The first shot cracks through the air, deafening in the enclosed space. Glass shatters behind me, and Kai swears violently. I move toward him, but he has already pivoted, the barrel tracking wildly.
The second shot finds me.
The impact is not dramatic at first – just a brutal punch to my side that steals breath and heat in the same instant. A split second later, pain blooms outward, white-hot and consuming, spreading down my ribs in a thick wave of warmth.
I don’t fall.
I step forward.
Because he’s no longer aiming at me.
He’s aiming at her.
Time fractures into slow motion. I see Lani’s eyes widen, sense the reactive spike in her scent as fear collides with something dangerously close to heat. I move, but I am a fraction too slow.
Finn is not.
He slams into her father from the side with the force of a charging bull, driving him into the wall. The gun discharges again, the sound muffled by bodies colliding and furniture cracking. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs and fury, grappling for control of the weapon.
It is not elegant. It is not strategic. It is brutal and desperate.
Her father fights like a man who has already lost everything and intends to drag someone down with him. Finn fights like a man who understands precisely what is at stake if he hesitates.
There is a final, concussive crack.
Then stillness.
Finn rises slowly from the floor, breathing hard but steadying by the second, composure sliding back into place over adrenaline. The gun rests in his hand. Her father does not move.
Blood spreads in a dark bloom beneath him.
The room fills with silence so thick it feels tangible.
Kai is at my side now, his hand pressing hard against my ribs where warmth continues to seep between my fingers.
“You’ve been shot,” he says, voice tight.
“I noticed,” I reply, though my vision wavers at the edges and everything sounds slow, or far away. Maybe underwater.
Across the room, Lani steps forward. The fear in her scent shifts rapidly, transforming into something hotter, deeper, unstable. Violence has triggered something in her system that none of us can ignore. Stress, adrenaline, blood – it all feeds the temperamental edge already present.
She reaches me before I can step toward her.
Her hands press against my chest, then slide down to my side where blood stains my shirt. Her fingers tremble, but her gaze is focused, locked on me as if the rest of the room no longer exists.
“Sol,” she breathes.
The way she says my name tightens the bond like a wire pulled taut.
The pain fades to background noise. All I feel is her.
Behind us, sirens begin to wail faintly in the distance, carried through the open door. Finn glances toward the sound, already calculating the next moves.
“I’ll handle this,” he says, voice calm now, billionaire composure settling over the violence. “Self-defence. He fired first. The backlash will be contained.”
No one argues because he’s right. Because the consequences, horrific as they are, will not destroy us.
But as Lani’s scent deepens, heat beginning to stir violently beneath shock and adrenaline, I realise something else entirely.