A sigh, the sound more relief than exhaustion, more victory than defeat.
“I’d hoped to keep you from having to see what I do to him, but I guess it’s fitting that you watch him die. Maybe I’ll be nice and fuck you next to his body so it’ll feel like the final time.”
Neither the woman nor I answered, her arm wrapping tighter around me as the gunfire in the distance died off.
Moritze cocked his head, a smile sliding over his face.
“Sounds like round one is finished. It’s only a matter of time before round two begins.”
Slowly, he walked toward us, the click of his shoes a quiet sound against the concrete. My body tensed as he drew closer, but he stopped in the center, standing silently, his slimy smile stretching wider when pounding could be heard in the distance.
Laughing to himself, Moritze said, “Callan is always so impatient. But there’s only one place for him to go. My men will find him soon.”
He turned his back to us, waiting, his eyes locked on the unlocked door we’d come through.
I knew that when the pounding stopped, they’d found Callan, somehow understanding that, rather than avoiding the trap set for him, Callan had chosen to walk into it instead.
If he lived through this, I would kill him for being so stupid.
They walked him in a few minutes later, two guards behind him, his hands up and pressed to the top of his head.
He was larger than life in that moment. Even as a prisoner. Even as his fate rested in the hands of three men who wanted him dead. As soon as they stepped through the door, the woman next to me tensed, her arm around me tightening more, a breath rushing over her lips.
I almost laughed at the reaction.
Callan has that effect on a person.
You couldn’t look at him without knowing the power he held, the quiet strength, the absolute threat that to cross him was to play with your life.
Moritze would regret this decision. He had to. I refused to accept he’d win.
The two men talked, my breath trapped in my lungs at the tense conversation, my gaze dancing between the gun in Moritze’s hand and Callan. I rolled my eyes when Moritze claimed I was in bed, rolled them harder when Callan called me a fighter when ridden hard.
He was such as asshole.
Even in this.
The woman beside me shot me a look when Callan made the comment, and my cheeks flared with heat despite the cold fear in my veins. I shrugged, shook my head but then regretted it when pain shot down my body.
I needed a doctor, but my injuries were meaningless when Callan’s life was on the line.
Heart pounding, I stared helplessly, unsure that Callan would walk away from this.
Three men.
Three weapons trained on him.
And only one had to pull their trigger to end his life.
But rather than begging, the stubborn ass poked the bear. And when he went down to his knees, my heart climbed into my throat, caught there, pounded like a war drum with frantic, chaotic beats.
The woman pulled her arm from me, pushed to her feet and called out.
“Callan!”
Amber eyes lifted, somehow finding us in the shadows, that dangerous gaze that missed nothing sliding from me to the woman at my side.
Tears pricked my eyes, my body so still as if any movement would destroy him. That man. That boy. That dark soul I’d never wanted to see on his knees again.
Just like when we were kids, he went down to the floor without giving up his pride, his power, the silent strength of a dangerous mind.
Images of our past flashed through my head. Guilt swallowing me. Anger burning me. The whisper of a thought I’d always had to look at him when he was at his weakest.
Fight, Callan.
You fucking bastard, fight!
It was all I ever wanted him to do when we were kids. And it’s what I needed him to do now.
I couldn’t lose him.
Not after everything.
Not after finding him again.
My heart stopped when Moritze pulled the trigger, a scream tearing from my throat at the flash of fire, at the sound that bounced off every wall at the same time.
I didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t dare turn away from him.
Not even for a second.
If I had, I would have missed the quick movement, wouldn’t have understood that Callan had waited for Moritze to shoot all along.
Everything happened so fast that all I could comprehend was that Callan had