Page 68 of The Bratva Sinner

“You’ll have it.”

The flight back to Miami is the longest four hours of my life. I can’t sit still. Can’t focus. Can’t stop seeing it play out in my head.

She could be dead right now. Given what Damien told me, she should be dead. She could have cracked her skull open on the pavement. Been crushed by traffic. A thousand ways it could have gone wrong and ended with me identifying her body.

The rage I feel is unlike anything I’ve felt. It’s cold and hot at the same time.

They touched my wife.

I’m going to burn their operation to the ground. Not just because it’s Lila. They fucked with what’s mine. That will not go unpunished.

The plane can’t land fast enough. When it does, Sampson and I run to the waiting SUV. I’m out before the vehicle fully stops in the driveway. I burst through the front door, my heart pounding.

“Where is she?”

One of the guards points upstairs. “Her bedroom.”

I take the stairs three at a time. Cinder stands beside the bed where Lila sits with her left arm in a sling and her face a mess of scrapes and bruises. There’s a butterfly bandage above her eye. Road rash covers her right arm and shoulder.

She’s alive. She’s safe.

The relief hits me so hard that I have to grab the doorframe. I feel like someone has knocked the wind out of me.

Cinder turns, irritation evident in her body language. “She’s okay. Doctor was here and put her shoulder back in place. Nothing broken. She’ll be sore for a while, but no real damage.”

“Easy for you to fucking say,” Lila snaps. “Let me throw you out of a moving vehicle.”

Cinder rolls her eyes. “Did I mention she’s being a bitch?”

“Fuck you.”

“Can you give us a minute?” I ask.

Cinder glances at Lila. “Good luck. Maybe you can make her take the pain meds. She’s refusing. Doesn’t trust us.”

“Just you,” Lila quips.

I have no idea what their beef is, and I don’t care.

“I really hope this is worth it,” Cinder says. “One by one.”

I ignore her. She walks out and slams the door. Lila winces. “Bitch.”

“So-rry,” Cinder calls out in a sing-song voice that says that was intentional.

I’ll deal with her later.

I cross the room and stop a few feet from the bed, studying her injuries. The scrapes. The bruises.

“I’m fine.” Her voice is defiant, but I hear the tremor underneath.

“You jumped out of a moving car.”

“I wasn’t going to let them take me.” She lifts her chin. “I’d rather die on my terms than whatever they had planned.”

I hate that she had to make that choice. But damn, I’m so proud that she did. Not many people would be brave enough to do that.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” I say.