CHAPTER 270

**ZION**

I tear across campus like hell’s on my heels, boots pounding pavement, lungs burning, rage a living thing clawing at my ribs.

The parking garage swallows me whole (dim fluorescent lights, concrete echoing every step).

Level three.

I spot them the second I round the corner.

Harry, Ro, and Clark stand in a loose half-circle, shoulders tense, faces carved from stone.

In the middle: a metal chair bolted to the floor.

And strapped to it, zip-ties cutting red lines into his wrists, is the guy.

Hood thrown back.  

Mask gone.

I stare at him.

Really stare.

Greasy brown hair hanging in his eyes. Thin lips split from where Harry must’ve clocked him. Cheap hoodie soaked with sweat and a little of his own blood. Average height. Average build. The kind of face you forget five seconds after you see it.

Except I won’t.

I’ll remember every pore.

I don’t recognise the face, but that doesn’t matter.

He’s smiling.

A wide, wet, hideous grin like he’s been waiting his whole life for me to walk in.

My gaze drops instantly to his left arm.

The sleeve is ripped open.

There it is.

The cut.

Long, ugly, still weeping fresh blood, edges angry and raw.

My cut.

My knife.

My message.

Every ounce of oxygen leaves my body in a single, silent roar.

I lunge.

Two steps and I’m airborne, fingers already reaching for his throat, vision gone red-black, every promise I ever made to Winter screaming in my ears.

Harry’s arms slam around me from behind like iron bars, hauling me back mid-air.

“Zion—no! Detective Roxy’s five minutes out!” he grunts, boots skidding on concrete as he fights to hold me.

“We do this clean!”

Clean.

The word detonates inside my skull like a grenade.

I go feral.

My elbow slams back into Harry’s ribs so hard I feel something crack. He grunts but doesn’t let go (stubborn bastard).

“Clean?!” I roar, voice shredded raw. 

“Clean?!”

I twist hard, dragging both of us forward until the guy’s face is inches from mine.

“You think I give a single fuck about clean when this piece of shit put his eyes on her? When he made her flinch at shadows? When she still wakes up screaming my name because of him?!”

I’m shaking so hard that Harry has to lock both arms around my chest to keep me from ripping the zip-ties off with my bare hands.

“He breathed her air,” I snarl, low and lethal, every word dripping acid. 

"I can’t let him keep that heartbeat! I can’t let him keep one more second of the life he stole from her!”

I lunge again, dragging all three of them with me this time, fingers inches from his throat.

“I’m gonna rip his fucking lungs out and make him watch me burn them! I’m gonna carve her name into every inch of skin he has left so he never forgets who he destroyed!”

Harry’s arms turn to steel around my chest, his mouth right at my ear.

“Fuck Z, breathe, just breathe—”

“No!”

The last syllable rips out of me and dies against the concrete.

Dead silence.  

Just the wet drip of the guy’s blood and my own pulse hammering in my ears.

Then Ro breaks it, voice low and jagged.

“Z… I hear you. Every fucking word. If that was my sister, my girl, I’d already be wearing his intestines like a scarf.”

His fists clench so hard the knuckles pop.

“But you end him now and Winter’s left visiting you in a six-by-eight for the rest of her life. You want her crying through prison glass instead of in your arms? That's the future you’re giving her?”

Clark hasn’t blinked once. 

His stare is locked on the bastard like he’s already measuring the grave.

He speaks without looking away.

“I’ve got a hunting cabin three hours north,” he says, voice flat as a frozen lake. 

“No roads in after mile marker forty-two. Soundproof walls. Dirt floor. One match and the whole place burns clean. Say the word, Z. Tonight he disappears. Nobody ever finds the pieces.”

Harry and Ro both snap toward him like he just pulled a pin.

“Are you fucking real right now, Clark?” Harry hisses, stepping between us. 

“This is not the goddamn time!”

Ro’s right there with him, voice a razor.

“Jesus Christ, shut it down,” he growls at Clark. 

“We’re trying to keep him out of a cell, not dig him a deeper one.”

Clark doesn’t flinch, just shrugs like he offered coffee instead of a murder plot.

Ro turns back to me, shoulders dropping, voice softening but still iron underneath.

“Listen to me, bro.”  

He steps closer, close enough I can see the storm in his eyes. 

“She needs you alive. Not a ghost. Not a headline. Not a martyr doing life because some piece of shit knew exactly how to push your buttons.”

He reaches out, his palm open and steady.

“She needs you breathing, holding her, telling her the monster’s gone for good. Let us get you there. Let us get you home to her.”

Harry’s hand lands on my shoulder, firm, grounding.

“We’ve got him, Z. He’s not walking away. Ever. But you throw your life away tonight and he still wins. Don’t give him that.”

The rage is still there (white-hot, roaring, begging for blood).

But their words carve a hole just big enough for one clear image to slide through:

Winter alone.  

Waiting.  

Breaking when they tell her I’m never coming back.

I force air into my lungs.

Force it out.

My hands are shaking so hard my knuckles ache.

I don’t take Ro’s hand.

But I stop fighting.

For now.

I’m still breathing fire, chest heaving, when the bastard finds his voice again.

He licks the blood off his split lip, slow and deliberate, and lets that sick grin crawl back across his face.

“You know…” he rasps, voice syrupy and vile, “your girl looks real pretty when she’s scared.”

He leans forward as far as the zip-ties let him, eyes shining like he’s picturing it right now.

“Especially when she’s in bed. Hair is all messy. Little tank top riding up. The way she gasps when she realises someone’s watching… fuck, the sounds she makes—”

The world snaps.

There is no sound, no warning, no thought.

Just motion.

I rip forward so hard that Harry’s hand slips off my shoulder. My fist is already moving before my brain catches up, knuckles connecting with his mouth in a wet, beautiful crunch. 

Teeth give. 

Blood sprays. 

His head snaps back, chair rocking violently.

Ro and Clark are on me in a heartbeat, hauling me back, but I’m still swinging, roaring, trying to get another shot.

The bastard coughs out a broken laugh, blood pouring over his chin, tongue probing the new gaps in his smile.

“Worth it,” he gurgles, eyes rolling with sick pleasure. 

“So fucking worth it. She tastes like fear, man. Sweetest thing I ever—”

My second punch lands on his cheekbone before they can fully drag me off. I feel the bone shift under my knuckles.

Harry’s shouting in my ear. 

Clark’s got both arms locked around my chest now. 

Ro’s in my face, palms on my cheeks, forcing me to look at him.

“Zion! Enough! He’s baiting you, brother! He wants you to lose it!”

I’m snarling, spitting, and raging, trying to tear free again.

The guy keeps going, voice thick and wet, grinning through the blood.

“Bet she’s thinking about me right now. Bet she’s curled up in that library chair wondering if I’m coming back for—”

I lunge again, dragging all three of them forward a full step. My boot slams into his shin. Something cracks.

He howls, then laughs harder, delirious.

I’m shaking so hard my vision blurs.

“You’re gonna die screaming my name tonight,” I promise, low and lethal, every syllable carved in bone. 

“But it won’t be pretty. It won’t be quick. And it won’t be in your fucking dreams.”

I lean in until my forehead almost touches his bloody one, until I can taste the copper on his breath.

“I’m going to peel every memory of her off your skin. One layer at a time. Slowly. Until the only thing left is raw nerve and regret. And when there’s nothing but bone, when you’re begging for death in a voice that isn’t even yours anymore… I’ll still be there.”

His eyes are wide, glassy, the bravado finally shattered.

I smile, slow and terrible.

“And if doing it lands me in a cage for the rest of my life?”  

I shrug, like it’s nothing.  

Like the thought doesn’t even register as a cost.

“It’ll be worth it.  
Every single second behind bars will be worth hearing you scream her name one last time (except this time, it’ll be you begging me to stop).”

I press my thumb into the wound again, hard.

He whimpers.

Good.

“Start praying, motherfucker.  
Because mercy isn’t coming.  
Only me.”

He spits another mouthful of blood, lifts his chin like the zip-ties are jewellery, and sneers through swollen lips.

“You’ve got nothing on me,” he croaks, voice ragged but still dripping venom. 

“Nothing. No proof. No evidence. Just this cut. One little scratch. That’s all. I walk tonight, and she’s still mine to—”

I laugh.

Low.

Dead.

The sound cuts him off like a blade across the throat.

I crouch again, slow, until my eyes are level with his.

“This cut?” I say, voice soft, almost tender.

I drag one finger along the gash I put there two nights ago (slow, deliberate, pressing just enough to split the scab). He flinches hard, chair legs screeching.

“This is the one I carved into you with my own knife,” I whisper. 

I crouch again, slow, until his panicked eyes have nowhere left to hide.

“My knife,” I say, voice soft as a confession, 

“still has your blood all over the blade. My prints are on the handle, sure. But your blood? Your skin cells? Your DNA? It’s soaked into the steel, as it belongs there.”

I drag one knuckle along the edge of the gash, reopening it just enough for a fresh bead to well up.

“When forensics runs that blade (and Roxy will run it tonight), your DNA is going to scream your name from every microscope slide. 

I press my thumb into the wound again, just hard enough to make him sob.

“Enjoy the ride, princess. The cage is waiting. And I’ll be holding the key.”

His pupils blow wide.

I lean in until I can taste his panic.

“You threatened to end her life,” I breathe. 

“You put a clock on it. That’s terroristic threatening. That’s stalking. That’s enough to bury you for years. And when the DNA ties you to the cat, Ethan's murder, the messages? That’s life. No parole.”

I smile, slow and terrible.

“And even then, even inside, you’re not safe.”

I let that sink in.

“I know people who owe me favours in every block from county to max. Guards. Inmates. Cooks. You’ll breathe when they let you. You’ll eat when they let you. You’ll sleep when they let you.”

I press my thumb into the centre of the cut, hard.  
He screams.

“You’ll spend every single day looking over your shoulder, wondering which shadow has my name on it. Wondering when the next ‘accident’ happens. Wondering if today’s the day someone shanks you in the yard and carves her name into what’s left of your face.”

I lean in until my lips almost touch his ear.

“You’re already dead,” I whisper. “You just haven’t stopped breathing yet.”

I pull back.

His tough-guy mask is gone.

There’s just a man pissing himself in a metal chair, realising the monster he woke up is never going back to sleep.

And for the first time since I saw that cut, I feel something close to calm.

Because tonight he goes into the system.

And tomorrow the real sentence begins.