Page 2 of Fallen Empire (The Fallen Trilogy #2)

Millie

I hated being told no.

Regardless of if it was for my own good, I hated it when someone else told me that I couldn’t do something.

I knew it wasn’t safe, and I sure as hell knew that there was nothing I could do if a war was waged. But Savannah needed me. I knew from the first time she stepped into my life that I needed to be in hers.

They’d kept me out long enough, and I wasn’t going to stand by while they continued to dance in circles around me.

Ben didn’t know what being left behind did to me. It made me feel suffocated. Helpless. Because sitting in silence is worse than facing a devil head-on in my mind.

So when Reaper slammed the car door to take me to a safe house, my mind was already made up. I’d get to her, one way or another, and I prayed it was with Reaper instead of without him.

I didn’t beg. I didn’t plead. I played the only card I had. Logic.

“What if they get there and they need you? I mean, what if something goes wrong? You think just the five of them can handle it on their own?” I threw doubt at Reaper so fast I gave myself whiplash.

He hesitated—just for a second. That second was all I needed.

I didn’t know Reaper, but he didn’t strike me as the type to back down from a good fight.

So I leaned in and pressed a little harder. “You know they’re going to need you. You’re not just a driver, Reaper. You’re backup. Protection. They trust you. And they brought you for a reason.”

I saw the moment it hit, like a stone dropping in his gut. He didn’t say a word. Just drove.

He’d tracked them, and it wasn’t long before we pulled up to the next location.

As the car rolled to a stop, the silence between us stretched, but the world outside wasn’t quiet. Not anymore.

Bodies hit the ground in the distance. Some dropping mid-run, others already still. I didn’t ask if Reaper saw them too. I knew he did. I knew it by the way his entire body shifted, and he started to grab for guns.

Gunshots echoed in the distance. I heard them clearly from inside the SUV. When I exited, the screams followed. They were sharp and panicked, like the sky itself was begging for mercy.

This wasn’t just a fight. This was a full-on war. A war I wasn’t sure we were winning. I looked around, trying to find a familiar face. Then I saw them.

Savannah was standing a little aways from Jaxson.

Her expression unreadable, her eyes locked on a man. A man who had a gun raised and pointed directly at Jaxson’s head.

In slow motion, I watched everything as if it were playing on a cinematic screen with the most haunting music. I watched the gun lift.

And everything blurred.

The shot rang out. Sharp, final.

I didn’t scream because I couldn’t. All I could do was watch as her body twisted from the impact.

Her eyes went wide. Her knees buckled.

And then—she fell. Lifeless.

The sea of red was instant. Spilling from her chest, soaking the ground beneath. Another shot cracked the air, but I couldn’t look away.

Reaper grabbed my arm, pulling me behind the car, but it barely registered.

All I could see was Savannah.

Still. Silent. Collapsed on the ground because the devil had finally won.

My body wouldn’t move. My breath caught somewhere between panic and disbelief. I stood frozen, trapped in the moment. Blinking without seeing, breathing without air.

That image is seared into me now.

Not just her body lying there... but the sound that came from Jaxson.

It wasn’t grief. Not really.

It was the kind of scream that only comes when something deep inside you snaps.

Raw. Animal. Terrifying.

For a second, I thought I had just watched the end of a war.

But the truth settled deeper, colder.

That moment didn’t end anything.

It started everything.

That was four days ago.

Four days since I watched her fall. Since I watched her body collapse to the ground, lifeless, like something sacred had been stolen right in front of me.

Four damn days of pacing hospital hallways, praying to a God I wasn’t even sure I believed in anymore.

They’d rushed her into surgery. I still wasn’t sure how Ben was able to get emergency personnel there so quickly. But I was thankful, so I didn’t ask.

Jaxson had blood on his hands—literally. And not one of us could speak.

Now, the world has gone quiet.

The headlines were loud, but in this room? Silence.

Because of one inch.

One inch.

The bullet missed her heart by one inch.

“She’s strong,” the nurse whispered earlier. I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to believe her. But how do you believe in strength when the strongest person you know hasn’t opened her eyes in days?

I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat.

Worse… I hated looking at Jaxson.

I couldn’t be there for him. Because I didn’t know how to be there for myself.

Ben tried to make me leave.

Not gently. Not like a friend. With tight eyes and clenched fists—like seeing me in this hospital room was a personal betrayal.

I knew he was still pissed that I was there that day. Pissed I saw it. Pissed I witnessed what he never wanted me to see. What he worked his whole life to shield people from.

And maybe, just maybe… still pissed that the one night between us meant more to him than it ever should have.

I hadn’t thought about that night in years.

Because I made a vow to never let myself fall like that again.

So once again, I’d locked the softness and feelings away in a box in my mind. I called it Pandora’s Box. If it ever broke, I’d be in bright rooms with white socks and plenty of pills.

But sitting in this hospital room, beside the girl I considered a sister, with Ben ten feet away pretending I didn’t exist—Yeah, it was hard not to feel it again.

Jaxson was a wreck, half-drunk off his ass every day and night. I’d do the same if I were in his shoes. After all, how do you rest when the person who saved your life is stuck between staying and slipping away?

He tried to stay. Tried to hold it together as best he could. But last night, the nurses finally kicked him out. Said they’d had enough of the drinking, enough of the shouting, enough of the grief that shook the walls.

I didn’t blame them. But I didn’t blame him either.

He showed up drunk. Slurring. Begging her to wake up like she could hear him. He yelled at the doctor. Punched a wall. And then they escorted him out like a stranger who didn’t belong here.

The truth is—none of us did.

We belonged back in time.

Before the shot. Before the blood. Before everything cracked open.

But she’s lying in this bed because she made a choice.

She chose to save him.

It wasn’t his burden to bear. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little angry with him, too.

The news had already broken.

Sinclair Holdings was crumbling. The empire Savannah was born into—real estate, mergers, private assets—was being set on fire—and not a soul outside this room knew why.

This wasn’t justice. It wasn’t revenge. It was grief, made global.

And there’s nothing we can do except wait.

I brushed a tear off my cheek and reached for her limp fingers. I’d talked to her a million times over the past few days. I knew it wouldn’t change a thing.

“You don’t get to die on me, Vannah,” I whispered. “You hear me?”

A flicker.

My heart stopped. Her fingers twitched. Barely. So soft it could’ve been imagined. But then, her eyes moved beneath her lids. A small, shallow breath broke the rhythm of the machine. Her lips parted, slow and strained, like she was trying to speak.

“Savannah?” I shot up, gripping her hand. “Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes fluttered open. Just for a second. Her mouth moved again, but no sound came out. Just air and effort. I swore I saw one word: Jaxson.

My body shattered.

I bent over her, pressing my forehead to her hand as the sob broke free from my chest, unrestrained.

“You’re going to be okay,” I whispered fiercely.

“I’m right here, you’re going to be okay.

” My chest ached so deeply it felt like my heart might explode.

I couldn’t tell if it was hope or devastation, only that my heart was caught in a war it didn’t know how to win.

The monitor beeped faster. I sat up straighter, wiping my tears. Then slammed the nurse button.

“Ben,” I said sharply, eyes locked on Savannah. “Go get someone.”

He was already halfway to the door.

Then, another sound. Not from the ventilator. A shallow, broken breath. Her brows furrowed, lips moving again.

I leaned in close. “Vannah?”

No sound. But her mouth shaped the words like a prayer: Is it over?

My breath caught as her eyes fluttered. Just for a moment. Then she slipped away again. Soft and weightless. Like she hadn’t surfaced at all.

But I knew what I saw.

And so did Ben. He came back into the room just as the nurse rushed in behind him.

“She tried to speak,” he murmured, voice rough.

I nodded, heart still racing. “She’s in there.”

The nurse leaned over Savannah, checking her vitals and murmuring something under her breath. Then she straightened, eyes alert.

“I’m getting the doctor,” she said quickly, pressing a call button on the wall. “This could mean she’s coming out of it.”

She turned back to Savannah, gently brushing her knuckles along her cheek. “Come on, sweetheart. Stay with us.”

Silence wrapped around us again—tight, suffocating.

Then Ben looked at me. “You think we should call him?”

My stomach twisted. “I don’t know.”

“You saw him, Mills. He was spiraling. We call him now and she slips under again... it’ll wreck him.”

“I know,” I whispered. “But if she’s waking up… it could snap him out of it. Sober him up. Give him something to hold onto.”

He exhaled through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck. “Or it’ll break him worse if it’s a fluke.”

I looked back at Savannah. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t feel it—hope trying to bloom in the middle of all this grief. She was still pale. Still bruised. But breathing. Fighting.

Because at the end of the day, she was just that.

A fighter.

If I’ve learned anything from the wreckage she’s been pulled out of, too many times to count, it’s that Savannah Sinclair doesn’t give up. She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t fold. Doesn’t break, even when she probably should.

She fought when no one fought for her. She kept going when she had nothing left to hold on to.

And now? Now she has us.

She has me. She has Jaxson. She has Ben. Hell, even Nic adores her.

She has something to come back to.

And I felt it—deep, certain, unshakable.

She’d fight through hell to get back to us.

So yes, Jaxson should feel it, too. “I’d want to know,” I said quietly. “Even if it was just for a second.”

Ben stared at me for another beat, then gave a tight nod. “I’ll call him.”

He stepped away toward the window, pulling out his phone.

And I prayed like hell. Not just that she’d survive—but that she was already fighting her way back.