Page 38 of Breeding Justice

He was right. Zane was my anchor, the one person who could steady me when everything else was in flux. If something happened to him…

"Skylar," Bash said, and I looked over. His green eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw the weight he carried. The responsibility. The fear. "We’ll get them out. All of them."

In the backseat, Justice stirred. "Bash," she whispered, and he turned to her. "I’m sorry."

"Don’t," he said, but she was already drifting back to sleep. I drove through the night, the city blurring into a wash of colors and shadows.

“We’ll get you help, pet,” I said.

Justice smiled. “I know.”

And then she went quiet.

Our breathing was the only sound, a slow, tired rhythm. Justice slept, her face finally at peace. Bash watched her, his features softening.

The night stretched ahead of us, long and uncertain, but for the first time in hours, I felt a flicker of hope. We were battered, but we were alive. And as long as we had that, we had a chance.

***

The city blurred past us, a kaleidoscope of neon and shadow. I took a winding route through back roads and empty streets, the kind where even the streetlights seemed too tired to do their job. The old sedan wheezed and rattled, but it held together. For now. In the backseat, Justice slept, her breathing shallow but steady.

Bash had his head back against the seat, eyes closed, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping. His body was too tense, coiled like a spring. I let the silence stretch, not wanting to be the one to break it.

We needed this moment, fragile as it was. My mind drifted to Zane and Hassan. We’d planned the wedding with military precision, but the best-laid plans were always the first to go up in smoke.

I pictured Zane’s calm, unflinching eyes, the way he could steady me with just a look. I pictured him lying there, almost bleeding to death.

The knot in my stomach tightened.

"I really hope Vito hasn’t gotten to them. I hope SJ is okay," Bash said, his voice cutting through my thoughts. He still had his eyes closed, speaking more to the universe than to me. "I don’t want him to fall into Vito’s hands."

I didn’t disagree. Sebastian was Bash’s heart, the one person who could pull him out of this life if given the chance. But SJ was also one of us, and leaving him behind had never been an option. He was their son. They were never going to leave him.

"They’ll be fine," I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it. "Zane and Hassan know what they’re doing."

Bash opened his eyes and turned to me. The green of his irises looked dull in the washed-out glow of the dashboard. "Do they? Because right now, it feels like we’re all just making this up as we go."

I shrugged. "That’s how it always is, isn’t it? We improvise, we adapt. We survive."

He let out a long, slow breath, then looked back at Justice. "She’s tougher than I give her credit for. She always has been.”

I didn’t say anything. Bash knew how tough Justice was. He just didn’t like admitting it, because to acknowledge her strengthwas to acknowledge her as an equal. And that meant facing the reality that she was just as capable of making her own choices, and her own mistakes.

It meant that the deal, the way she had come into our lives, it was all shades of fucked up.

"We need to figure out our next move," I said, trying to shift his focus. "If they’re gunning for all of us, we can’t just go back to the house and hope for the best."

Bash sat up a little straighter, his mind clicking back into gear. "We find SJ first. Then we link up with Hassan’s team."

I took a left turn onto a deserted avenue. The buildings here were tall and oppressive, like the skeletons of giants. "Maybe we should lay low for a bit. Get off the grid until we know what’s coming next."

"Skylar," Bash said, his tone warning.

"I’m serious. We don’t even know how deep their reach is. Running back to Miami could be a death sentence."

Bash rubbed his temples, the gray in his hair more pronounced than ever. "We’re not running. We’re regrouping."

"Call it whatever you want. I’m just saying we need to be smart about this."

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