Page 152 of Cold Mercy

Noah stops pacing and turns toward me. He crouches down and clamps his fingers around my jaw, forcing me to look at him as he leans in until his lips are a hair's breadth from my own.

“War,” he whispers. “I will rip this entire city down brick by fucking brick if that's the price of getting what belongs to me.”

“You're fucking insane, Noah.”

“Maybe. But I've spent a hell of a time building a world where no one can ever touch you again. Not even him.” He doesn't even look away from me as he jerks his head toward Thomas.

I fall onto my side, chest heaving, mind spiraling. Thomas is bleeding out behind me, Noah is alive in front of me. Everything I ever buried has burst open like a wound that never healed.

Thomas’s broken voice drags me back.

“Sophia…don’t let him get inside…your head.”

My vision blurs as I turn toward him.

“I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Enough,” Noah snaps. His voice curls around the room, poisonous.

“Don’t worry,” he says lightly. “Your little hero will be taken care of. Lifetime disability pension, a hefty payout for a tragic line-of-duty accident. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”

My stomach flips. “What are you talking about?” My voice is thin, dizzy, and fraying at the edges.

“Thomas, be a gentleman,” he says. “Enlighten her.”

Thomas is white as a sheet, sweat mixing with blood soaking through his leg and shoulder. He can barely keep his head up. His pulse flutters in his throat like it’s trying to escape. Still, when he meets my eyes, something softens.

“Sophia…” His breath shudders. “I know you may never forgive me, but I need you to hear this…even if it’s the last thing I ever say.”

My heart drops straight through the floor.

“My life was black and white before you,” he whispers. “I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t want anything more from life than to get through the day...then you showed up, with those impossibly green eyes that made me feel exposed every time you looked at me. With a voice that settled me even when you were trying to cut me down. With that smile, I started dreaming about at night when I had no right to dream at all.”

He swallows hard.

“I was never going to deserve you. I know that. I still know it, but I need you to hear this.”

His breath stutters, but the words come out clear.

“I love you, Sophia Moreau. I am fucking in love with you. If this is what kills me…then fine, I’d still choose it. Because loving you is the only real thing I’ve ever done,” he chokes, swallowing against the pain.

Open your eyes, you silly girl, watch the lies begin to uncurl. He speaks of love with a dying breath, but all he brought you here was death.

Tears sting my eyes as I realize he's fading, fading right in front of me.

“Please,” I whisper, “tell me the truth.”

My gaze slips away from Thomas for half a second.

Noah is watching him not with confusion, but with cold, predatory calculation.

There’s something feral in his eyes now, something ugly and old. His jaw tightens, his shoulders square, and I know it before he moves.

He closes the distance in three long strides and snarls.

Noah growls, “It is not—” his fist slamming into Thomas's face. The sound is bone on bone, and Thomas’s head snaps to the side, his lip splitting as blood sprays. He barely gasps before another punch lands straight to the jaw. “—what i asked for—” Noah growls again. “—You fucking...piece of shit!” Noah's guttural curses punctuate each blow.

Thomas’s head just hangs there, chin dropped to his chest, body slack except for the harsh, broken pulls of air that scrape through his throat. Blood pours down his face in thick, unstoppable streams, dripping to the floor.