Page 279 of His To Erase
The door blows open. No warning, no dramatic speech—just a deafening crack of splintered wood. Steven walks in first. Calm and deadly like he’s done this a thousand times. Two men file in behind him, all shadows and guns like they’ve been waiting for this moment. And just like that, the air shifts.
He doesn’t yell when he enters. He doesn’t even glance at the guards or at Frank—who’s still got his hands around my throat like he owns me.
His eyes find mine and they don’t waver. Not once.
And that’s all it takes for something inside me to snap. A sound I don’t recognize rips from somewhere deep, somewhere raw. I’m shaking, and sobbing without sound.
I don’t care that I look wrecked. I don’t care that I’ve lost every inch of dignity I had left. He’s here.
He came.
Steven looks at me like the world could burn and he’d still walk through the ashes just to find me in the middle of it.
I was seconds away from giving up, from letting the silence swallow me whole.
But he came.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I feel like I can breathe. A single tear rolls down my cheek and my chest does something hideous—because the second our eyes lock, nothing else exists.
Just him. And the fury in his silence that promises he’ll kill for me.
I see what looks like relief flash through his eyes. The sharp, desperate, possessive kind of relief that belongs to a man who’s been living in hell–and just clawed his way out.
It’s probably only seconds that pass, but they feel like hours. My chest barely rises. My lungs don’t seem to know what to do. I just stare back at him, praying he doesn’t disappear.
And then—he moves with something far more dangerous. Purpose. He takes one step, then it’s chaos.
The first shot lands clean. A guard drops without so much as a sound. Another step. Another shot. Point. Pull. Drop. The world narrows and all I can do is watch.
It’s not fear that keeps me still. It’s not even the shock of the gunshots or the blood staining the floor.
It’s him.
It’s the way he walked straight into my ruin without flinching. I’ve never seen him like this before. A reckoning,shaped in flesh and vengeance, carved out of silence and rage. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t shout commands or call attention to himself. Every step he takes screams louder than bullets.
I understand—somehow, through the fog in my head and the blood on my lips—I understand exactly what he is.
He’s not here to save me. He’s here to destroy anyone who tried to take me. And in that moment, I know without a shred of doubt that he would burn the world to the ground if it meant I was still standing on the other side of the fire.
He’s covered in blood, his shirt’s soaked in it. I’ve never seen him look so dangerous and so fucking delicious at the same time and I think that might be a sign I’ve fully lost it.
He’s the kind of man you don’t walk away from—you burn for him, or you don’t come back at all.
God, he’s beautiful.
His hair is damp with sweat, his jaw is tight, and he’s breathing heavy, but it’s his eyes that make him look like a God on a war path.
Steven sweeps the room with his gun still raised, eyes scanning like he’s expecting another threat to rise from the shadows.
Whatever softness was in Steven a second ago, it disappears the second his eyes lock on Frank.
His entire body shifts into a cold, lethal stillness. Frank’s got his arm locked around my ribs now, holding me like a shield. Like I’m the fucking insurance policy that’s going to save his life.
But Steven doesn’t raise the gun. He just tilts his head, and I can see him already measuring the distance between Frank’s heartbeat and the floor.
And then he speaks—low, and terrifyingly calm. “Let her go.”
Frank doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. He’s too arrogant and too stupid to realize Steven’s not threatening him, he’s deciding where to bury the body.
