LAUREN/ZARA
I had barely drawn in enough air to whisper his name when his boot slammed into my stomach.
The impact tore the breath from me in one violent rush. Pain shot through me, colliding with the already burning wound in my side. I folded forward, the taste of blood sharp on my tongue, my palms smacking the concrete as I caught myself.
The gun pressed harder to my forehead, forcing me down, keeping me low.
"You think you're tough?" Nick spat, his voice dripping venom. "Running around with your mask, acting like you can protect him. You think you're going to save him from me?"
Every word was acid, corroding the fragile image I'd carried of him for years. My brother,the boy who used to fight for me, the boy who swore he'd never let anyone hurt me,was staring at me like I was nothing more than an obstacle to crush and worst part was I couldn't tell him I am his sister.
"You're just another one of his pawns," Nick growled, shoving me with the barrel of the gun. "And pawns don't get to stand between me and justice."
Justice. That's what he called this.
He didn't know. He couldn't know. To him, I was just the faceless bodyguard standing in defense of the boy he believed had killed his sister. My true identity, his sister, was hidden behind the mask he hated.
The pain in my ribs made it hard to breathe, but the ache in my chest was worse. Because he didn't see me. Not really.
All he saw was Liam's guard. The enemy.
And if I didn't find a way to get through to him soon, he might pull the trigger and never know the truth.
The barrel of the gun banged against my skull again, hard enough to make stars blossom across my vision. It wasn't a warning this time. It was punishment.
He hit me without mercy,open-handed, then with the butt of the gun, each blow a hot, searing line down my side where the knife had already bitten. Pain exploded through my ribs, breath shattered into ragged pieces. I tasted blood and copper and the awful, metallic tang of everything ready to break.
Through the ringing in my ears I heard Liam's voice,small, raw, ragged—like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
"Nick...please," he croaked. "Stop. Please, don't….."
His protest sounded useless even as he said it. His wrists strained against the bonds, skin white where the rope bit in. He tried to lift his head; his throat worked around a dry, frightened sound. I could see the plea in his eyes,the same plea I'd seen in others when protection failed them. Guilt and helplessness twisted through me like a knife of its own.
"My sister begged you not to break her heart too," Nick snarled between blows, not looking at Liam so much as at the idea of him. "You wanted her to break but she's dead. Now everyone feel it."
He didn't see the way my jaw clenched, didn't see my hands go slack for a fraction of a second as something inside me threatened to fight. I swallowed bile and rose up on shaking knees, forcing my face into a mask of defiance I did not feel. If he ever realized who I was—if the last thing he connected to me was the warmth of his sister's skin—he would pull the trigger before I finished the name, because I didn't deserve to call him my brother after disappearing for so many years.
Another strike. This time the world narrowed to the shock of it and the burn that followed. My vision blurred at the edges; a steady, cold fury replaced the first bright flare of pain. I would not let him break me here, not when Liam's life dangled in the balance and Nick's grief had been twisted into a blade.
"Nick," Liam choked again, weaker, voice cracking. "Please. Don't…..she's trying to help me. Stop."
Those words,his desperate, broken faith,hit me harder than any blow. For a blink I wanted nothing more than to tell him everything: that I was Zara, that I'd walked out of the grave he thought I'd fallen into, that I'd loved and been betrayed and come back to keep him alive. But the gun against my temple was an iron rule: one wrong revelation and everything collapsed.
So I did the only thing left that might still count as strategy. I let the pain sharpen my focus. When his hand lifted to strike again, I rolled, using my body's momentum to bring my shoulder into his chest and drive him back. It bought me half a second—half a second to swing my leg, to kick the chain that tethered Liam's chair to the floor. The screech of metal was a small, ugly sound, but it loosened one knot enough for Liam to gasp and wrench his hands.
Nick recovered fast, eyes wild with a grief I could not touch. He lunged, and the gun's butt cracked the side of my head. I tasted dust. I tasted fear. But as I fell, as darkness gathered at the corners of my sight, Liam's weak voice reached me again,more urgent now, a small ember refusing to die.
"Don't let him…..don't let him kill you," he whispered, as if he could bargain the world away.
I locked my jaw around another breath and pushed the pain down like a living thing. There was still fight left in me. There had to be. For him. For Nick, who didn't know the truth. For the girl who'd been buried and refused to stay down.
My legs give out like someone's cut the ropes. Strength drains away in a hot, ragged rush and for a second all I can focus on is the noise,the raw scrape of knuckles on concrete, Liam's cough, the metallic scent of blood,and then gravity takes me.
I fall to my knees.
Liam moves before I can think. He throws his weight forward, the ropes scraping as he half-stands, half-collapses toward me. Fear flares in his eyes, unsteady and raw. "Lauren..."he chokes, reaching.
Some part of me is still Lauren—sharp, tactical, thinking in milliseconds—but the rest of me, the part that is Zara, moves purely on the single animal instinct that's kept me alive so many times: shield the ones I love.
I shove my hands under his shoulders and twist, using the momentum to throw him backward, away from the chair. My fingers fumble at the knots, frayed and slick with sweat and blood. I want to get him free. I want to get him safe.
A flash of movement at the edge of my vision—Nick, leveling the gun straight at Liam.
For a heartbeat the world goes slow. The barrel yellow and exact. The man I once knew, narrowed into a single, irrevocable shape of rage.
I don't hesitate.
I flip. I push. I shove him down. I throw myself between Nick and Liam like a ragged shield.
The gun fires.
Pain explodes beneath my ear, a hot bloom that tears through muscle and bone and everything steady inside me. Sound detonates into a thousand shards: the crack of the shot, Liam's strangled cry, the thud of my body hitting concrete. I taste iron. The floor rushes up at me.
Liam's hands are on me instantly, fingers scrabbling for purchase on my shoulders, then my face, his breath ragged. "No….no…." he says like a prayer, panic raw in every syllable.
He moves to make off my mask but I hold his hand.
"Don't!" I say weakly but firmly. I don't care that I just saved his life, I didn't want him to see me.
Through the haze, I see Nick pivot, legs pumping like he's running to outrun the world he's made. He bolts toward the exit, a shadow slipping between overturned chairs and fallen men, and somewhere behind him voices are raising—shouts, a bootfall.
Footsteps thunder from the corridor,another set, heavier, the disciplined clack of boots that aren't these men's. Julian and the estate's response team, no doubt, drawn by the commotion. The sound is a jagged promise of rescue.
But the shot has already emptied me. Warmth spreads across my cheek and leaks into my hand. My chest rocks with each shallow breath. Liam's face blurs into a halo of terror and blood and pleading. He's yelling something…my name?—but the words smear into the edges of my hearing.
The last thing I register before the world goes soft and distant is Nick's silhouette disappearing into the night, and the angry, efficient roar of guards as they flood the doorway.
Then darkness folds me up like a hand closing.