Page 75 of Fallen Heir

Fabric stretched tight across my lips, knotted behind my head. Damp with breath. Foul with fear. I tried to breathe through my nose, slow and steady, but my heart wouldn’t cooperate.

Everything ached.

Every inch of me.

I closed my eyes again and tried to remember.

But my thoughts were slippery, like water running through cracked glass.

The hospital.

Alex.

The anger in his voice when he told me what Bruce had done. What he'd taken from him.

Then Jaxson.

God, Jaxson.

His face had been the last clear thing I saw before the darkness. The way he looked at me when I asked him to leave… like I had torn something out of him with my bare hands. I hadn’t meant to hurt him—I just couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe with the weight of it all crushing my chest.

I didn’t stop wanting him. That was never the problem. The truth was—I just wanted to understand. I wanted to know why he looked into my past without telling me. Why he didn’t just ask. Why he made choicesforme instead ofwithme. So no, I didn’t stop wanting him, but the questions kept circling. Could I trust him anymore? Could I trust anyone? I didn’t know how to need someone without completely unraveling in their hands. So I asked him to leave. Told myself I needed space, time to breathe, to think, to protect whatever pieces of myself were still salvageable. I promised I’d fix it later—when the storm inside me settled.

Cold air blew against my face and the scent hit hard.

Cologne. Expensive. Familiar in the worst way. It wrapped around me like a memory laced in rot—dark leather and decay.Bruce.

I saw him, just for a moment. Standing in my bedroom. No emotion. No hesitation. Just a gun—casually gripped in his hand like it belonged there. He didn’t raise it. He didn’t have to. One look at his eyes and I knew exactly why he came. There was no bargaining, no explanation. Just a whisper I couldn’t make out… and a smile I’ll never forget. Then, blackness.

I didn’t remember screaming. I wasn’t even sure I had the chance.

The car swerved slightly, snapping me back into the present. My body shifted with the motion, wrists burning from the tension in the restraints. I bit down on the cloth in my mouth,desperate to stay conscious, to anchor myself to something real—but the pain in my head was growing again, sharper now, blinding. A white-hot pressure built behind my eyes. Another blow to the head, so soon after learning about the concussion… it wasn’t good. Nothing about this was good.

If Bruce had taken me… and Jaxson and Ben had been right outside...They never would’ve let him in. Not through the front, at least.

But then it hit me—like ice down my spine.

The back exit.

The one tucked behind my closet. The part of the condo I fell in love with when I bought the place because it made me feel safe. Invisible. Untouchable.

He found it. He knew exactly how to get to me.

My stomach turned. My wrists strained again, useless against the ties, but I couldn’t stop testing them. Couldn’t stop imagining how close they had been—Jaxson and Ben—just a few feet away. How he had slipped past them. How he had waited until the exact right moment.

Unless... unless something had gone wrong.

Unless they never saw him coming.

Unless he’d done something to them.

No.

I swallowed hard, or tried to, as a wave of nausea surged up. My vision blurred. The edges of the world turned soft and gray, like smoke curling into the dark.

I didn’t want to believe it.

I couldn’t.