All Chapters of The Ties That Binds : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

“Savannah, look at me… please.”Jackson’s voice was raw so raw it scraped down her spine like a truth he had never meant her to hear. His hands cupped her face as if he were afraid she might vanish between heartbeats. Smoke still curled through the ruined corridor behind them, alarms still wailed in distant, broken echoes, but none of it touched them. Not when Jackson’s forehead pressed against hers. Not when she felt him shaking.For the first time since she’d known him, really known him…Jackson Sterling was trembling.Savannah slid her hands up his arms slowly, breath unsteady. “Jackson ”“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Let me say this. Let me ” His voice cracked, and he exhaled sharply, searching the floor as though the words had fallen somewhere he wasn’t sure he deserved to reach. “I thought I lost you in there.”“You didn’t,” she said softly.“You don’t understand,” he rasped, lifting his head. His eyes dark, burning, agonized held hers as if they were his last anchor. “

Savannah didn’t remember deciding to move. Her body reacted before thought could form, sprinting through the smoke-thick hallway, ignoring the sting in her lungs and the alarms blaring overhead. All she could hear through everything was Jackson’s broken whisper from a moment ago.“I thought I’d lost you…”That voice pulled her through the chaos like a lifeline. She shoved open the warped emergency door, heat licking across her arms as flames crawled along the ceiling. The world had become a battlefield of collapsing steel and hissing pipes, but none of it mattered. Jackson was somewhere inside this hell, and she would not would not lose him now.“Savannah!” Cole’s voice cracked from behind her, but she didn’t slow. She ran deeper into the corridor, pushing past fallen debris. Smoke clawed at her throat, but she pressed on, one hand against the wall to steady herself. The building groaned around her like a living thing on the brink of collapse.Then she heard him.“Savannah? Savannah!”

Savannah braced her palms on the cold edge of the steel table, forcing her breath to steady even as her pulse hammered violently beneath her skin. The emergency lights cast a dim red glow across the room, turning every surface into a blood-tinted reflection of her fear. Jackson stood across from her, shoulders tense, jaw locked, his entire posture strung tight like a man holding back a hurricane. She hated that she could feel the distance between them more sharply than the heat still radiating from the explosion that had nearly taken them both minutes ago.“Say it,” she whispered, unable to keep the tremor from her voice any longer. “Say whatever it is you’ve been hiding from me.”Jackson didn’t move at first. His chest rose and fell with slow, restrained breaths, the kind he only took when he was seconds from breaking something or breaking himself. His eyes avoided hers, scanning the shattered monitors, the cracked floor tiles, the smoke still curling from the blasted wiring overhead

Because this time… they weren’t fighting for survival. They were fighting for each other.“Stay behind me,” Jackson said but Savannah stepped in front of him instead.Her voice didn’t shake. “No. We’re doing this together.”The dim emergency lights threw sharp angles across the ruined hallway, smoke drifting between them like restless ghosts. Somewhere down the corridor, metal groaned from the damage Harrison’s detonators had caused. The tower was wounded, but still standing just like them.Jackson reached for her arm. “Savannah ”She shook her head. “I’m not hiding again. Not from him. Not from anything.”For a second, something flickered in his eyes fear, pride, love too tangled to separate. He lowered his hand but didn’t step back.“All right,” he murmured. “Together.”They moved down the corridor, boots crunching over broken glass, the building trembling beneath them with each distant explosion. Cole had managed to stabilize the lower floors, but the upper levels were still compro

Savannah’s breath trembled as the hallway shook again, dust drifting from the ceiling like falling ash. The lights flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows across the wreckage-strewn floor. Somewhere in the distance, alarms blared in frantic loops, echoing off the steel walls of the compromised sublevel. But none of that mattered. Not the alarms. Not the threat. Not the collapsing tower.Only the man gripping her hand like she was the only solid thing left in his world.“Stay with me,” Jackson said, voice low but fierce, as if daring the chaos itself to challenge him.Savannah squeezed back, grounding herself in the heat of his palm. “I’m not going anywhere.”His eyes flashed sharp, desperate, alive. “Good. Because we’re not done.”They started moving again, weaving through debris and smoke. The air was thick, sharp with the scent of burning wires. A broken support beam groaned above them, shifting dangerously.“Careful,” Jackson murmured, pulling her beneath his arm as they ducked