Page 25 of The Scout

I hit him again. And again.

He stopped fighting after the third punch.

His hands had gone slack, his breath coming in short, uneven bursts. But I wasn’t finished. Not yet.

I could still hear his voice. Think I just found my next lay.

I pulled my arm back, my knuckles raw, poised for the final blow.

And then I saw her.

Isabel.

Standing just feet away, frozen at the mouth of the alley.

The umbrella she was holding—Ralston’s umbrella, the one he left at the hotel—slipped from her fingers. It hit the pavement with a soft, hollow clack.

She wasn’t screaming. Wasn’t running.

She was just staring.

At me.

At what I’d done.

At what I was about to do.

For the first time in years, I felt something I didn’t recognize.

Something cold. Something sharp.

Something that felt a whole lot like regret.

9

ISABEL

Icouldn't breathe. I couldn’t move. My vision tunneled and all I could see was the fight. I was dizzy, and I suspected I’d stumble if I tried to walk.

Holy shit.

Come to think of it, I’d never witnessed violence before. Not in real life.

Matt lay on the ground, blood trickling from his split lip as he took in sharp, uneven gasps. His once-crisp Citadel jacket was rumpled, his phone shattered on the pavement beside him. And above him—looming, lethal, terrifying—was Ryker.

Ryker looked like an apex predator. A beast that no one—and I do mean no one—could ever take down. He was larger than life.

His chest rose and fell steadily, like he hadn’t just beaten a man half to death. Like this wasn’t anything to him. His hands, clenched into fists, were smeared with blood—Matt’s blood. His dark eyes, the same ones that had set me on fire earlier, flicked to mine and the air between us changed.

This wasn’t the same man who had touched me in the lobby, the same man who had traced my pulse with his thumb like he was memorizing the rhythm. No—this was someone else. Someone cold, calculated. Someone who had done this before.

The world swayed beneath me, my stomach twisting violently. I needed to do something. Say something. Call the police.

The thought hit me like a slap, and my fingers twitched toward my phone. But I didn’t reach for it. I couldn’t. Because this was Ryker. Because—God help me—I knew why he’d done it.

He’d done it for me.

The weight of that realization slammed into me, a tangled mess of guilt and something darker.

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