Chapter 28
The music cuts wrong. Not all at once. Not cleanly.
It stutters first, the bass jerking through the room like something tripped over the cord, then drops into a warped echo before dying beneath the swell of voices.
The absence of it makes everything worse.
Without the music holding the chaos together, all that’s left is shouting.
Bodies push from every direction. Someone slams into my shoulder.
Tessa’s hand slips from my wrist.
“Mia!” I call, but my voice gets swallowed immediately.
Another body knocks into me from behind, shoving me forward hard enough that I catch myself on the edge of a table.
Glass skitters across the floor near my boot.
Someone screams. Someone curses. A man laughs like he thinks this is part of the fun until someone else shoves him hard enough to change his mind.
I try to turn around. I can’t. There are too many people. Too many arms. Too many shoulders. Too many faces flashing past mine, none of them the one I’m looking for.
Cobra.
I twist, searching over heads, around bodies, through the shifting mess of people trying to get away from the fight and somehow making it impossible for anyone else to move. My heart climbs higher with every second I don’t see him.
Stay close.
His voice cuts through my head, low and certain.
Stay within arm’s reach.
I was.
I was right there. Then everything moved.
Everything broke. I take a breath and force myself not to panic.
Panicking won’t help. I know that. I’ve spent the last couple days learning too many things I never wanted to know, and one of them is that fear can either make you sharper or make you useless.
Right now, I need sharp. I try to look for Tessa again.
Nothing.
Mia.
Nothing.
Eli?
I catch a glimpse of him for half a second near the left side of the dance floor, pushing through bodies, face tight with focus. Then he disappears behind a wave of people moving toward the exit.
Cobra is nowhere.
My chest tightens. I’m too small in this crowd. Too easy to lose. Too easy to shove. Someone bumps me again, hard enough that pain sparks down my arm.
“Watch it,” I snap, but the guy doesn’t even hear me. I glance toward the front entrance. It’s only a few feet away. Not far.
Open.
Cold air slips through every time the door swings wide, sharp and clean compared to the stale heat inside.
I can go outside. Get space. Text him. That’s logical.
Not stupid. I’m not leaving. I’m not wandering.
I’m not disappearing. I’m getting out of the crowd before I get knocked down or trampled, and I’m telling him exactly where I am.
It makes sense. I push toward the door, shoulders tucked in, one hand raised slightly to protect my face as people move around me.
The moment I step through, the cold hits hard enough to make me gasp.
The noise dulls behind me. Not gone. Muffled. Contained behind brick and glass and a door that keeps swinging open and shut as people spill out in bursts.
I stumble a few steps away from the entrance, dragging air into my lungs like I forgot how to breathe inside.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone. The screen lights up too bright in the dark.
Cobra’s name is right there. My thumb hits the message thread, and I start typing with fingers that don’t want to cooperate.
I went out
A hand clamps over my mouth.
Everything stops. Not slows. Stops.
A hard body presses into my back, and something cold touches the side of my throat.
Sharp. Knife. The realization doesn’t come with a scream.
It comes with silence. Deep. Frozen. The hand over my mouth tightens, rough palm crushing my lips against my teeth.
I taste skin. Sweat. Something metallic where my lip catches.
“Don’t fight,” a voice whispers near my ear.
My stomach drops through the pavement.
He told me.
He told me, and I didn’t listen.
The thought isn’t frantic. It isn’t a spiral. It’s cold. Clean. Terrible.
I should’ve listened.
The man starts walking backward, dragging me with him.
His arm is locked across my chest now, the knife still tucked against my throat, close enough that every swallow feels dangerous.
My phone slips in my hand, but I don’t drop it.
I can’t text. Can’t call. Can’t do anything except move because the blade tells me to.
The alley opens beside the club like a mouth. Dark. Narrow. Wrong.
No.
My feet scrape against the pavement as he pulls me back. I try to dig my heels in, but he tightens his hold, and the knife presses closer. “Don’t,” he growls.
Another man appears at the edge of the alley, just a shape at first, then a face under the weak spill of a streetlight. He’s watching the street, not me.
The first man laughs low against my ear. “I bet you thought that dumbass biker could keep you safe.” The words hit harder than they should. Not because of the insult. Because of the certainty in his voice. Like they planned for Cobra. Like they expected him. Like this wasn’t random.
A second man sounds behind us. “We need to move.”
“I know.”
“Now.”
The man behind me starts pulling faster. We’re too far from the street now. Too far from the noise. Too far from anyone looking the right direction.
My heart slams against his arm.
The knife stays steady.
I try to think.
What would Cobra would do?
He’d say not to leave the damn building in the first place.
The thought almost breaks me, but I shove it down. My phone is still in my hand.
His grip has my mouth, not my wrist.
If I can drop it. If I can make a sound. If I can…
Movement appears at the mouth of the alley.
Eli.
He comes around the side of the building fast, like he’s searching, and for one second his eyes sweep past us without landing.
Then they snap back. His face changes. Everything in him freezes.
Half a second. That’s all. Then he roars, “CObrA!” The sound rips through the alley and the street beyond it. Everything fractures.
The man behind me curses, ugly and sharp. “Fucking assholes.”
The second one yells. “Too late. We need to go now.”
The hand leaves my mouth. “See you soon babe.”
I suck in a breath, ready to scream, ready to fight, ready to do anything. I’m shoved. Hard. I hit the pavement before my hands can catch me. Pain explodes through my head. Sharp. White. The world cuts out for a second. Then comes back wrong. Sound goes distant first.
Eli’s voice. Footsteps. A door slamming. Someone yelling from the street. It all stretches thin, like I’m hearing it from under water. My cheek is against cold pavement. I blink. Once. Twice.
The alley light smears above me.
I roll onto my back slowly, nausea twisting through me. My head throbs so hard my vision pulses with it.
“Olivia!” Eli drops beside me, his face swimming into view. He looks too young suddenly. Too scared. Too guilty. “Fuck. Fuck, don’t move,” he says, one hand hovering near my shoulder like he wants to help but remembers he shouldn’t touch me without thinking. “Cobra’s coming. He’s coming.”
Cobra.
My eyes shift toward the alley mouth. He appears like violence given a body.
Not walking. Not running exactly. Moving with a force that makes the space around him seem too small.
I’ve seen Cobra controlled. Silent. Watchful.
Dangerous in a way that felt contained behind his eyes.
This is not that. This is something stripped raw.
His face is hard, but there’s a crack in it I’ve never seen before.
Something sharp and terrible beneath the rage.
Fear.
He reaches us, and for a second, I think he’s going to drop beside me. He doesn’t. He stops just short, eyes cutting over me fast. Head. Neck. Hands. Blood. Movement. Breathing. Assessing. Then he turns on the prospects. “What did you see?”
“Two guys, the one hand a knife to her neck, he was pulling her toward a van. When they saw me they threw her down and bolted.” Eli recites.
“Call Dom,” he snaps. “Now.”
Eli jerks like the order hits him physically. “Yeah, okay.”
“Get eyes on that van.”
Tate appears at the alley mouth, breathing hard. Connor is right behind him.
“What van?” Connor asks.
Cobra’s head snaps toward him. Connor goes pale. “The fucking van they were trying to load her into,” Cobra says, voice low enough to be terrifying. “Move.”
They move, immediately.
Eli is already on the phone, words rushing out. “Dom, we’ve got two men, black van, alley west side of the club, yeah, yeah, she’s down. Cobra’s here.”
Cobra finally looks back at me. Really looks.
And everything inside me goes still. Because it’s there.
The fear. Not hidden enough. Not gone fast enough.
He is furious. I can see that too. It’s barely held behind his teeth, barely contained beneath the control he’s trying to force back into place.
But under it, through it, there’s fear so sharp it steals my breath.
Not fear for himself.
For me.
That lands deeper than the fall. Deeper than the knife. Deeper than the pain blooming at the back of my skull.
His hands flex once at his sides. Like he wants to pick me up. Like he wants to destroy something. Like he can’t do both at once and hates every second of choosing. “You hit your head,” he says. Not a question.
I swallow, throat aching where the knife pressed. “Yes.”
His jaw tightens. Blood is already roaring in my ears, but I still hear him. “How bad?”
“I don’t know.”
Eli crouches closer. “She cracked it hard, man. I heard it.”
Cobra’s eyes close for half a second. When they open, whatever fear was visible gets locked back behind something darker. “Tail the van,” he tells Eli without looking away from me.
“I called Dom, he’s pulling traffic cams.”
“Good. Now get moving.” Eli hesitates. Cobra’s gaze cuts to him. “Now.”
Eli runs.
The cold seeps through my clothes from the pavement, but I barely feel it anymore. My body is catching up too slowly. My mind is replaying everything too fast. The hand. The knife. The alley. The words.
I bet you thought that dumbass biker could keep you safe.
My throat tightens. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Cobra goes still. “What?”
“I went outside. I thought… there were too many people. I was going to text you.”
His face doesn’t soften. But something in his eyes changes. “I told you not to leave without me.”
“I know.” The words hurt more than I expect. Because I do know. I knew it when I stepped through the door. I just thought I was being smart. I thought I was making the safe choice. My eyes sting. “I was typing,” I say, the words shaking now. “I texting you to tell you.”
His gaze drops to my phone still clenched in my hand, screen cracked at the corner from the fall, message half-written and unsent.
His jaw works once. Then he crouches. Slow.
Careful. Like any sudden movement might break whatever control he has left.
He doesn’t touch me at first. Just gets closer.
Close enough that I can feel the heat of him against the cold air. “Look at me,” he says.
I do.
His eyes burn into mine. “You scared me.” For a second, I think he’s going to say more.
I think he’s going to tear into me, tell me I was stupid, tell me this is exactly why he said no, exactly why he brought prospects, exactly why he tried to keep me home.
He doesn’t. No yelling. No cursing. No anger thrown at me. And somehow it’s worse.
My chest cracks open. “I’m sorry,” I say again, and this time it’s not about being caught or being wrong. It’s because I saw him. I saw what it did.
His hand finally moves, brushing lightly near my shoulder, not gripping, not lifting yet. Just confirming I’m there. Solid. Real. Alive. Then the hard mask falls back into place. “Can you sit?”
“I think so.”
“You don’t move until I tell you.”
This time, I don’t argue. I don’t even want to. He shifts closer, one hand supporting my back, the other bracing carefully behind my head without pressing against the spot that throbs. His touch is controlled. Gentle in function, if not softness.
I sit up slowly, the world tilting around me. Nausea rolls through my stomach. I sway.
His arm locks around me instantly. “Easy.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
I don’t argue that either. Because I’m not. Not physically. Not emotionally. Not in any way that matters.
The alley mouth fills with movement again. Tate comes back, breathing hard. “They peeled out in a dark van. Connor’s trying to get the plate. Eli’s on with Dom.”
Cobra doesn’t look away from me. “Tell them to stay on it.”
“Yeah.” Tate nods and disappears.
I lean against Cobra because I can’t help it. Because my head hurts. Because my legs feel weak. Because for all the ways I argued against him, he is the only solid thing in this alley.
His arm tightens around me.
The club door bursts open somewhere nearby, voices spilling out. Tessa’s voice cuts through first. “Olivia!”
Mia is right behind her. “Oh my God!”
Cobra’s body shifts, tightening like a shield before they even reach us.
“I’m okay,” I call, though my voice sounds thin even to me.
Tessa freezes when she sees Cobra holding me, sees the pavement, sees my face. She looks like she wants to fall apart and fight someone at the same time. “What happened?”
I open my mouth.
Cobra beats me to it. “She hit her head.”
Mia’s eyes widen. “How?”
I force a shaky breath. “Drunk idiots,” I say before he can answer. “There was shoving. I got knocked over.” The lie tastes bad. Necessary. But bad.
Tessa looks at me like she doesn’t believe me. Not fully. She’s too smart for that. But she also looks at Cobra. And something about his face stops her from pushing.
Good.
Because if she asks too much, I might break.
Cobra stands with me in his arms before I realize he’s moved. The world tips again, and I grab his shirt, pressing into him as my stomach rolls. “Easy,” he says again, voice low near my ear.
I close my eyes for one second. When I open them, he’s looking down at me.
The fear is gone from his face now. Locked away.
But I saw it. I won’t forget it. And I think that scares me more than anything else tonight.
Because now I know what I am to him. Not because he said it.
Because for one terrible second in that alley, he couldn’t hide it.
And something in me answers back. Even through the pain.
Even through the guilt. Even through the cold.
I’m not just safe with him.
I matter.
And that truth feels more dangerous than the knife ever did.