Page 105 of Jayson
I nod, bury my face in the curve of his neck. “Don’t give me to them,” I whisper, words hot against his skin.
“They’ll have to carve me open first,” he growls, and the conviction in his voice ties a knot in my throat.
He lifts me—weightless, crushing—and starts back through the trees. Every step thunders through his ribcage straight into mine. Like his body is trying to speak the words neither of us can yet say.
I don’t fight it. This is a man built for war, and right now, I am the battlefield he refuses to abandon.
The forest recedes behind us. But it leaves fingerprints on my skin, memory tangled in my hair. I feel it clinging to me even as he carries me through the blinking laser line, across the wet lawn, back toward walls that were never meant to hold all this hurt.
His heart is a drumbeat beneath my cheek. Not calm or soothing. Just there. Fierce and alive and mine.
He doesn’t ask me what I saw. Doesn’t ask what happened. He already knows it’s not the kind of thing you can say out loud without bleeding everywhere.
When we reach the door, he kicks it open. He doesn’t hesitate; just carries me straight inside, through the house, down the hall, into the room where I should’ve been to begin with. His room. His bed. His breath in my hair like a shield.
He lowers me gently, like setting me down might break me. But I’m already broken. That’s the thing. And he knows it.
He tucks the blanket around me like a question. I answer it with a whisper.
“Don’t leave.”
He doesn’t. He sits beside me, boots still on, muscles rigid, hands stained with rage he hasn’t used yet.
I close my eyes, still trembling. But this time, when the dark closes in—I’m not alone. And maybe that’s not peace. But it’s enough to survive the night.
41
JAYSON
The mirror never lies—but it doesn’t flinch either, which is more than I can say for the man staring back at me.
Black shirt, black suit, black tie: the uniform of a sinner who still hopes to pass for civilized. I slide a cufflink through the starched sleeve—silver skull, tiny rubies for the eyes—then pause, wrist trembling like I’ve spent the whole night mainlining fear. Because I did.
Behind me, Keira sleeps in the center of my king-size bed, curled small as a question mark. The duvet gathers under her chin; with every fragile rise and fall of her ribs, something inside me cracks wider, a continental rift I can’t suture. It’s obscene, how tiny she looks against the mountain of pillows. Obscene, how easily the wilderness could have swallowed her whole last night.
A single pine needle still clings to her hair like a souvenir of the nightmare. I want to pluck it free.
I want to stay and listen to her breathe until the end of time. I want to rip whoever did this to her into so many pieces that even the vultures choke. Instead I fasten the second cufflink,watch the rubies glint like a warning flare, and force myself to turn away from the bed.
I fucking hate this.
Every instinct I have is screaming not to go, not to leave her, not even for a damn minute. But the meeting can’t be pushed, and Nina—reliable, ever-present Nina—had to rush out of town on some work emergency. Timing couldn’t be worse.
Keira’s in the house, alone. That thought punches straight through my ribs.
I grab my keys, every step away from her a betrayal. My gut’s twisted. My jaw’s locked so tight it aches. Logic tells me she’s safe. Cameras. Gates. Steel-reinforced doors. But logic doesn’t erase the image of her trembling in a dark corner, or what it felt like to hold her broken and bleeding the last time she had a nightmare.
The moment my phone lights up, I hit speaker—I don’t even let the first ring finish.
Kanyan’s voice grinds through the line, low and steady, all gravel and heat. “We’re at the round table. Scar’s with me. Mason’s in transit. You good?”
I shoulder into the tailored suit coat, smooth the lapels, and reach back to adjust the Glock tucked beneath the waistband. Cold steel, warm rage.
“I’ve never felt more alive.”
“Good.” There’s a beat. The sound of movement—metal scraping, maybe the flick of a lighter. “We want answers, not bodies. But we’ll take both if you’re feeling generous.”
Keira stirs in her sleep behind me, twisting in the sheets like she’s fighting ghosts. A soft, strangled sound escapes her throat—some mix between a whimper and a warning.
