Page 24 of Fallen Empire

That was the tipping point. The moment they stopped looking away and called in men like me.

And when a whisper reached Costa’s ear—someone tipping him off that Knox wasn’t who he said he was—I vanished before he could slit my throat as I watched in a mirror. He wasn’t a coward. He was the type that wanted you to witness your own death firsthand.

The man he knew as Knox disappeared, swallowed by a shadow network of classified files and a government name I hadn’t used in over a decade.

If I hadn’t left when I did, I would’ve been forced to become the very thing I swore to take down.

But now? I was pulling those skills from the grave. Because Savannah’s last name came with a price. And there were men infinitely more lethal to watch for. The ones that ranked far above Bruce. The ones who tolerated him because he was profitable. The ones who now thought the woman who’d helped ruin their chain was dead.

And if they found out she was alive?

They’d come.

And this time, they wouldn’t miss.

The daily deposits into her accounts were dwindling.

Someone noticed.

“I’ll take everything from you.”

A soft knock at the door pulled me out of the spiral. The nurse stepped in quietly, her steps practiced, calm. The same nurse that had just scolded me earlier.

She checked Savannah’s vitals with the kind of clinical detachment that made my skin crawl. I knew it wasn’t personal. She was just doing her job. But I still wanted to rip the damn clipboard from her hands and launch it across the room.

“We’ll be taking her for a CT scan in the next fifteen minutes,” she said, her voice low. I nodded, barely glancing up. “Thank you.”

She turned to leave but paused at the door, glancing back at me. “Mr. Westbrook,” she said softly. “Thank you for sobering up. She’s going to need you when she comes out of this.”

Then she was gone. And I was left staring at the door, her words had punched straight through my chest.

Because she was right.

Savannah didn’t even look real lying there. Too still. Too pale. Like if I blinked too long, she might disappear entirely.

I was supposed to protect her. That was the promise—to her, to her mother, to myself.

And yet here she was.

Tubes in her arms.

Broken bones.

A bullet that missed her heart by an inch.

And a heartbeat trapped in a machine instead of in my arms.

My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket.

Nic.

I swiped to answer, keeping my voice low. “What’s up?”

“I need to see you,” she said. No greeting. Just straight to business.

“They’re taking Savannah for a scan any minute. Come to the hospital. I’m not leaving her.”

“I’m already in the parking lot,” she replied.