Bodies were down.
Some breathing.Some were not.
The fight had been fast.Clean.Exactly what it needed to be.
I dragged a hand through my hair, pushing it back as I stepped over a man on the floor, his blood seeping into the tile lines beneath him.
My pulse hadn’t settled.It burned through me—steady, ready.
I dropped beside Gianni, catching his arm and turning it to check the cut along his forearm.
“Hold still.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It won’t be when it festers,” I said, already wrapping it.
He huffed a quiet laugh.
I tied it off tight and stood.
Atlas was already moving—calm, controlled—issuing orders like the room hadn’t just torn itself apart.
I turned—and found Archie standing at the far end of the room.There was blood on his hands, his shirt torn at the side where movement had ripped through the fabric.It should’ve made him look wrecked.But if anything, it made him sharper.More contained.Like the violence had settled into him instead of shaken him.
My gaze held a second too long.
Checking over him.Looking for damage I couldn’t see from where I stood.
There wasn’t any.He was fine.The breath that left me was quiet—but it was there.A release.
I frowned.Because that—right there—was new.
My eyes had scanned the room for him even before I had a chance to collect my bearings.He’d been the first thing, and the last thing, on my mind.
But he was Archie Popovich.And he presented a problem.He was a liability.A man with too many enemies and not enough reasons to be trusted.
And yet, he had saved my life.In the dark on a deserted road with two monsters on my tail, he had pulled up and annihilated without asking so much as a question.
His head tilted.Slight.Controlled.Like he heard me thinking about him.
Then his eyes found mine.And everything narrowed to just that fine line between us.
His gaze moved over me—quick, precise—taking stock.Counting.Checking.And then it stopped.Held.
There was something there.Something in the way he looked at me.
It looked a lot like relief.Barely contained.Gone almost as soon as it surfaced—but not before I caught it and understood it.
My pulse kicked once, sharp enough to notice.
He’d been looking for me.Making sure that I was still standing.
Something tightened low in my chest.Unwanted and uninvited.
My jaw set.I broke first and dragged my gaze away like I hadn’t just been trapped in a moment with him.
Because I didn’t like that something in me had shifted without permission.I hated how easily he’d slipped under my skin.