Page 114 of Cobra
Silence. Heavy. Thick.
When I open my eyes again, Cobra isn’t just tense.
He’s locked. Every line of his body has gone tight, controlled in a way that feels dangerous in a different way than before. Not chaotic. Focused. Sharp.
I feel it shift under my hands, the energy in him changing so fast it almost makes me pull back. “Cobra…” I say softly, uncertainty creeping in now. “Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
His hand comes up, not rough, but firm enough to stop me from pulling away. “Look at me.”
I do.
His eyes are on mine. Not drifting. Not distracted. Locked in a way that feels like he’s making sure I hear every word he’s about to say. “They don’t get to say that,” he says, voice low and controlled in a way that somehow makes it worse. “They don’t get to touch you. They don’t get to take you. And they sure as fuck don’t get to walk away after thinking they can.”
Something in my chest tightens. Not fear. Something else. Something that feels like standing on the edge of something bigger than I fully understand.
“They will pay,” he continues. No anger in it. No shouting. Just certainty.The kind that doesn’t leave room for doubt.
His hand slides up slightly, fingers curling at the back of my neck, pulling me closer until my forehead rests against his. “I will protect you,” he says. Not a promise. Not something offered. Something stated. Real. Final.
I close my eyes, letting the words settle into something deeper than fear, deeper than the adrenaline that’s been running through me since the club.
His arms tighten around me again, pulling me fully into him this time, like he’s bracing both of us against something neither of us can see yet.
My breathing starts to even out. Slow. Steady. The storm in my chest doesn’t disappear. But it quiets. And for the first time since the alley, the fear doesn’t feel like it’s consuming me. It feels contained. Held.
I exhale softly against him, the tension leaving my body in small, controlled waves. And this time when I speak, my voice is quieter. Not shaken. Grounded. “I believe you.”
Because I do.
The room is too quiet. Not the kind of quiet that settles anything. Not the kind that gives space to think or breathe or let the edge wear down. This kind presses in, tight and controlled, like everything in it is waiting for something to break.
I stand near the wall, shoulder braced against it, arms crossed over my chest, my cut still on because I didn’t take it off when I came in and I haven’t felt the need to since. The leather sits heavy against my skin, familiar, grounding in a way nothing else is right now.
I don’t move. Don’t pace. Don’t shift. Still. Watching. Listening.
The room holds her scent now. It’s everywhere. On the sheets, in the air, tangled into the space like she belongs here. Like she always did.
My gaze tracks her without turning my head fully. Olivia moves around the room slowly, like she’s measuring it, feeling it out in a different way than she did before. Not uncertain. Not lost. Aware. That’s new.
It doesn’t settle anything in me. Nothing settles.
The alley replays. Not like a memory. Like footage.
My jaw tightens. The muscles in my arms flex under my cut, but I don’t move. I don’t let it show. It doesn’t matter if it shows. Everyone in this place already knows what I am when something crosses the line. And that line’s been crossed.More than once. I run through it again anyway.
Different angles. Different outcomes.
What I should have done faster.
What I should have seen sooner.
Where the mistake was.
There’s always a mistake.
Find it. Fix it. Eliminate it.
Olivia crosses my line of sight again. Close enough that if I reached out, I’d have her against me.
