Page 38 of The Warrior's Salvation

He turns to face me, finally, like we’re old friends meeting in the middle of a conversation. His eyes land on me, scan the towel in my hair, the thin robe, the bare feet, and I hate how small I feel under it. I hate that he sees me like this.

“I need to know when your father is meeting with Ronan O’Rourke,” he says. The words come smooth, practiced, like he’s said them before, maybe even to someone who didn’t get the chance to answer.

I shake my head, more out of instinct than defiance. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

He says it plainly, and I know he believes it. I don’t try to argue. What would be the point? We both know I’ve seen things I wasn’t supposed to. Eavesdropped. Read names I wasn’t meant to recognize. He’s not here on a guess.

“I won’t tell you,” I say quietly. “Whatever you think I know, I’m not giving it to you.”

His mouth doesn’t move, but something shifts in his eyes. Not anger, not yet—just a kind of steel-hard certainty that tells me this conversation doesn’t end with a choice. Not really.

“I’m not going to be your pawn,” I add, and I hate that my voice quavers at the end.

“You already are,” he says. “You just haven’t figured out which side you’re playing for.”

My stomach twists. I thought I’d been scared before. I hadn’t even started.

He shifts a few steps to the side, and I realize he’s between me and the door. Not by accident. He’s placed himself there. I start to back up without thinking, the robe pulling tighter around me as I move until my hip bumps the edge of the counter.

He doesn’t raise the gun. He doesn’t have to.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he says. His voice is level, but there’s pressure behind it now. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

I shake my head. “I’m not giving you anything.”

Another step from him. Another step back from me. The last few feet of space in the room close in fast.

“I’ve been patient,” he says. “More than you probably deserve. But if you keep protecting them, you become part of the problem.”

“I’m not protecting anyone. I just—” My voice breaks. “You’ll get them killed.”

His expression doesn’t change. “That’s the whole point."

The second I say no again, his face tightens—not with surprise, not even with anger, but with decision. He closes the distance and grabs my arm, wrenching me forward with a force that knocks the breath from my lungs. I barely register the edge of the table hitting my hip before I’m slammed backward into the wall.

Pain flashes through my spine. The impact cracks something loose in my head and my vision blurs. Before I can recover, his hand fists in my hair and drags me upright, shoving me flat against the plaster.

“You’re wasting time,” he says, breath hot at my cheek. “Yours. Mine. Theirs.”

I claw at his forearm, but he jerks me closer until our bodies are flush and I can feel the press of the gun between us. My robe’s already half undone from the struggle, the belt twisted and pulling with every movement.

I try to scream, but he clamps a hand over my mouth, pressing just hard enough to cut the sound but not the breath. His weight is fully on me now, one knee driving between my thighs, pinning me in place. I can’t move. I can barely breathe. The pressure against my ribs makes it feel like the air is leaking out of my lungs one shallow gasp at a time.

I shake my head violently, thrashing, but he just leans in harder. His hand slides down the curve of my side, slow, measured, and when his fingers hook into the belt at my waist and tug it once, everything in me turns to ice.

“I can do this any way I want,” he murmurs, too calm. “We both know that.”

Tears sting my eyes, unbidden and furious. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want him to see what this is doing to me. But the fear is everywhere now. It’s in my hands, trembling. It’s in my legs, locked and useless. It’s in the way I stop struggling—just for a second—because some buried part of me wonders if it’ll hurt less that way.

His hand slides the knot open.

I flinch hard, a full-body jolt, panic overriding everything else. My voice comes back in a ragged, desperate rasp.

“Please don’t?—”

He presses the gun against my stomach.

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