Page 285 of His To Erase

She’s shaking, crying now. She lifts her hand—slowly—and the air around her crackles with a shift I can’t name. She turns the gun toward me before I register what’s happening. Her hand is trembling. And then—she shoots.

Frank screams as his knee explodes and he crumples backward onto the marble, howling.

“That was for Kody.” Her voice is cracked.

I didn’t see that coming.

Steven’s men rush forward. One of them moving for Sloaren—while the other keeps his gun trained on her.

“Don’t shoot!” Steven snaps, stepping in. His voice slices through the tension like a blade. He turns to her again, eyes wide.

“Who. Is. Kody?”

Slauren lowers the gun and whispers—“He’s my son.”

My heart stops. Literally. Like my brain can’t compute the words she just said.

She has a son? Sloane has a kid?

My stomach twists violently and Steven just stares at her like everything he knew about her is slipping through his fingers. He looks like he might actually vomit.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d come for him,” she whispers. “Because I knew if you saw me, you’d try to fix it. And it’s too late, Steven. You can’t fix this.”

Frank groans. Obnoxiously. He’s laughing again even though he looks like he’s bleeding out.

“God, this is beautiful,” he slurs glaring at Steven. Then he says the one line that tilts the earth under my feet. “I should’ve killed the bitch and the kid when I had the chance.”

Steven looks at me and something in my chest caves because I know what he’s asking me with that look. That unreadable, aching look that says he’ll do whatever I want him to do. That this final decision isn’t his to make anymore—it’s mine. He’s holding the gun, but the trigger belongs to me.

He sees it written all over me—the way my lips part like I want to say something, but don’t. My eyes sting, not from tears, but from the heat rising behind them. That slow, sharp burn crawling up my throat, boiling into something darker.

I meet his eyes and nod, letting out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding, and without a word, he turns to Frank, lifts the gun— And pulls the trigger.

The shot cracks like thunder—impossibly loud in the quiet room. I jump, even though I knew it was coming.

For a second, everything feels weightless. Frank’s body drops. Just like that—it’s over.

The silence that follows is too loud, and I don’t breathe. I just stand there, staring at what’s left of him. The blood fans out beneath his body like spilled ink across marble.

He’s gone.

My chest rises and falls like it’s waiting for the second act. The next horror. The next betrayal. I don’t know how to stop bracing for impact—like my body still thinks the worst is coming. I think I’m in shock. And I genuinely don’t know if I’m about to start sobbing or laughing.

Behind me, I hear Sloane. At first it’s quiet—not even a sob, then something inside her finally snaps. She runs out of the room, covering her face, while emotion pours out of her—like it’s been buried under her for years and finally clawed its way free.

I don’t move—I don’t even know which version of me is still breathing right now.

Steven looks at me like I’m the only goddamn thing tethering him to the floor. And something shifts behind his eyes, that lethal edge softens into something raw. I don’t know if it’s relief or regret, but whatever it is, it slices right through me.

I can’t breathe.

I think—I finally think I understand what it means to choose your monster. Mine just murdered a man for me and I don’t know if that makes me safer… or if it makes me his.

My hands are trembling and my heart is beating like it wants to run out of my chest and collapse on the floor beside me. When his hands finally land on me, I lean into him. Everything inside me is screaming, and he’s the only thing that’s ever been able to quiet it. I’m tense and trembling beneath the surface but the second he pulls me in, I come undone.

My chest caves against his, and I bury my face in the sweat and blood and smoke. It hits all at once. The pain. The fear. The fucking grief. Like my body finally got the memo that it survived. And now it doesn’t know what to do with the pieces.