CHAPTER 16
Joshua’s POV:
In my line of work, you learn that the human mind never truly sleeps.
It hovers in a state of hyper-vigilant suspended animation, processing microscopic environmental shifts even while the conscious self rests.
Decades of refined discipline, medical training, and calculated self-preservation had conditioned my nervous system to operate like a finely tuned instrument.
Where an average man’s brain yields completely to the soft, heavy oblivion of REM sleep, mine remained a quiet sentinel, running low-level diagnostic checks on my surroundings even in the dead of night.
It was not the natural settling of timber contracting in the cool mountain air. Wood contracts with a sharp, random snap. This was different. This was deliberate. A heavy, heel-to-toe weight transfer. A footstep.
My eyes didn’t open. My breathing remained slow, deep, and perfectly synchronized with the soft, steady rise and fall of Ciara’s chest beside me.
Her head was resting comfortably against the curve of my collarbone, her warm breath puffing gently against my skin, her long braids draped across my chest like dark, silk ribbons.
She was completely, blissfully relaxed—safe in the sanctuary of my arms, insulated from the horrors of her past. Or so I had intended.
Every muscle in my six-foot-eight frame went taut as piano wire. I didn't shift an inch. I didn't alter the cadence of my breath. But internally, my mind instantly shed its sleep state, shifting into hyper-focus.
Distance from the door to the bed: twelve feet. Obstacles: a heavy ottoman, a bedside table, a discarded pair of boots. Weapon access: stencil knife on the living room coffee table downstairs, ceramic vases on the dresser four feet to my left.
Click.
The distinct, metallic pressure of a cold firearm barrel pressed directly against my right temple. The oil on the steel carried a faint, burnt-gunpowder smell mixed with cheap tobacco and stale sweat.
"Wake up, Doc," a harsh, raspy voice whispered out of the darkness.
The voice was ragged, laced with manic excitement and high-octane adrenaline.
Beside me, Ciara stirred. The microscopic shift in my body temperature—the sudden, rigid hardening of my muscles—acting as an unspoken alarm bell.
Her hand shifted across my abdomen. Her dark eyes snapped open, and in a second of brilliant, instinctual clarity, she didn't scream.
She didn't freeze. She reached past my shoulder and slapped her palm down on the bedside lamp.
Warm yellow light flooded the bedroom, instantly cutting through the pitch-black shadows.
Standing directly over our bed, bathed in the amber glow, was Morgan.
He looked like a feral animal backed into a corner.
His clothes were filthy—a grease-stained hoodie torn at the elbow, dark denim caked in dried road grime.
His face was gaunt, his dark skin pale and slick with a feverish sweat.
Bloodshot, wide-set eyes glared down at me from hollow sockets, brimming with unhinged, murderous instability.
In his right hand, leveled squarely at the bridge of my nose, was a matte-black Glock 19.
Ciara gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as she scrambled backward against the headboard, her eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror. "Morgan..."
"We meet again, Doc," Morgan sneered, his chapped, dry lips twisting into a grotesque, yellowed smile. His thumb reached up and pulled the slide back with a sharp, heavy CLACK, chambering a nine-millimeter round. "Tell me... you enjoyed that pussy, didn't you?"
I lay completely motionless, staring up into the bore of the gun with a face carved entirely from stone.
My heart rate didn't spike. My pulse didn't race.
In my consultation room, I had spent years analyzing men like Morgan.
He was a textbook insecure narcissist—a low-IQ predator driven by fragile ego, possessiveness, and sudden access to lethal force.
Men like him were predictably chaotic, but entirely manageable if you understood how to manipulate their focus.
They needed an audience. They needed to feel dominant before they delivered the blow.
"This is the second time you’ve held a gun to my head, Morgan," I said, my baritone dropping into a quiet, smooth, unnervingly steady register that contrasted sharply with his manic energy.
"And it’s certainly gonna be my fucking last," Morgan chuckled, his jaw clenching as his finger tightened slightly on the curved trigger.
Ciara swallowed hard, her voice trembling violently as she sat up beside me, pulling the duvet up to cover her bare chest, her body shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. "You’ve been trailing us... you followed us all the way up here..."
"More like stalking and watching, C," Morgan laughed, his wild eyes flicking to her for a fraction of a second, drinking in her terror before returning to me. "You miss me, didn't you, girl? You thought you could just run off into the woods with this high-society doctor and forget about me?"
"Fuck you, nigga," Ciara spat.
The terror in her voice was instantly overtaken by a surge of pure, unadulterated venom. Her jaw set firmly, her dark eyes blazing with hatred.
"In a minute I will," Morgan snickered, leaning his sweaty face closer to mine, the cold steel of the barrel digging harder into the soft skin above my cheekbone. "Just after I put a bullet right through your fine loverboy’s head right here."
He was going to pull the trigger. I saw it in the micro-dilation of his pupils.
I saw it in the sudden tightening of his right shoulder, the subtle shift in his foot stance as he braced for the recoil.
He didn't want a long conversation. He wanted an execution.
He wanted the thrill of watching the life drain from my eyes in front of the woman he believed belonged to him.
I didn't flinch. I didn't beg. Instead, I snapped my eyes sharply toward the large glass window behind his left shoulder, widening them slightly, letting a micro-expression of sudden alarm flash across my features—as if registering a second intruder standing in the dark on the balcony.
It was the oldest psychological misdirection in human history. But to an adrenaline-addled, paranoid mind, it was irresistible.
Morgan’s eyes reflexively darted toward the glass.
In that microscopic, split-second lapse of concentration, I struck.
I whipped my right arm up with explosive speed, my forearm smashing violently into his wrist, deflecting the gun away from my face just as a deafening BANG echoed through the enclosed bedroom.
The muzzle flash illuminated the room in a blinding yellow burst. The bullet tore through the air inches above my forehead, embedding itself deep into the cedar headboard with a sharp splintering sound. Plaster and wood dust rained down over the pillows.
Before Morgan could re-align his aim, I drove my left foot straight into his sternum with the full, terrifying force of my lower body.
CRACK.
Morgan let out a breathless, wheezing gasp as he was launched backward off his feet, his spine slamming violently into the heavy oak vanity table near the closet.
Fragrance bottles, glass trays, and decorative hand mirrors shattered against his back, raining down around him in a cascade of glittering debris.
"Ciara, move!" I roared, my voice booming through the cabin like thunder.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up to my full height.
I grabbed a heavy ceramic vase off the nightstand and hurled it across the room with lethal velocity.
It struck Morgan squarely in the side of his head just as he tried to scramble to his feet.
The ceramic shattered into a hundred sharp pieces, dazing him, opening a deep gash on his temple that instantly began pouring blood down his cheek.
Ciara didn't hesitate. Her survival instincts took total control. She scrambled out of the bed, her eyes fixed on the door, grabbing her pink silk robe off the floor and tying it frantically around her waist as she sprinted out of the bedroom into the hallway.
Morgan shook his head violently like a wounded dog, screaming in absolute rage, and fired two wild shots into the hallway after her.
BANG! BANG!
The plaster wall near the doorframe exploded, spraying white dust and wood splinters across the carpet. Ciara ducked, letting out a sharp scream, her feet slipping for a second before she veered left, diving into the pitch-black living room instead of heading for the front exit.
I grabbed a second heavy ceramic urn off the dresser, hurling it at his chest as he tried to push himself up.
Morgan ducked, the urn smashing against the wall behind him, and fired two more rounds straight at my chest. I threw my body to the side, rolling over the edge of the mattress as the bullets tore through the leather upholstery of the armchair behind me, sending white stuffing floating through the air.
I sprinted out of the bedroom, taking the stairs three at a time in absolute silence. My mind was operating at a terrifying, hyper-focused frequency.
Morgan’s heavy, frantic footsteps pounded down the carpeted hall behind me, his raspy breathing loud and ragged.
"I'm gonna kill you, you motherfucker!" he screamed, his voice echoing off the high cedar ceilings. "I'm gonna put a bullet in both of your fucking heads!"
I rounded the corner near the kitchen, slipping into the dark shadows beside the rear doorway leading to the balcony. I held my breath, relaxing my shoulders, converting myself into pure, invisible stone. I became a part of the darkness.
Morgan rounded the corner half a second later, his gun raised, his wild eyes scanning the empty, moonlit kitchen. He was breathing through his mouth, his shoulders heaving, blood streaming down the left side of his face.
As his lead foot crossed the threshold of the doorframe, I stuck my bare, heavy foot straight out, planting it firmly against his ankle.