My eyes narrowed again. Evie was at my side now, saying something I couldn’t make out.
“Hang on, Aiden,” she breathed, dropping to her knees and working on the ropes binding me to the chair. Her hands were quick, surprisingly steady.
“Not gonna lie,” I murmured, watching her work. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re literally about to pass out and you’re worried about me being hot.”
“I can still appreciate the finer things in life.”
“You’re delirious. You might have a concussion.”
“As if a concussion is needed to make me contemplate how perfect you are.”
Her eyes went wide, her body moving, but it was too late. Something slammed into the side of my head this time, my world going black.
I cracked my eyes open to find Rook smacking my face, yelling something I couldn’t quite catch.
I smacked back.
“Wrong fucking Emberson,” I grunted, the pain in my shoulder making it hard to talk.
“Excuse me?” Rook said, offended. “One day with your relationship out in the open and you tell me I’m the wrong one?”
A laugh ripped out of me and collapsed into a cough as pain radiated through my chest. “You’re not exactly the one I hoped to wake up to, and I sure as hell don’t want you to kiss me.”
“That offer was never on the table. Can you get up?”
I blinked, trying to focus. Evie was squared off with Zack across the room—Zack’s lip curled in that same sneer—and my head was still too fuzzy to catch their words.
“Yes,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Evie.”
“Yeah, I’m trying but she wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”
She glanced back, taking her eyes off Zack for a second, and he took advantage of that, lunging forward and shoving her back. She hit the ground hard, her knife skittering across the floor.
Rook yelled something as he cut away at the ties binding my hands, Evie having only cut through the ones at my feet. He stood, leaving me to get my bearings now that I could move my hands.
The guard he had shot had got back up, his arm wrapping around Rook’s neck before I could warn him.
Evie faced Zack, pushing up onto her elbows as he stalked closer to her.
I wasn’t sure if I could get up without blacking out again, but I was sure as hell going to try.
I lunged, positioning myself between Evie and Zack. I was fucking done with him trying to get to her.
“You should’ve stayed down,” Zack growled, throwing a punch that I barely blocked in time. “This is between me and her.”
“Yeah? You should’ve stayed loyal.”
I drove my knee into his gut, hard enough to make something crack. Zack choked on a breath, staggering back, one hand clutching his ribs. He barely had a second to recover before I grabbed him by the collar and slammed his head against the wall. My body screamed in protest, but I ignored it. The sickening thud of bone meeting concrete sent a dark satisfaction curling through my chest.
Still, he fought. Snarling, desperate. His knife flashed in a wild arc—I barely twisted in time, feeling the blade slice a shallow cut across my ribs. With each hit I blocked out my pain more and more, remembering how badly he wanted Evie for himself.
I caught his wrist, twisted until I heard the snap, until his scream ripped through the air like a broken thing. His knife clattered to the floor. I didn’t let him fall. I wanted him to feel this.
My fist connected with his jaw. Once. Twice. A third time, harder, sharper. Until his lip split, until his skin was slick with blood, until his groaning turned to gasping, to wheezing, to silence.
But I wasn’t done.
