Page 78 of Ruin Me Knot
I slip left through a gap and shoot down a side street. The back end fishtails, van howling, but we burst out onto another avenue, swallowed up in more traffic. Nothing follows through the alley. I’ve lost them but I don’t let up for a second.
Ronan jerks his phone from his pocket and stabs the screen, jaw bunched so tight I swear I hear bone creak. Adrian picks up before the first ring is finished.
"Hardwick fucking found us and we’re coming in hot. Leah’s with us. We’re bringing her into Pinnacle." He doesn’t let Adrian respond. Just hangs up, tosses his phone onto his seat and wraps his body around our Omega.
The city blurs as I drive as fast as the ruined van allows. I only hope it makes the distance, but if it doesn’t, I’m more than capable of commandeering anothervehicle. I don’t care what sort of crazy motherfucker I look like. Crazy gets results. I run lights and slice corners in a volley of horns. Jax yells directions and curses but he holds Leah’s gaze in the rearview.
"I…have to tell you something." There’s warning in Leah’s voice.
I don’t hear the rest because a familiar black van cuts across our path. My heart spikes as I swerve hard right, the tires shrieking as we careen up onto a curb, bouncing so hard every bone in my body clatters.
"How the fuck are they finding us?" Ronan bellows, voice an unfiltered slash.
The black van surges alongside, trying to box us in. I brake, cut wheels, drop behind, then gun it and surge left. I take us down another side street, a mirror shattering against a light pole, but the asshats are somehow still following us.
"Hold tight," Jax bellows and rolls down his window, his gun steady in his hand. He leans out and sets off two clean shots. Their tires blow out in perfect twin shrieks. The black van fishtails, veers, and slams into a parked car.
I take the next corner on two wheels and rocket straight into Pinnacle’s front courtyard. The world contracts to pale stone, reflecting pools, sterile perfection. There’s only the grind of the brakes as I wrench to a stop, the van shuddering just inches from glossy windows.
We spill out, Ronan hauling Leah, Jax flanking them, all of us taut, wild-eyed, blood and street on our clothes and hands.
We barrel through the automatic doors into clean marble, so bright it’s obscene after the violence we left behind. Ronan barks for Adrian, voice echoing like a weapon.
I glance back as the doors sweep shut, catch a blur of three black vans peeling away and disappearing into traffic. Leah’s clinging to Ronan, so tight her knuckles are white, her gaze darting across the foyer like every corner hides a threat. Her scent’s sharp and bitter. Trauma bleeds through every pore.
"Someone get me Adrian Blackwood!" Ronan barks and the few people in the foyer freeze at the dominance in his tone.
Leah’s shaking gets worse. She makes soft, helpless sounds, panic ratcheting up by the second. My own nerves are shredded but she’s not just scared, she’s almost... feral.
Then there’s sudden motion as Adrian, Cole, Zane, Asher, Soren, and Phoenix burst through the side doors, all muscle and authority, bringing the sterile lobby to heel under their hands. They part and two smaller figures dart forward. Mira and Emma.
Mira freezes the moment she lays eyes on Leah. She takes a hesitant, halting step forward. Tears well so fast they spill, trailing wet streaks over her cheeks. Her eyes are wide with disbelief, struggling to take in the impossible reality.
“Leah. You’re…real.” She swallows hard, voice barely more than a whisper, as if saying it louder would shatter the fragile moment. “Gods, I held out hope. Every day I prayed you’d made it. I begged the fates I would see you again. And now…”
More large tears slip from the corners of her eyes as she takes in Leah. I know what she sees. She’s struggling to contain her horror at Leah’s scars, her frail body, measuring all the changes. The years of brutality, fear, and endless stolen nights press in from the shadows. Their shared suffering is written deep in the tremble of Mira’s arms and the quivering in Emma’s gaze.
Emma’s lips part. Her soft gaze is filled with shock that ripples through her body. She blinks repeatedly, like she’s trying to make the moment real. “We never lost hope,” she finally breathes out, voice catching. “You’re alive. You’re really alive.” Her hands curl into shaky fists at her sides.
Their pain washes over me. I’ve seen reunions before, but this one’s close. This one is real and it cuts deep. These Omegas were never meant to face this unspeakable cruelty. And yet here we are, witnesses to their survival, to the unrelenting courage that brought us all here.
Leah lets out a sound that should never come from a living throat. A wounded, animal scream that cuts me to the core. She writhes against Ronan’s grip, fighting like she’ll die if she doesn’t get away, her hands flung out toward Mira and Emma. For a split second it looks like she’ll run to them, but when they reach for her,she recoils, voice fractured and raw and I realize she isn’t reaching for them. She’s telling them to keep away.
"Don’t—don’t come closer! I’ll fucking kill you—do you hear me? I’ll kill you,stay away!"
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Leah
Asharp cramp tears through me, and I double over, air knifing out of my lungs. Agony collapses the world to this single, shrieking point. I clutch my belly as though I can claw out the pain with my nails. A keening sound too guttural to be human sounds around us.
It’s me.
I’mmaking that sound.
Mira's hair streams behind her, that same fierce determination that kept us alive in Haven blazing in her eyes. "Leah!" Her voice carries through the marble, hoarse with twoyears of hoping.
Emma is right beside her, tears already streaming, moving with the same frantic urgency I remember from our darkest days. When one of us was hurt, we all felt it.
