CHAPTER 11

Madeline was a crumpled heap of white silk and broken promises at the base of the stairs. Her wails grated against the silence of the private wing like a serrated blade on bone. From the landing, the angles of her legs looked wrong—fractured, jagged, a mess of expensive stockings and ruined skin. She was young, a Winters; she’d heal, but the agony was a hell of a price for a performance.

I stood paralyzed at the top of the flight. My heart felt like it was trying to punch through my ribs. One second I was trying to bargain for my life and the life of my kid, and the next, Madeline was trying to toss me into a marble abyss because I was "in the way."

"Why, Zack? Why would you do it?" her voice rose in a shrill, tremulous howl that brought nurses sprinting from every direction.

They swarmed her. Shouted orders. Stained the floor with trauma kits. Nobody looked up. I was a ghost in a hospital gown, watching the scene through a fog of pure, unadulterated shock. It was her word against mine. A high-ranking socialite versus a charity case from a basement. Who would the Cocolink soldiers believe?

Nathan would choose her. He always did. Logic dies when blood and history are on the line. He’d see her broken body and turn into the very monster I’d spent three years trying to forget he was.

If I stayed, I was dead. Or worse, caged.

I spun on my heel and bolted back toward my room. My breath came in jagged hitches. I grabbed the IV line in my arm, my teeth baring as I prepared to rip the plastic out of my own vein.

"Let me," a calm voice said from the shadows.

I jumped, nearly knocking over the chrome stand. It was the doctor from earlier—Thomas. He didn't look like he was about to call security. He stepped forward, his movements surgical and quick. He clamped the lines, pressed a square of gauze to the puncture, and stripped the tape with a practiced flick.

"You're helping me?" I rasped.

"I don't buy the 'pushed' story," Thomas said, his blue eyes hard as he wrapped a pressure bandage around my forearm. "I’ve seen enough bruised ribs in this city to know who the predators are. If you’re running from a man like Nathan Durand, you probably have a damn good reason."

Tears stung my eyes, hot and humiliating. "Thank you, Thomas."

"Don't thank me yet." He moved to the armchair where Nathan’s heavy wool coat lay discarded. He reached into the pocket, pulled out a heavy key fob with a silver crest, and tossed it to me. "Take his car. Get out of Havenfall. Go."

Nathan’s POV

The air in the emergency ward smelled like ozone and antiseptic, but beneath it all, Zack’s scent was fading. My jaw creaked as I ground my teeth. Something was wrong. The silence in his room was too heavy, too hollow.

I started toward his door, but a different scent cut through the haze. Madeline.

I turned, my boots thudding against the linoleum. I followed the sound of the screaming. I found her in a trauma bay, surrounded by a sea of blue scrubs. Her face was a mask of gore and tears, her legs pinned under stabilizers.

I moved to the side of the gurney, my shadow falling over her. "Madeline? What the hell happened?"

She choked on a sob, her fingers clutching at my sleeve, staining the cuff with red. "Zack... he pushed me, Nathan. I just wanted to see if he was okay... but he went crazy. He threw me down the stairs."

The world tilted. "Zack did this?"

"He just snapped," she wailed, her eyes wide and glassy. "Please, don't leave me. I’m so scared."

I looked at her shattered legs, then back toward the hallway where Zack should have been. My blood felt like liquid lead. I’d spent three years keeping that kid safe, and now he’d maimed the only woman who actually mattered to my future.

"I'm not going anywhere," I growled, my hand tightening on the rail of the bed until the metal groaned.

Zack’s POV

The windshield wipers fought a losing battle against the mountain deluge. I drove Nathan’s SUV like a madman, the engine roaring as I climbed the north face. I couldn't go back to the penthouse. I headed for the retreat—a secluded cabin the Durands kept for 'private business.'

My stomach was a knot of acid and fear. Madeline didn't care about the baby; she just wanted the threat gone. She was willing to kill a child to keep her seat at the head of the table. A cold, maternal fury started to burn through my panic.

You won't touch him, I thought, my knuckles white against the leather steering wheel. Neither of you.

By the time I reached the cabin, the sky had turned a bruised, sickly purple. Thunder rumbled in the distance—a sound that usually sent me under the nearest bed. My years with Logan had left me with scars that didn't just itch; they bled when the sky opened up.

I stood on the porch, the wind whipping my thin clothes, watching the lightning arc across the peaks. I didn't have Nathan to hold me through this one. I didn't have his weight to ground me.

"I can do this," I whispered into the gale. "I'm a father now. Get it together."

I retreated inside, locking every deadbolt. I lit every candle, threw logs into the hearth, and turned the TV to max volume to drown out the sky. But when the lightning hit the transformer, the world went dead.

The silence was worse than the noise.

I sat on the rug by the fire, trembling so hard my teeth clicked. The orange glow of the embers started to shift, stretching into the shape of a different door. A basement door.

The scent of cheap whiskey and old sweat seemed to fill the room. Logan was there, stepping out of the shadows of my memory, his belt buckle clinking as he unfastened it. I wanted to scream, but my throat was made of sand. I felt the phantom weight of him pinning me down, his rough hands bruising my skin.

Crack.

A bolt of lightning struck the oak tree outside, and the cabin door flew off its hinges.

I shrieked, scrambling back toward the fireplace. Framed in the shattered doorway was a silhouette that made my heart stop. It wasn't a memory. It was real.

Nathan stood there, soaked to the bone, his eyes glowing with a silver, predatory light that I’d never seen before. He didn't look like a husband. He looked like an executioner.

"Zack," he rasped, the sound more terrifying than the thunder. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"