Page 64 of The Boss
Leif moved before two. He broke left, baiting the gun. Alaric’s shot cracked from the dark, asurgical hit to Tomas’s arm. The pistol jerked wide, aspark of pain bursting across Tomas’s knuckles. Magnus dropped from the catwalk and hit Tomas hard. The gun clattered away, skidding across concrete.
Leif slammed into him, shoulder to chest, dragging him down. They rolled, fists, elbows, fury. Tomas clawed at his eyes, cut his cheek. Leif twisted his wrist until bone snapped. He drove him into steel, concrete, the floor. Blood hit the light. Breath stuttered. Still Tomas fought, spitting blood, laughing through it, his teethpink.
“Should have been me,” Tomas gasped, twisting, trying to drive a thumb into Leif’s eye. “You should have advanced me and instead you ignored my abilities and put others over me.”
“You were never worth more than a soldier,” Leif snarled. “Now I realize you hated me for it.” He smashed Tomas against the floor again, the sound a crack that echoed up into the rafters. The room itself seemed to flinch.
Zane’s knife cut the ropes. Mariah rose slow, rope dropping from her wrists, her eyes locked on Leif like she could hold him steady. Her lips parted and she whispered his name once, nothing more, and the Brand cooled a fraction. That sound kept him tethered to sanity.
Leif pinned Tomas, fist cocked. “You don’t get to say her name. You don’t get to breathe my air after tonight.” He let him see the lion on his palm, glowing, alive. “This says you were never more than a bitter subordinate,” Leif said coldly. “And it killed you every day to know it.”
He beat him down until Tomas sagged, ruined and breathless. “Enough,” Mariah said. At the sound of her voice, he stopped and let Tomas drop. The man rolled onto his side,coughing, eyes glassy, one arm twisted at an angle that would never be right again.
Leif crossed to her. She was pale, bruised, but standing. Her knees threatened to give, but she locked them tight, too proud to collapse. She tilted her chin up, defiant in exhaustion.
“Can you walk?”
“I can. But I like how it looks when you carry me.”
He picked her up, her arms wrapping around his neck like she’d never left it. Her weight steadied him, the burn in his palm smoothing into something fierce and sure. For the first time in hours, the knot in his chest eased.
The brothers fell into motion: Cade clear on the river, Titus owning the gate, Zane and Magnus sweeping angles, Alaric shadow-quiet behind them. Family, moving as one. Not Dantes. Not Severins. Something older and sharper—asingle purpose.
The warehouse echoed behind them with the moans of the defeated, the scent of blood and oil hanging heavy. Midday pressed bright against the overhead sky, light bleeding wide. Agull screamed, startled from its roost, as if to bear witness.
They slipped back into the yard, into the waiting truck. Leif set her inside his SUV, slid in beside her, and took her hand. The Brand burned warm, hers answering his. He pressed his mouth to it once, avow.
“Home,” she whispered.
“Home,” he said.
The SUV turned toward downtown with Alaric at the wheel, steady hands guiding them through the thinning traffic. Behind them, the Trinity shrank to rumor. Ahead, the city lit up like a ledger waiting for fresh ink.
Leif leaned his head back, Mariah against him, and let the vow settle. He thought of the blood spilled, of Tomas lying broken in that cone of light, of every shadow they had walked through to get here. He thought of Cade, Titus, and Zane—men who now called him brother. And he thought of Mariah, who had made him more than either Dante or Severin. She had made him whole.
“Together,” she breathed.
“Together,” he answered, and the word landed like a promise. He had her. He was keeping her. And anyone who wanted to argue could meet him andtry. And fail.
The river followed them all the way home, its voice an endless murmur, as though it understood that a new chapter had been written, carved in blood, bound in fire, and sealed with love. And for the first time, Leif let himself believe he could build a life out of more than steel and violence. He could build it withher.
He tightened his grip on her hand and stared at the horizon, daring the day to try him again.
Mariah shifted against him, not asleep after all. Her lashes lifted slowly, and she studied his profile. “You would’ve burned the world down for me, wouldn’t you have?”
He turned his head just enough to meet her gaze. “I already did.”
She gave a soft laugh that caught at the edges, weary but alive. “It’s strange, isn’t it? That after all the death, Ican finally breathe.”
“You’re not wrong,” he said. “Sometimes you have to walk through the graveyard to get to the sunrise.”
Her fingers curled tighter with his. “What if it doesn’t last? What if this was just one night of survival?”
Leif brushed his thumb across her knuckles, eyes still on the road ahead. “Then I’ll fight every night after this. And I’ll keep fighting until you stop doubting.”
For a while they drove in silence, but for Leif, the only sound that mattered was Mariah’s steady breathing.
He thought of the past weeks—the first time he saw her at the club, emerald silk and eyes that undid him. The way she had vanished like smoke, leaving him with a Brand he didn’t understand. The hunt, the sleepless nights, the fury that had built inside him like pressure inside a festering volcano. All of it had led here, to this morning with her head on his shoulder.
