Page 17 of Blackwood

Zeke just stares him down. Face as cold as ice.

“I should put you down like the stray mutt you are,” Carlos hisses, pressing the barrel forward, his finger ghosting the trigger.

“Next time you swing, boy.” He laughs, wiping his lip. “You better make it count. Because I will shoot back and I don’t miss.”

He holds Zeke’s gaze for one blistering second, finger still brushing the trigger, before lowering the gun like he’s not even worth the bullet.

“The two of you get the fuck out of my sight. You’ve cost me enough for one day. Mariela, call the cleaner. Let’s get this shit cleaned up.”

Zeke stands there, shaking. His fist still curled, blood drying on his knuckles. Rage rippling through him like heat off asphalt. He turns, grabs my hand, and leads me to my room without a word.

I sink onto the bed, clutching my mother’s locket so tight it cuts into my palm. I curl inward, knees to my chest just trying to disappear.

Zeke doesn’t speak at first. He just crosses the room, yanks the velvet chair from the corner, and jams it under the doorknob. Then he drops down in front of it, arms crossed, dark eyes locked on mine.

“I’m not leavin’ you,” he chokes out, voice raw and shaking. “I’m moving’ into this goddamn room. You hear me?”

His chest rises hard and fast, like he can’t breathe.

“You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again. I swear it on Dylan’s fuckin’ name,” he says, tears cutting down his face. “He took Dylan. But he won’t get to take you too. I won’t let that happen. I won’t.”

I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it hurts.

He leans back against the door. “I should’ve gotten to him faster,” he whispers, his voice barely holding. “Should’ve seen it. Should’ve known—”

His words break, breath catching in his chest. “But I’ll die before I let that bastard lay even a finger on you, Bells. That’s a promise.”

And in that moment, drowning in grief and fury and heartbreak, I believe him.

Because he’s not just promising me safety.

He’s promising me a war.

And Zeke? Zeke doesn’t lose twice.

Chapter 9

ZEKE – Age 17

Miami, Florida

Carlos Lucero has always been a monumental sack of shit. But tonight? Tonight, he graduated. Magna fucking cum laude.Tassels. Standing ovation for services to human garbage.

It’s been nine months since Dylan got hold of Carlos’s gun and made a choice we never should’ve let cross his mind. Nine months since we found him on that bedroom floor—bloody, broken, gone—because we were too slow. Too late.

Carlos didn’t pull the trigger. But he may as well have handed him the bullet. And me? I’ve been waiting ever since. Waiting for the slip-up. The crack. The breath in the wrong direction. Just one excuse to snap his neck like the roach he is.

I don’t sleep anymore. That luxury died with Dylan. Now I crash on the floor of Bella’s room. Back to the wall. Chair jammed under the doorknob. Knife under the pillow. Laptop humming beside me.

She thinks I do it to help her feel safe.

And maybe I do. But mostly it’s about control. Control of proximity. Control of protection. Control of the fact that Carlos and his slimy-ass friends can’t walk through that goddamn door.

I mean they can. They’ll just have to go throughmefirst.

And let’s be real. Carlos is scared of me now. I see it in the way his eyes twitch when I move too fast. The way he flinches when I reach for my plate at the dinner table.

God, I live for that. For the squirm.