Page 143 of No Longer Mine

I closed the distance in three strides.

My elbow cracked across his temple before he could blink. He staggered and I grabbed him by the collar, slamming him into the wall, and drove my knee into his gut with enough force to make him drop.

He wheezed, folding in on himself, but I wasn’t done. I gripped the back of his head and brought it down—once, twice—against the steel doorframe until he crumpled at my feet.

I spun to her.

“Scarlett,” Her name left my lips gently.

She was trying to speak, her eyes wild and glassy, one shoulder clearly dislocated with her hands still bound behind her back.

“Hey,” I dropped to my knees beside her, heart pounding harder than it ever had in my life. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Her breath hitched. She tried to nod.

Gently—as gently as I could manage with fury still pulsing under my skin—I peeled the tape from her mouth. She cried out and I hated the sound more than anything I’d ever heard.

Her lips trembled and she shook her head. “He—he’s gone. Sinclair—he’s gone.”

“I know,” I said tightly, jaw clenched. “All that matters right now is that I have you, do you understand me?

I slid my blade from my belt and started cutting through the rope at her wrists.

“We’re going to reset your shoulder. I need you to trust me. Okay?”

She nodded as more tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I’m going to kill every last one of them for this,” I said quietly.

I slid the last rope off her wrists and cradled her broken body into my arms. Her breathing was shallow, her skin clammy. The angle of her arm was all wrong, and every small movement made her wince.

“I have to put it back,” I said gently, brushing the hair from her face. “It’s dislocated.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

“I need you to breathe with me, alright? Look at me.”

She nodded, her pupils huge, her jaw locked tight against the pain. But she looked at me—God, she looked at me—and I saw the fight in her eyes.

“I’m going to count to three,” I said softly, steadying her with one hand at the elbow and the other against her shoulder. “And on three, it’s going to go back in.”

“Dimitri—” she whispered.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart. I won’t let go.”

She clenched her jaw. “Okay.”

“One.”

Crack.

I shoved it back into place on one, before she could brace or tense or scream. Her back arched and her cry tore through the hallway. But then she was breathing again. Her arm fell back into place, limp but aligned. The worst of it was over.

I caught her before she slumped sideways.

“I hate you,” she whispered into my shoulder.

“I know,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.