Page 144 of Hard Bargain

Knox.

He was strapped to a chair in the center of the room, marked in ways that made his vision flicker with rage. Bruises layered over each other in dark, ugly patterns. Blood streaked down his side, skin broken and burned. There was a smell in the room—copper and something charred underneath. Dominic’s brain recognized both instantly, even as his body tried to reject the reality of what they meant.

But Knox was upright.

Looking at him.

Alive.

The relief hit Dominic like a punch, but it didn’t soften a single thing. It twisted instantly into rage, violent enough to taste. A burning clarity settled over him: Mercer was about to suffer an extraordinary amount of pain. He was going to pay for this in ways he’d never imagined.

Mercer stood a few feet from Knox, a knife hanging loose in his hand, like he’d been mid-sentence when the door crashed open. He didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to breathe with three guns pointed at him.

Dominic didn’t say a word.

He pulled the trigger twice.

Both shots were clean, kneecaps blown out in an instant. Mercer collapsed with a choked scream that broke on the way out, the knife slipping from his hand as he hit the concrete.

Dominic was already moving, dropping in front of Knox like everything else in the room had ceased to exist—Mercer screaming on the floor, Cassian moving to secure him, Rafa covering the door—none of it mattered. None of it reached him.

Knox was barely holding himself upright, body slack against the restraints, every line of him drawn tight with pain. But his eyes—those beautiful eyes—found him immediately.

Still there.

Still him.

“Dom…” It came out rough, dragged through whatever it had cost him to hold on this long.

Dominic’s hand came up, steadying Knox’s head as it started to dip, finding a place on his jaw that wouldn’t make the pain worse. “I’m here,” he said.

Knox let out an uneven breath. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, you are.”

Up close, every injury was impossible to ignore: the dark bruises, the cuts still seeping, the angry red burn below his ear. Dominic’s jaw locked so tight it ached. He took it all in and filed it away—that would be revisited on Mercer’s body in detail.

Knox’s gaze flickered but held. “Didn’t tell him anything,” he said, as though that was the urgent thing. As though, with blood drying on his skin and shock working its way through him, the thing he couldn’t bear was Dominic thinking otherwise.

“Shhh, I know,” Dominic said.

“Hurts,” Knox admitted, barely above a breath.

Dominic’s thumb moved against his skin. “I know, baby.”

Knox blinked slowly, fighting to stay present. His focus drifted in and out, his body trying to shut down now that it finally felt safe enough. “I knew you’d find me,” he whispered.

“Always.”

Chapter 37

Knox

“Are you fucking serious right now?” His voice came out rough, worn thin after three days in the hospital.

Dominic stood near the window, posture straight, hands loose at his sides, looking like none of this touched him. Like this was just another conversation on just another day.

Knox wanted to throw something at him.

He pushed himself upright in the hospital bed, ignoring the pull of everything that hadn’t healed yet. “Again,” Knox snapped. “That’s the third time I’ve had to sit here and repeat the same bullshit cover story to the police because you decided it was a good idea to bring me here.”