry.
I pull my knife out and start cutting the ropes at her wrists, slow and careful, because the last thing I am going to do is hurt her while freeing her. The rope fibers give under the blade, and when the first restraint snaps loose, her hands jerk as her fingers flex, then curl into fists.
“I tried,” she says, voice shaking. “I tried so hard, Morgan, I tried to fight them, I dropped my phone, I dropped my keys, I thought, I thought maybe—”
“You did everything right,” I tell her, because she did. She fought, she left evidence. “You did exactly what you needed to do.”
Her throat works hard, and she swallows.
“Chance,” she breathes, and there it is, the real terror, the thing that kept her sane. “Where’s Chance?”
“He’s safe,” I say immediately, because I know that’s the only answer that matters. “He’s with Mr. Bartholomew. He’s taken care of, waiting for you, and he’s going to see you soon.”
Her eyes squeeze shut for a second, and a shaky exhale leaves her like she’s been holding her breath for days.
“Okay,” she whispers.
I cut the ropes at her ankles next. Her legs are stiff, and when I lift her foot to work the knot, she flinches and then forces herself still, because she’s trying not to show pain. It makes me want to tear the roof off this house.
When the last rope falls away, she tries to stand too quickly, and her knees buckle. I catch her without thinking, my arm wrapping around her waist, my hand firm at her side.
She grips my shoulder hard, nails digging through fabric.
“I’m going to fall,” she says, voice tight with embarrassment.
“You’re not,” I tell her, and I hold her closer. “Let your body do what it needs to do.”
She breathes, shallow at first, then deeper, and I can feel her trembling through my jacket.
I guide her toward the opening, careful on the stairs, my body between her and the drop because I won’t risk her slipping. She grips the railing with shaking hands, and I stay so close my shoulder brushes hers.
Her gaze drifts past me toward the room I came from, toward the open doorway and the stillness beyond it.
I see the moment realization begins to form, the question she doesn’t quite ask.
I step forward before she can look too closely, shifting into her line of sight and guiding her gently but firmly toward the staircase.
“We’re leaving,” I tell her quietly.
She nods, trusting me even though confusion flickers across her face, and we move down the quieter stairwell together.
Halfway to the door, her voice breaks the silence. “You killed them.”
“I did,” I tell her, keeping us moving.
Outside air hits us seconds later, cool and real and clean, and only then do I allow myself to breathe fully again.
“Miles?” she asks in a whisper.
“Miles isn’t here,” I answer, and my voice turns hard on the name.
Her body goes rigid. “He left?”
“He ran before I got here because he knew I would come looking for you.”
Constance’s mouth tightens. “He convinced Abi to help with the whole thing. And I don’t know the guys who helped take me. I never saw them.”
“I know,” I say. “One of them, I’m sure, is the guy whose head I put a bullet hole in. The other one I’ll track down along with Miles.”
We slip through the gate, cross the side yard, and reach the street. My car sits where I left it, waiting like a promise. I get her into the passenger seat, hands careful as I help her buckle, because her fingers are still unsteady.
She leans her head back against the seat, eyes closing for one long beat. When she opens them again, she looks at me like she is trying to memorize my face.
“You came,” she says softly, and there’s a tremor in the words that cracks something open in me.
“I’ll always come for you,” I tell her, and I mean it in the deepest part of my bones. “You don’t get taken from me, Constance, not by him, not by anyone.”
Her throat moves as she swallows.
“What happens now?” she asks.
I start the engine, pull away from the curb slow enough not to draw attention, then turn the corner and accelerate, because once I am out of this neighborhood, I do not care who hears my tires.
“What happens now,” I repeat, and the taste of it is bitter. “Now I get you home, I get you clean, I get you safe, I get you back to your son, and then I’ll handle Miles.”
Constance’s hands curl in her lap. “He said he’d let me go if you signed something.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“He said that?” I confirm.
“And he thinks you will,” she adds, watching me closely.
A slow, cold smile pulls at my mouth, and there’s nothing kind in it.
“Miles is going to learn,” I say, voice steady, “that I don’t do things under threat. I don’t negotiate with men who traffic human beings, and I don’t forgive anyone who puts their hands on what I’m responsible for.”
Her breath shudders out.
I glance at her, really glance, and I see the exhaustion behind her fury. I see the fear she’s been swallowing down for hours. I see the strength that kept her alive, and it makes my chest ache in a way I don’t have words for.
I soften my tone, just enough for her to hear the truth beneath the steel.
“You did so good,” I tell her. “I’m proud of you for surviving.”
Her eyes flare at that, watery and bright.
“Don’t,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “If you say it like that, I’m going to fall apart.”
“Then fall apart,” I answer, and I keep driving, one hand steady on the wheel, the other reaching across the console to cover her fist. “I’ve got you.”
She holds my hand like it’s the only thing keeping her tethered to the world, and I let her, because in this moment, it is.
Behind us, the house disappears into the dark, and I don’t look back. Abi can scream, she can sob, she can try to justify herself to the police if she’s lucky enough to crawl to a phone. None of that matters right now.
Constance is here.
Alive.
And Miles Hunt just lost the only thing standing between him and what I’m going to do next.
Because this part is over for her.
What comes next belongs to me.