Page 76 of His To Erase

Steven

She’s curled against my chest, tucked into me like she belongs there. The world will come for us eventually—it always does—and when it does, it’ll tear this to hell. But until then, she stays pressed to my side, one arm draped over my chest.

I watch her longer than I should. Long enough to map out every freckle on her shoulder, and every scar I didn’t put there.

She looks so calm and peaceful, it makes me want to stay.

Makes me want to lie here and pretend that the storm clawing at the edge of my mind can wait until morning.

For once, the world outside this room doesn’t matter.

But it can’t. Because I don’t leave loose ends.

A sharp buzz cuts through the quiet—my phone, vibrating somewhere in the kitchen. I don’t want to move. Three seconds pass. Then five. And she still doesn’t stir.

Slowly, I shift beneath her, careful not to wake her. I move like a man disarming a bomb with his bare hands. Her fingers twitch in her sleep, flexing once over my stomach—reaching for me even when her mind’s somewhere else.

Christ.

I lean down and brush a loose strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her breath stays steady, and she doesn’t flinch, so I pull the blanket higher over her bare shoulders, covering what I’ve just spent hours uncovering.

She looks soft like this—peaceful in a way that guts me, and breakable in a way that makes me want to tear the world apart just to keep it from touching her.

My body moves on instinct, every muscle is coiled with purpose. Something colder is waking up in my chest again, something that doesn’t sleep just because she is.

When I get to the kitchen, I grab the phone just as the screen lights up again and everything in me goes still.

TRAVIS: Location just pinged off a secondary line he hasn’t used in months. Sending coordinates now.

A second message follows with a dropped pin. It’s an old warehouse near the outskirts of town. One I’ve been to before. I stare at the dot, and everything inside me coils tight.

Another text comes through.

TRAVIS: Got visual confirmation. I think you should wait. I’m thirty minutes out.

I pace the kitchen, but everything inside me is chaos. Controlled only by habit. This was supposed to be clean. Simple. I was going to put him down with cold hands and a clear conscience, no loose ends.

But this isn’t about revenge anymore.

It’s about her.

The girl curled up in the other room with nothing but a blanket and my name still drying on her lips. The one who somehow fucking clawed her way into my veins without even trying. The same girl who let me wreck her without knowing who I really was.

I rake a hand through my hair, grabbing the phone from the counter, and open the photo I’ve been staring at since this afternoon.

My eyes catch on the man next to her—and just like that, everything slows. I can make out enough to know something’s wrong. If he’s been holding onto her all these years as leverage—Then I just move up the timeline. He dies either way.

I don’t even want to think about what it’ll mean if she’s there willingly. There’s no way. But if I’m wrong—If he’s got his claws deep enough to twist her loyalty, then I’ll rip the truth out of whoever put her there. Even if I have to bury them all to do it.

I set the phone down, already moving for the jacket I threw on a kitchen chair. The one that’s lined with tools most people don’t believe still exist. I draw the silencer from one of my inner pockets and my hand steadies the second it touches steel. This is what I was made for.

I run through the entry points in my head—warehouse, north side, two guards minimum, rear door coded. There won’t be a back exit for him and I won’t need one for me.

I push through the door, stepping into the night without a sound. Her scent still clings to me—peach, sweat, and the wild ache of something I shouldn’t have touched. I memorize it, then lock it down.

She’s going to lose her shit when she wakes up and finds the bed cold. But if I move fast—if I’m smart—I’ll be back before those lashes even lift. At least that’s the plan.

The hallway’s quiet, but I don’t slow down. Every motion is second nature—etched into me like a scar. You don’t lose that kind of control when it was the only thing that ever kept you alive.

I pull out my phone and start to type—something simple. Telling her I’m not gone, just handling something and I’ll be back.

My thumb is still pressed to the screen when my boots hit the sidewalk.

I’m too fucking distracted and too wrapped up in the echo of her voice whispering ‘yours’ like it meant more than surrender, to notice the brush of pressure at the side of my neck.

It doesn’t register as a threat until it’s already done.

Something’s wrong.

And I’m already too late.

My vision tilts as my phone slips from my hand, skittering across the pavement with a hollow scrape. I lurch sideways, reaching for a lamppost that isn’t fucking there and my knees hit asphalt a second later.

“Mother—fuck—”

My voice comes out slurred and distant. My muscles feel like they're firing in all the wrong directions. I reach for the blade under my jacket, fingers twitching for steel—but I’m too late.

A boot slams into my ribs, flipping me onto my back and pain flashes, but it’s already fading—dulled by whatever cocktail they just pumped into my bloodstream.

The world tilts—fractured into sharp angles and smeared shadows, like reality can’t decide what shape to take.

A figure steps into view, kneeling beside me, calm as hell.

“You’re good,” the man says, full of smug satisfaction. “But not untouchable.”

Pain wakes me before the light does, throbbing along my jaw. Something warm and wet drips from the corner of my mouth—blood, likely mine.

The world seeps in piece by piece.

I can taste metal on my tongue, and I hear the buzz of a single overhead bulb. My wrists are bound behind the chair, and rope bites into my skin. My ankles are free, so either they got cocky…Or they don’t know what I am.

That’s their first mistake.

My vision is sluggish but sharpening. The floor’s concrete, and it’s cracked and wet beneath my boots. There’s dust in the air, and I can hear a pipe dripping somewhere off to the left.

I’m in a basement.

What matters is—they brought me underground and they didn’t kill me.

That’s mistake number two.

I flex my fingers, and I can feel some slack in my left wrist. Not much, but it’s enough. I test the friction, and I can feel the rope burn flare down my forearm, and my shoulders are screaming.

Fuck.

Whatever they used, was enough to put a man twice my size down. I breathe through my nose, slowing my breathing, cataloging everything through the haze.

The faint clicking in the wall to my right sounds like rats. I listen harder, but I don’t hear any voices or footsteps. Which means they’re either watching, or waiting for me to wake up. Which also means they want me alive.

They have no fucking idea what a mistake that is.

I rotate my neck and a sharp pain ricochets down my spine. My lip’s busted, and my nose might be broken. My ribs—bruised at best. Whoever took me got sloppy.

Then it hits me.

Ani.

She’s alone and unprotected. She doesn’t even know I’m gone yet, but when she does—she’ll leave. And if Frank finds her before I do, I’ll rip his fucking throat out and paint the walls with what’s left.

No. No fucking way. She won’t leave, she’s smarter than that. She’s mine and I will kill every last person in this building if they’ve touched her.

I hear footsteps.

I stay limp, letting my head hang. Let them think I’m weak.

A figure steps in. Tall and broad, dressed in a cheap suit, and cologne that tries to hide the scent of smoke.

“You’re awake,” the man says.

I smirk. “Disappointed?”

He chuckles. “No. Just impressed. Thought we’d need a little longer with how much we gave you.”

He circles me slowly, keeping just out of reach. I keep my eyes on him, but my focus is everywhere—walls, corners, the hum of ventilation, the temperature drop.

“You’re lucky,” he finally says. “Most men in your position don’t get this far.”

I smile, and I can feel the blood sliding down my chin. “That supposed to scare me?”

He paces again. “Most men in your position don’t talk back, either.”

I lift my head, inch by inch, until our eyes lock. My voice stays flat. “Most men aren’t me.”

He hesitates, just for a second. Then circles again, slower this time. Like he’s trying to read me. “Keep talking. See how fast that mouth gets you buried.”

I smile. Just enough to show the blood in my teeth. “You better bury me deep.” I pause. “Because if I get up? I don’t leave survivors.”

I’m getting out of this room, and when I do, Hell’s coming with me.

The thought alone coils tight in my chest, sharpening every fractured nerve as I watch him—closer this time. The way he moves. How he glances toward the door, which means someone promised backup if things go sideways.

His confidence is trained. I can smell the fear, buried under protocol and a borrowed sense of power. He’s not built for blood.

He doesn’t know it yet… but he’s already dead.

“I’ll talk to the man in charge,” I jab, testing the rope again behind me. It’s thick and twisted, but not reinforced. “Not the intern.”

That earns a flicker at the corner of his mouth, but he doesn’t take the bait. He’s smart. But not smart enough.

“You don’t get to make demands,” he says, all bark and borrowed authority. “You’re a message.”

I smile, letting the blood on my lip smear. “Frank ever tell you how many messages I’ve buried?”

He blinks. Just one beat of hesitation and that’s all I need.

I dislocate my thumb with a crunch—and fuck that hurt—but I ride the pain.

I’ve lived through worse and I don’t have time to care at the moment.

The rope gives and I rip my wrist free, driving my elbow up into his throat.

His breath seizes in a wheeze as he stumbles backward, out cold.