Page 52 of Crushed Vow
“You’re staying with me.”
“You’re disgusting,” I spat.
“Maybe,” he said coldly. “But I’m still your brother.”
“No,” I whispered. “You’re not.”
He didn’t flinch. He just shoved me toward the building.
My last glance was at Ethan’s body, disappearing through a steel door.
The blood trail followed like a breadcrumb path into hell.
The room they shoved us into was nothing more than a converted cellar—stone walls, metal door, no windows. Damp. Cold.
The kind of cold that settled into your bones and made you forget you ever felt warmth.
They dropped Ethan beside me like trash. Still bleeding. Still unconscious. And still cuffed.
I scrambled toward him the moment the door slammed shut.
“Ethan. Ethan—wake up.”
A low groan left his throat. He shifted his head, wincing, blood smeared across his temple. He blinked once. Then twice.
“You’re here,” he rasped.
Tears pooled again. “Of course I’m here.”
“No. I mean... you stayed.”
“I stayed,” I whispered. “You’re not alone.”
He coughed, and it sounded wet. I grabbed a filthy cloth from the floor and pressed it to the gunshot wound in his thigh, trying to stop the bleeding. He hissed but didn’t push me away.
Then his eyes fluttered open wider. “My coat pocket,” he croaked. “Inside. There’s a tracker. Small. Press it three times.”
“What?”
“Do it, Charlotte,” he breathed. “It reaches Cassian.”
Cassian.
The name cracked inside my chest like lightning in a bone-dry sky.
My hands trembled as I reached into Ethan’s pocket. A small black chip, no bigger than a button, sat between my fingers. I looked down at it, pulse roaring in my ears.
I didn’t want to call him.
But I didn’t have a choice.
Cassian—the man I ran from, the one I said I hated. The one I served divorce papers. The one I left.
And yet... the only one who could get us out of here alive.
I clicked the device once. Twice. Three times.
Nothing.
