I didn’t fucking move. Couldn’t. My entire body locked up in pure, paralyzing horror. For the first time in my goddamn life, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. I was frozen, staring at her like some fucking statue carved out of fear. Until instinctslammedinto me, and suddenly, I was ripping at the cuffs binding her wrists, my hands fumbling like they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. The cuffs clattered to the floor, but I barely heard them. I caught her before she could slump forward, cradling her naked body against my chest. Dead weight. Too still. Too fucking still.
“Jesus Christ, baby, no…”
I sank to the ground, her body in my lap, my fingers shaking as I freed her ankles. My mind was racing,screaming,fucking spiraling into the kind of terror I didn’t know how to handle. Had I pushed her too far? Why the fuck didn’t she use her safe word?
That thought alone wrecked me.
I pressed my fingers to her throat, holding my breath like my entire world depended on it. And maybe it did. Maybe she was my whole fucking world, and I made I'd just lost her.
A pulse. Weak. Butthere.
“Thank fuck.” The relief was brief, fleeting—her eyes still weren’t opening. I yanked my discarded shirt off the floor and pulled it over her, covering her up, hoping that warming her up would fix whatever the fuck just happened. And what the hell had just happened?
“Paulie!” My voice was a fucking bark, already charging toward the door where my security was posted, Sophie tight in my arms. “Call Paulie! Tell him to get the doctor. Now! It’s Sophie!”
That was all I could manage.
They sprang into action, but I didn’t wait. I was already moving, already bolting through the corridors, past the confused stares, past the part of my brain that was still trying to convince me this wasn’t actually fucking happening.
I got her to the suite, barely registering my own hands as I laid her down on the bed. I had taken so many fucking hits in my life—from my father, my brothers, my enemies, from this fucked-up world I called my own. But none of it suffocated me like this.
“Come on, Soph. Wake up for me, baby.”My voice barely worked, but I tucked her in, brushing a strand of hair from her face.
She wasn’t supposed to look like this.
Too pale. Too fragile.
I forced a breath in, forced myself to think, to keep it together. But every fucking second that passed felt like an eternity. And that’s when I realized… I was lost without her. The only part of my life that felt fucking right. Her. Whether she was beside me or not, she was it.
The roles, the games, the world we played in? None of it meant a goddamn thing if she wasn’t by my side for real.
“Damn it, Sophie.” My voice cracked. “I love you. Don’t you dare fucking leave me.”
Maybe it was the first time I’d ever said those words in my life—not like my parents ever did.
But I meant them. Every fucking syllable.
And so I sat there, stripped bare of everything but hope, waiting for her eyes to open. Waiting for the chance to start again.
39
Sophie
My eyes fluttered open, and for a brief moment, the world was a blur of soft white light and shadows. My head pounded with the rhythm of my heart—fast, erratic. I tried to focus on the sensation at my fingertips, sharp little stabs that pulled me further into consciousness. Then, I heard it—the steady, electronic beep that told me I was alive.
“Ah, there she is,” a voice said, clinical but not unkind. My vision cleared enough to see a doctor by my bedside. His fingers were cold as they pressed against my wrist, counting the beats of my heart while his other hand held an instrument to my finger, the source of the little pricks of pain.
I turned my head, searching for something familiar, something grounding. I spotted Maverick, his tall frame tense as he paced near the bedroom door of our suite. He had a tendency to do that: pace when stressed. I found it endearing.
At the sound of the doctor’s voice, Man whipped around, desperation written all over his face. When our eyes locked, relief washed over him, softening the hard lines of worry. But for me, shame flooded in like the tide.
Memories crashed through me—the last time this happened, the hospital room, the judgment. The eating disorder, my silent demon, always clawing its way back. How people whispered about seeking attention when all I wanted was to disappear. My mother, my sisters, their concern crushing me, and they didn’t know the full extent of how deep it ran. And now Maverick, caught in the crossfire of my personal hell.
“Your vitals are looking good,” the doctor continued, oblivious to the storm inside me. “How’s your water intake?” He glanced at a device, then back at me. “Blood sugars are dangerously low. When did you last eat?”
I clenched my jaw, refusing to look at Maverick as I forced the truth out. I had lied through my teeth so many times before, about meals I never ate, because I loved the reflection in the mirror too much. But now the what-ifs paralyzed me. What if I’d been chasing down a suspect? In a shoot out? Driving? What if I collapsed on a perp’s doorstep? What if it was the reason I was on the wrong side of a gun? The possibilities were endless. The risks I took were unforgivable, and I saw that now. And this was impactinghimnow.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, a bitter promise forming in my mind—I needed space. Time to sort through this mess in my head, the chaos that never stopped. Time to separate the love I felt for Maverick and the hate I felt for myself. To chew on the ugly truth that he might never trust me enough to visit Newark.Dios mio, Sophie, get it together before you spiral out of control.
