Rafe doesn’t hesitate. He wrenches me out of Kai’s arms like I weigh nothing.
“Kai—Rafe—no—no—no—PLEASE—”My words dissolve into choking gasps as Rafe drags me back against the wall of Kai’s container. My shoulder blades slam into the cold metal, the impact jarring enough to make black spots explode behind my eyes.
I’m still screaming—still hearing the tape loop in my skull, still seeing Nathan’s face, still drowning in every filthy echo—when the words tear out of me again. “MAKE IT STO—”
Rafe moves so fast I don’t even register what’s happening until it’s already done. His hand fists the front of my hoodie in a brutal grip; his other hand yanks something from the back of his waistband. A glint of black metal. A muzzle.
Then cold steel rams into my mouth.
My eyes fly open so wide they burn. My breath vanishes. My scream slices off instantly, severed at the root. Everything freezes—inside me, outside me, everywhere.
The gun presses against my tongue, against my teeth; the taste of oil and metal floods my mouth, forcing my jaw wide, forcing every other sound out of existence. Rafe’s face is inches from mine, eyes storm-gray and savage, chest rising and falling like he’s barely holding himself together.
“Breathe.”His voice is low, lethal, absolute. “Or I’ll blow the panic out of your skull myself.”
And for the first time since the moans started—since Ezio played my past like a weapon, since the world cracked open under my feet—I go completely, terrifyingly still.
I’m not breathing. I’m not moving. I’m nothing except held in place by the one man I can’t run from, can’t hide from, can’t lie to. My lungs seize; my pulse strobes frantically under my skin; my nails dig into Rafe’s sleeve so hard the fabric bites back—but none of it matters. Not when his eyes are locked on mine like he’s willing me back into my own body.
“In…” Rafe growls.
He inhales deep and loud, chest expanding slow enough that my wrecked, shaking frame instinctively wants—needs—to mirror him. The command vibrates down the barrel, through my teeth, straight into the center of my spine. I suck in a breath—shaky, uneven, a broken imitation of his.
“Out.”
His voice drops lower, steady and brutal as a fist. My exhale stutters out in pieces, a trembling whimper of air that makes my teeth clatter against the metal. I feel the vibration of steel on enamel, taste the copper burn of panic still scorching my tongue—but I breathe. I fucking breathe.
Rafe leans in so close our noses almost touch. His breath hits my cheek—warm, furious, grounding. His voice is a snarl dragged out of hell and shaped just for me.
“I love you.”
My entire body jerks. My fingers flex around his sleeve, clutching so hard the tendons in my wrist scream. My eyes go impossibly wider; a fresh wave of tears blurs everything except him.
“I don’t care what you did.” Rafe’s jaw clenches around every syllable. “I don’t give a shit who you fucked, who you killed, who you begged.” His grip on my hoodie tightens, dragging me closer. “You’re mine now. And mine doesn’t fucking stop breathing. You hear me?”
I stare at him like he just reached inside my chest and grabbed the frantic, dying thing inside me by its throat. His words hit harder than panic, harder than the tape, harder than anything Ezio could weaponize.
I’m still perfectly still. Perfectly silent. Because Rafe’s voice rewires the noise in my head, wipes out the moans, wipes out Nathan, wipes out everything except the burn of this moment.My fingers clutch his sleeve with a desperation so sharp it hurts—my knuckles white, my nails digging through fabric. I don’t even realize I’m shaking until his thumb brushes my cheekbone, smearing a tear that never had the chance to fall.
Rafe presses the barrel just a fraction deeper against my tongue—enough to keep me anchored, enough to remind me where I am. His eyes soften—not in kindness, but in possession, in something darker that sees every broken part of me and claims it anyway. “You said you’d live for me, little halo.”
The name hits like a gut-punch—halo—something holy twisted into a threat, and my breath catches in my throat, a pathetic, fractured gasp around the steel.
Rafe leans in closer, forearm braced beside my head, voice dropping so low it steals every shred of panic straight out of my lungs. “I need you to breathe to do that.”
My chest convulses. My ribs shudder. Air drags in—sharp, violent, real—and for the first time since the tape started playing, I feel something break. The panic loosens its jaws and falls away like glass shattering on concrete.
I’m still crying, still shaking, still clinging to him like he’s the last tether holding me to existence—but I’m breathing. Because he said so. Because he demanded it. Because he loves me. Because I’m his.
He keeps me caged against the cold metal wall, my body pinned between his chest and the muzzle filling my mouth. My breathing stays ragged, shaking, uneven—but it’s happening. Because he told me to. Because he forced the world quiet. Because his voice cut deeper than the panic ever could.
Then he looks up—just one fraction of a second—to Kai. One heartbeat. One glance. Enough to kill. “Who did this?” Rafe growls, the words vibrating through the barrel resting on my tongue.
“Ezio,” Kai answers, voice clipped and edged in contempt.
The second I hear that name I snap like a fucking live wire. My whole body tenses, jerks, panic ricocheting back into my bloodstream so fast it steals my breath. I try to thrash again, try to scream again, try to claw myself out of my own skin—
But Rafe presses the gun, just a little. The barrel nudges deeper into my mouth, not cruelly, not violently—strategic, grounding, a silent command: stay. And I freeze instantly, breath seizing, eyes going wide and glassy.
