Chapter 8
EIGHT
Jessica heard the wardrobe door slide open. Then there was a long pause.
Her heart hammered against her ribs so hard she was certain the sound must carry through the walls.
She raised the gun anyway, forcing her hands to steady as she brought it level with the door at chest height, just as she had practiced.
Slow breath in, slow breath out, don't rush, don't think beyond the next second.
From the other side of the wall came the faint sound of breathing, close enough that she could almost picture him standing there, one hand on the handle, his head tilted slightly as if listening for her.
Silence stretched between them, thin and taut.
Then a voice broke through. Male, calm, with a faint Spanish accent.
“Jessica,” he said, as though they were alone together in a quiet room. “I know you're in there.”
Cold spread through her chest. For a fraction of a second, instinct urged her to answer but she shut it down, pressing her lips together and closing her eyes as if that might make her disappear.
Ryan's voice found her before the fear could spiral, low and controlled through the phone.
“Jessica. Stay with me.”
She focused on that, anchoring herself to the sound of him, to something beyond the thin barrier of wood and drywall separating her from the man outside.
She sensed a pressure settle slowly against the door. Like he was testing it, learning the structure.
A shoulder, she thought. Or a hand braced flat against the wood.
The door held.
Jessica adjusted her grip on the gun, her body remembering what her mind was trying not to panic about.
“Ryan,” she whispered, her voice barely audible even to herself, “he's testing it.”
“Just stay steady.”
The impact came without warning: a heavy strike that shuddered through the door and into her spine, the frame creaking as a thin crack split along the edge of the casing.
Jessica flinched but did not lower the gun.
The door gave with a second, splintering crack, the wood bowing inward under the force of the impact.
Jessica fired as it moved, the shot tearing through the confined space with a concussive force that rang through her ears and snapped up her arm. The recoil was sharp but controlled, her grip holding as the bullet punched through the weakened panel and struck something solid beyond it.
A man cried out. Footsteps stumbled back, sudden and disordered, and someone cursed in Spanish.
Her heart pounded so hard it blurred the edges of her vision.
“Ryan,” she managed. “I fired. I hit him.”
“I heard,” he said immediately, his voice steady enough to hold onto. “That's good. You did exactly what you needed to do.”
Glass crunched somewhere in the apartment, a shifting silhouette passing through the narrow strip of light beneath the door, and then –
“Jessica.”
The voice cut clean through her, making her breath catch so hard it hurt.
Dante Cruz stood in her bedroom.
For a fraction of a second, the world narrowed to him alone. The gun in her hand, the man in her apartment, the splintered door behind her all fell away under the shock of seeing him again.
It had been two years, but he hadn't changed a bit.
He had the same tall frame and broad shoulders.
His hair was cut close at the sides, dark on top, the fade precise.
The familiar scar still cut through one eyebrow, pale against his skin.
Beneath his left eye the faint tattoo of a cross remained.
His bright hazel eyes found hers and held there.
Relief hit first, so strong it almost staggered her. Then shame, hot and unwelcome, because he should not have had to come for her, should not have had to see her like this, hidden, armed, dragged back into something she had tried so hard to bury.
But beneath that was the undeniable sense of safety that settled the moment he stepped into the room.
And she he hated that most of all.
His gaze moved over her quickly— face, hands, chest, the gun—searching for blood that wasn't there.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head, still too stunned to trust her voice.
He crossed the distance in two strides and caught her wrist, his hand warm and solid, the grip firm enough to ground her without hurting. The contact sent a sharp, involuntary jolt up her arm, her body recognizing him before her mind could catch up.
“Hey,” he murmured, quieter now. “I've got you.”
Her breath hitched despite herself.
He felt it—she saw it in the brief tightening of his thumb against her pulse—and then he let go, the contact breaking as if it had crossed some kind of a line.
“You okay?” he asked again, steadier now.
“Yes,” she managed. “I'm okay.”
Their eyes held a fraction too long, something old and unfinished flaring between then.
A low groan cut through the moment.
Dante shifted immediately, stepping in front of her without hesitation, his body angling between her and the sound in a movement so instinctive it barely seemed conscious.
“Stay behind me,” he said.
She didn't argue.
Only then did she see the man she had shot.
He was slumped against the far wall, one hand pressed to his side where dark blood soaked through his shirt, the fabric already sticking to the wound. His breathing was shallow.
Some of his shirt had ridden up in the struggle, exposing the ink across his chest. A black handprint spread wide over his skin, fingers splayed like a warning.
She knew that symbol. Had known it once well enough to trace in the dark. Her gaze flicked to Dante without thinking.
His jaw had gone rigid, something colder settling behind his eyes, something that belonged to a different life entirely.
“La Mano Negra,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” he replied.
The man stirred weakly.
Dante crouched and pushed him back with one hand, controlled and absolute. “Stay down,” he said, his voice low, the threat in it unmistakable.
The man obeyed.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, faintly.
“Jessica.”
Ryan's voice. It came through the phone still in her hand, distant now, as though thinned by everything else in the room.
She blinked, the sound pulling her back.
“I'm here,” she said quickly. “I'm okay.”
“You need to get out of there.”
It was Dante who answered, in a clipped tone. “No shit.”
Jessica's pulse still hammered as she took in more of the intruder. The cheap boots, the cracked phone on the floor, the lack of a mask, the careless way he had moved through her home as if it already belonged to him.
“He isn't the one in charge,” she said slowly. “He's just muscle.”
Dante nodded. “Yeah.”
“Hired by who?”
He straightened but didn't answer.
Jessica folded her arms around herself without meaning to, suddenly aware of how thin the walls felt, how close everything still was.
“So whoever sent them…” she said.
“…is still out there,” Dante finished, his gaze flicking toward the doorway. “And they're not done.”