Chapter 29 #2
My complete, undivided attention settles on him, and the moment our eyes meet, he staggers backward toward the wide warehouse doors as if instinct is already screaming at him to run.
His boots scrape against the concrete, slipping slightly where blood has made the floor slick.
The panic in his eyes grows with every step as he finally accepts what the rest of them figured out too late—there’s no winning here.
He’s the only one left, and he doesn’t stand a chance.
As he bolts for the door, his quick footsteps echo through the warehouse, frantically trying to put distance between us, but he doesn’t get far when I whip the hanging chain from my wrist toward him, and the heavy metal links catch around his throat, looping three times as a terrified roar tears out of him.
I yank hard, and his body jerks back, the force audibly ripping the air from his lungs as he’s pulled off-balance.
His back slams against the bloodied concrete, and he claws at the chain that’s digging into his throat.
His body flails helplessly across the floor as I haul him back toward me, pulling him in inch by inch until I hover over him.
He stares up at me, suddenly regretting his decision to fuck with the Iron Viper, but when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
A grin pulls at my lips, the mental image of this bastard putting his hands on Kiara living rent-free in my head, and before he even has the chance to scream, I reach down and grasp the chain right by his throat and swing him sideways.
His head smashes into a metal support beam, and he crumbles like a fucking freshly baked cupcake.
His head caves in, brain matter left in clumps on the beam as the impact echoes through the warehouse with a hollow, metallic crack.
He’s dead on impact. His body collapses at my feet like a lifeless marionette with its strings cut.
Silence consumes the warehouse, heavy and sudden, like the entire building just exhaled after holding its breath through the violence. The echoes of the fight fade into the nothingness, leaving only the slow grind of the fan and the ragged sound of my heavy pants.
Bodies lie scattered across the concrete like broken mannequins, and for the first time since this started, nothing moves.
It’s over.
I stand in the center of the wreckage, chains hanging loose from my wrists as the sun finally breaks the horizon.
Thin orange light spills through the shattered windows and stretches across the concrete floor.
It paints the bodies in long shadows and glistens off the broken steel links dangling from my arms. The air is thick with the smell of blood, rust, and dust kicked up from the fight.
Then footsteps echo behind me.
I don’t turn right away. I just stand there for a second, letting out a slow breath. The sound alone is enough, and the weight crushing my chest for the last twenty minutes finally loosens, relief pounding through my veins so hard it almost brings me to my knees.
She’s alive.
“Bout time you showed up,” I say, wiping blood from the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand. “Where the fuck have you been, Firecracker?”
She doesn’t answer immediately, so I turn, and the second my eyes land on her, the rest of the world falls away.
Kiara is standing in the doorway of the warehouse, breathing hard, clothes torn, with streaks of blood and grime smeared across her skin. Her hair is a mess, her shoulders tense, and she scans me the way a soldier checks a battlefield for survivors.
My chest tightens. She’s been through hell.
I close the distance between us in two strides, my hands already reaching for her before I can stop myself. I grab her shoulders first, turning her to check for wounds, my gaze running over every inch of her like I’m cataloging proof that she’s real and standing in front of me.
“You hurt?” I ask roughly.
Kiara swats at my hands. “Relax. I’m fine.”
But I don’t. Not yet. My hands move to her arms, her ribs, checking for blood that isn’t already dried on her clothes, for any sign she’s been cut, shot, or worse.
When I finally meet her eyes again and realize she’s actually okay, something heavy in my chest finally settles.
“How’d you find me?” I ask, knowing my agency wouldn’t have made tracking us easy. They might be moronic brutes, but they know how to cover their tracks.
“I followed the trail of bodies you left behind,” she says casually, shrugging her shoulders. “Had to revive one of them just long enough to torture the details out of him.”
I glance over my shoulder at the carnage scattered across the warehouse. When I look back at Kiara, she’s smirking. My brow arches with curiosity. “Oh yeah?”
“He cracked in seconds,” she says with a shrug. “So I re-killed him.”
A grin drags across my mouth.
God, I love this woman.
Her gaze moves slowly over the blood running down my arms, the broken chains hanging from my wrists like they never had a chance of holding me. And, for a moment, the fire in her expression fades, replaced by something quieter, something raw that cuts deeper than any blade.
Her hand comes to my chest, her fingers splayed right over my racing heart. “I should kill you myself for scaring me like that,” she mutters.
My arm snakes around her lower back, pulling her in even tighter, bringing her right where she belongs, bringing her home. “You worried about me, Firecracker?”
Her gaze snaps back to mine, and she scoffs, a playful smirk resting on her lips.
“No. Don’t be absurd.” There’s no conviction behind the words, and we both know it.
The fear is still there in her eyes, clinging stubbornly to the edges of her composure before she finally exhales and lets the truth slip through. “I thought I lost you.”
Something in my chest shifts, heavy and undeniable, and I crush her against me, not giving a shit about the pain that explodes throughout my body. “Fuck,” I breathe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“I know,” she murmurs against my chest. “It’s not your fault your combat skills aren’t as exceptional as mine. I mean, I did think that letting yourself get kidnapped was for rookies, but I guess it happens to the best of us. Not to me, but I’m sure there are others.”
A laugh cracks from deep in my lungs, and I pull back just enough to grasp her chin, lifting it until that green stare collides with mine. “God, I love you.”
The corner of her mouth curves, slow and dangerous, the same way it always does when she’s about to say something that should probably offend me, but I welcome it with open arms, knowing anything that comes out of her mouth is exactly what I need to hear.
“Hate you right back.”
“Damn straight you do.”
I pull her back into me before she can say anything else, my arms wrapping around her like letting go is no longer an option. She fits against me like she was always meant to be there, steady and solid in the middle of all the blood and wreckage we left behind.
The world tried to tear us apart, threw everything it had at us, and we’re still standing here anyway. Still breathing. Still together.
The sun inches higher, the orange hues now a soft pale gold shining through the broken windows, washing over the bodies, the chains, and the two of us standing in the middle of it all. And for the first time in a long time, there’s nothing left to fight.
Nothing but the road ahead.
And forever looks a hell of a lot better with her walking it beside me.