LOGIN“You’ve always known how to land a good punch,” Damon says.I step around the desk, towering over him like the shadow of death itself. I reach down, grabbing him by his shirt and hauling him to his feet with one hand. I wrap my hand around his neck and slam his back against the wooden desk. My grip is so tight his airway is completely restricted, his face turning a mottled purple beneath the blood. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t paint this room with your brains right now.”Damon doesn't look afraid. That is his sickness. He spits blood onto the front of my shirt, a wet, rattling laugh bubbling up from his throat.“There he is, the real Zayn Hemsworth. Look at you... acting like a savage over a girl. You always were weak, Zayn.”I tighten my grip, my fingers burying into his throat until his windpipe groans under the pressure. “I froze your offshore accounts. By tomorrow morning, you won't even have enough money to buy a meal, let alone a helicopter out of this country.”“You do
I don’t speak. I simply watch the way Daniel’s chest heaves, savoring the gasp of his failing lungs. He might die of infection if not starvation and dehydration—yet all he cares about is his mother. What a good son he is. Barbara's bloodshot eyes stare wildly around, settling on the CCTV at the corner of the ceiling. “Psycho! Just send us to the police! We’ll confess! We’ll sign whatever you want! Just put us in a cell instead of keeping us here... give us water... please...” I lean into the microphone. “The police, Barbara? Now why would I outsource a personal matter to the state?” Daniel weeps, his hands pressing against the glass he can’t see through. “Zayn, I beg you! I didn't let Damon have her! I hesitated! I told her I loved her! Jade knows... Jade knows I didn't want to hurt her! I care about her.” “You put your filthy hands on my wife. You made her cry, Daniel. You made her believe, even for a second, that help wasn't coming.” “We’re sorry!” Natasha shrieks from the
I run out of the warehouse. I realize it’s night. The cold air is cutting into my lungs. I try to take in steady breaths as I sprint, but breathing is just too hard. It begins to rain. The storm is blinding, driving needles of freezing precipitation straight into my eyes as I stumble across the muddy gravel of the yard. I can’t see what’s ahead of me. I can only hear what is behind—the terrifying thud of heavy boots tearing through the puddles.“She went toward the perimeter! Split up and find her!”Damon’s men. They are right on my heels. My foot catches on a rusted piece of rebar hidden in the mud. I gasp, throwing my hands out as I go crashing into the wet gravel. Pain flares in my knees, but the adrenaline overrides it. I must escape. I need to survive. I scramble back up to my feet, my breath hitching in my throat, sobbing from exhaustion. I can’t go back into that cage. I can’t let them hand me over to Damon. I don’t want to die in his hands.I round the corner of a rusted meta
“Jade—” “No,” I say, shifting back as Daniel stretches his hand to reach out to me. “What happens to me?”He slides to the very edge of the mattress, dragging his split plaster cast with a low hiss of agonizing pain. He reaches out again, his trembling hand hovering over mine, desperately wishing he could touch me, but stopping just short when he sees the dead look in my eyes.“Please, Jade,” he begs, his voice cracking into a heartbreaking sob. “Just tell me you understand. Tell me you see why I have to do this.”“I don’t understand.”“I don't want you to die. I still love you.”I scoff. “Do you really?”“God help me, I love you so much it’s killing me. Everything I did... taking you from St. Jude’s, bringing you here... I just wanted a chance for us to be what we used to be. But if I don't give you to Damon, Zayn is going to kill us within the hour. I’m trying to save my family.”“You’re not saving anyone,” I say, my voice steady, refusing to give him the comfort he’s begging for.
JADEI don’t know why my mind chooses this exact moment to remind me of the time I could taste freedom like honey and breathe it in like air. It was sweet, I can’t even lie. Freedom is something you don't know how much you cherish until it’s stripped from you.And love… genuine love is one of the good things that make one feel truly free. Because tell me why every image that’s pulsing through my mind is of Zayn? Why do I think of only him? The metal on my wrists bites deeper into my skin every time I draw a fresh breath. But memories of Zayn cut deeper than anything else. I wish I’d looked at him far longer than I did before he left.I wish I’d memorized the ink on his skin and asked him what they meant. I wish I… I wish I’d said ‘I love you’ even if I wasn't sure if he’d say it back. A stray tear escapes my eye. The concrete floor beneath me is freezing, bleeding a numbing chill straight through my clothes and into my bones.I use the back of my hand to wipe away my tears. I should
~DANIEL~ Pain is the only thing keeping me conscious. Every time the rusted springs of the mattress shift, an intense agony shoots up my broken leg, radiating from the fractured tibia that is currently held together by nothing but sheer will and a messy layer of gauze beneath my split plaster cast.Yanking that IV out at St. Jude’s had been a mistake. My veins feel like they’re filled with battery acid, and my forehead is slick with a cold, feverish sweat. But we had no choice. Zayn would have torn me apart in that hospital bed if I’d stayed any longer. He would have found me.I look around the room. It’s suffocatingly small. We’re holed up in an abandoned warehouse near the industrial edges of Queens—a property my mother’s family used to lease decades ago before the business went under. No active deeds. No digital footprint. Just cracked concrete, boarded-up windows, and the distant, muffled roar of the expressway.“Drink this,” my mother commands, pressing a lukewarm bottle of wate
“Don’t leave me ever again,” Barbara says with a scowl on her face. I stiffen, her words replaying in my ears like a broken record. “How would you go on knowing you were the reason your best friend died?” “What are you talking about?” I ask, my hands shaking from fear and horror as her cunning s
“Promise me, Jade. Sisters forever.” “I promise.” The memory of Barbara’s voice makes my stomach turn. I remember the smell of smoke and gasoline from eleven years ago—the night her parents died. I still remember the intensity of her screams and feel her body against mineI as I held her hand whi
Zayn’s hand is a brand against my skin. His fingers move with a slow, agonizing possessiveness that makes my brain short-circuit. I’m draped over the dining table like a sacrifice, my legs locked around his waist, my breath coming in shallow, pathetic gasps. “You hate me?” he murmurs, his lips br
“Damon sent her,” I say, walking toward the front door, my bag in my hand, heels clicking on the floor. “He sent her to rattle me. And it worked, didn't it? Because you went completely silent the moment you saw her. Was what you had with her that special?” Zayn catches my arm, spinning me around t







