Chapter Fourteen

 Before the Storm Breaks

The rain didn’t stop for two days.

It fell like grief — relentless, heavy, unending — as if the city itself was mourning him.

Zane was gone. The sound of that gunshot still lived in Aurora’s bones, replaying over and over until every heartbeat became an echo of that single, deafening moment. The police called it an “incident,” the kind that conveniently disappeared from reports before sunrise. No body was found. No suspects. No proof.

Just a smear of blood on the rain-soaked alley floor.

But Aurora knew better. Zane wasn’t the type of man to vanish without reason. He was the storm — chaos and control in a single breath. If he was gone, it was because someone had forced his hand. Or worse — because he was playing a game she hadn’t yet learned the rules to.

She hadn’t slept. The walls of her apartment were covered with printouts, maps, corporate connections, and photos — a web of ink and red thread that pulsed like a second heart in the room. Every line led back to Wilson Group. Every secret bled into another.

Her reflection in the window was ghostlike.

Eyes ringed with sleepless shadows.

Hair tangled from worry.

Heart — raw, restless, and breaking.

She pressed a trembling hand to the glass, staring at the rain-drowned skyline. “Where are you, Zane?”

The silence didn’t answer — but her phone did.

It buzzed once, the screen flashing a blocked number.

She froze, pulse stuttering. Then she answered.

“Hello?”

Static filled the line, followed by a low voice — one she knew too well.

> “You should’ve run when I told you.”

Her knees nearly gave out. “Zane—”

> “No names. They’re listening.”

Her throat tightened. “Where are you? What happened that night?”

> “I don’t have much time. They’re cleaning house. Aurora… don’t go back to the company.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

> “You don’t understand. If you keep digging, they’ll find you. They’ll use you.”

“Then let them,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m done being afraid.”

There was a pause — a heartbeat of silence that carried a thousand unspoken things. When he spoke again, his voice had softened, cracked by exhaustion and something like regret.

> “You make me want to believe in impossible things.”

“Then believe in me,” she said. “Tell me where you are.”

> “If I tell you, you’ll come for me.”

“I already am.”

> “Aurora—”

The line went dead.

Her trembling hand lowered the phone, but her heart — that reckless, stubborn thing — had already decided. She traced the faint background noise she’d heard before the call cut: seagulls, echoing machinery, a faint horn. The docks.

Zane was near the harbor.

---

By the time Aurora reached the waterfront, the night had swallowed the city whole. The air smelled of salt, metal, and danger. The warehouses stood like silent sentinels, their shadows stretching across the slick pavement. Somewhere among them, Zane was waiting — or hiding.

She slipped between two shipping containers, her boots splashing in shallow puddles. Every sound was amplified: her breathing, the hum of distant engines, the soft drip of rain off corrugated metal. The docks were nearly deserted.

Until they weren’t.

A flicker of movement to her left — the glint of a gun under a streetlight.

She ducked behind a stack of crates, heart hammering. A black SUV idled near the edge of the pier, its headlights off. Two men stood outside, speaking in low tones. She couldn’t hear the words, but one name drifted through the wind.

> “Wilson.”

Her stomach dropped. They weren’t just after Zane — they were his family’s men.

She slipped her phone from her pocket, typing fast:

If you’re here, I’m not leaving without you. — A.

She hit send, praying he’d see it.

Seconds stretched into eternity. Then a voice behind her — smooth, familiar, dangerous.

> “You’re even worse at following orders than I remember.”

Aurora spun around.

Zane stood there, half-hidden in shadow. His clothes were torn, face bruised, eyes burning with that same impossible mixture of rage and tenderness. He looked alive — barely, but alive.

“Zane,” she breathed, rushing forward.

He caught her mid-step, pulling her against him, hand pressing to her mouth. “Not here. They’ll hear.”

Her heart thundered against his chest. He smelled like rain, blood, and adrenaline. Every cell in her body screamed to hold him tighter, to make sure he was real.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?” she hissed when he let her speak.

“Because I wasn’t supposed to be.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means they think I’m dead,” he said quietly. “And if we want to survive this, we’re going to let them keep thinking that.”

The world tilted beneath her. “You’re asking me to lie.”

“I’m asking you to live.”

She shook her head. “No. Not without you.”

His hand found hers, rough and warm despite the cold. “Aurora, you don’t understand. If they know you’re with me, they’ll use you to end this — permanently.”

“Then teach me how to fight.”

For a second, something like pride flashed in his eyes. Then he exhaled — slow, heavy, defeated. “You always were impossible.”

“I learned from the best.”

The faintest smile ghosted across his lips, then vanished as the SUV’s doors slammed in the distance. Voices shouted. The men had noticed something.

Zane grabbed her arm. “We have to move. Now.”

They ran — through rain, through shadows, through the echo of their own heartbeats. Aurora’s lungs burned, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not when she had finally found him. Not when he had come back from the dead for her.

They ducked into an abandoned warehouse, panting, dripping with rain. Zane locked the door behind them, chest heaving.

In the dim light, he looked more human than she’d ever seen him — raw, wounded, beautiful.

She reached for him, fingers trembling. “I thought I lost you.”

“You did,” he said softly. “And I thought I was fine with that… until I heard your voice.”

He brushed her cheek, thumb grazing her skin. The world outside didn’t exist anymore — just the space between them, electric and inevitable. She wanted to kiss him, to forget the danger, the lies, the blood. But before she could close the distance, Zane’s expression changed.

He stepped back, eyes dark. “Aurora… what did you do?”

Her stomach knotted. “What?”

He pulled a small device from his pocket — a tracker, blinking red. “They’ve been following you.”

Her breath hitched. “No — that’s not possible, I—”

Before she could finish, a crash echoed outside. Boots. Shouts. The door shuddered under a heavy blow.

Zane’s eyes locked on hers, full of the same impossible fire she’d fallen for.

> “Run.”

---

The door splintered, flooding the room with light and armed silhouettes.

Aurora turned toward him, tears mixing with rain.

“Zane—”

> “Go!”

She hesitated — then ran.

And behind her, she heard the sound she feared most in the world.

Another shot.

Another scream swallowed by thunder.

Then — silence.

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