Camille’s knees threatened to give out beneath her, the gravel biting into her palms where she’d caught herself against the dumpster’s cold metal edge.
Tears streamed down her face as she stared at Liam through blurred vision, her whole body trembling in a way she couldn’t have stopped even if she’d tried.
“Please,” she begged, voice breaking apart.
“Please don’t take me away.
I have a family waiting for me.
My father, my friends — they’ll be worried.”
Another sob tore loose, dragging the words out ragged and half-formed.
“I didn’t do anything.
I didn’t even mean to see any of this.
Please — please don’t do this.”
No one answered.
The silence stretched long enough that she almost thought, for one wild, foolish second, that they might simply let her go.
Then footsteps approached out of the dark, unhurried, and another figure stepped into the light — same black suit as the others, though something in his composure set him apart from them, a stillness that read less like caution and more like habit.
A pistol hung loosely in one gloved hand as he crossed toward Liam, his footsteps the only sound besides her own ragged breathing.
“Sir,” Ethan West said, calm as ever, stopping beside him.
Liam glanced at him, unreadable.
Ethan checked his watch, the motion economical, almost bored.
“Patrol should be through this district within half an hour.
This needs to be clear before then.
We need to hurry to avoid being seen.”
“Alright.” Liam gave a slight nod.
One of the guards stepped forward, hand already reaching.
“I’ll take her, sir.” He reached for her arm, fingers closing around it without ceremony.
She recoiled instantly.
“No!” The cry echoed off the narrow walls around them, bouncing back at her from the brick and the metal siding, making it sound as if a dozen voices were begging at once.
“Please, don’t touch me!” Her eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling freely now, her whole body curling in against itself.
“I’m begging you.
I don’t want to go.”
Something shifted in Liam’s expression for the first time all night, a flicker so brief that if she’d blinked she might have missed it entirely.
His gaze lingered on the tears streaking her face, and he exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose as though this, of everything that had happened tonight, was the one complication he hadn’t accounted for.
“Troublesome.” He crossed the space between them at an unhurried pace, the guards stepping back without needing to be told, stopping only inches away, and lifted her chin with one finger, gloved leather cool against her skin.
“Look at me.”
She kept her eyes shut, her breath coming in short, uneven pulls.
“I didn’t ask for anything in return when I saved you,” she whispered, another tear slipping free and catching against his glove.
“So please — don’t do this to me.”
A pause, long enough that she felt it settle somewhere in her chest like a held breath.
Then, firmer this time: “Miss Wilson.
Look at me.”
Something in his tone stopped her sobs for a heartbeat — not the volume, which hadn’t risen at all, but something underneath it, some current of expectation that felt as though it had never once in his life gone unanswered — and almost against her own will, she opened her eyes.
Gray met brown. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Neither of them spoke for several long seconds, the crickets somewhere past the fence the only sound left in the whole night.
Then he sighed, low and almost tired.
“I’m not going to kill you.” His voice stayed level, entirely without theater.
“So stop crying.”
Hope flared, small and desperate, in her chest, fragile as a struck match in open wind.
“…Really?”
“But I can’t let you leave, either.”
The hope died as quickly as it had come, color draining from her face, her stomach dropping out from under her all over again.
He released her chin and looked past her toward his men, already moving on, as if the matter had been settled the moment he’d decided it.
“Take her to the car.”
“Yes, sir.” Two guards stepped forward, closing in on either side of her.
“No!” She fought immediately, pulling against their grip, her shoes scraping uselessly against the gravel.
“Please, I’m begging you — I won’t tell anyone, I swear!” Her voice broke apart into sobs, each one costing her more air than the last.
Liam watched for a moment, expression unreadable, then motioned one of his men closer and murmured something too quiet for her to catch, the words lost beneath her own ragged breathing.
“Yes, sir.” The guard peeled off toward the waiting Rolls-Royce, footsteps fading into the dark.
A faint, amused curve touched Liam’s mouth as he watched her fight uselessly against the men holding her, an expression that belonged, more than anything, to a man mildly entertained by something he already knew the outcome of.
“Persistent,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Then a ringtone cut clean through the tension, bright and absurdly ordinary against everything that had just happened.
Everyone froze.
Her phone, vibrating in her apron pocket.
One guard tightened his grip on her arm while another let a concealed pistol rest lightly against her side, the metal cold even through the fabric of her shirt.
“Don’t try anything,” he warned, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret.”
Fresh tears filled her eyes, panic climbing again, her mind already racing through every version of what might happen if she screamed, if she fought, if she did nothing at all — but before it could take hold completely, Liam’s voice cut through, quiet but absolute.
“Enough.
Stop frightening her.”
The men eased back at once, the pressure at her side vanishing as quickly as it had come.
He held out his hand.
“Your phone.”
Her fingers shook pulling it from her pocket, nearly dropping it once before she managed to press it into his open palm.
The screen lit up.
Lauren Calling.
Her stomach dropped clean through the floor.
Liam glanced at the name, something briefly unreadable passing behind his eyes, then passed the phone to Ethan without a word.
“Handle it.”
Ethan answered instantly, voice already shifting into something entirely different from the flat efficiency he’d used with Liam — smooth, warm, disarmingly ordinary.
“Hello.”
Lauren’s voice came through at once, anxious, tinny through the small speaker but unmistakable.
“Cam?
Where are you?
“I’m sorry — is this Miss Lauren?” Ethan’s tone was smooth, entirely professional.
A pause.
“…Yes?”
“My name is Ethan.
I’m calling from the medical clinic down the road from Maple Grove.”
Camille’s eyes went wide, watching the lie assemble itself in real time, each word dropped into place with a calm so total it made her skin crawl.
Lauren’s voice sharpened.
“A clinic?”
“Yes, ma’am.
Miss Wilson had a minor accident outside the café.”
“What?”
“Please don’t panic — it isn’t life-threatening.
She slipped taking out the trash and hit her head.
We’ve examined her.
She’s conscious and stable, but we’ve recommended she stay a while for observation.”
Lauren let out a shaky breath, audible even through the phone.
“Can I speak to her?”
Ethan glanced toward Liam, who gave the smallest shake of his head, barely more than a twitch.
“I’m afraid she’s being examined right now,” Ethan said, smooth as ever, not a beat of hesitation in it.
“But she specifically asked me to let you know she’s alright, so you wouldn’t worry.”
“…Are you sure she’s okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.
She’s in good hands.
She’ll call you herself the moment she’s discharged.”
A pause, quieter this time, some of the fear finally bleeding out of it.
“…Okay.
Tell her not to scare me like this again.”
“I will.” The call ended, the line going dead with a small, final click.
Ethan handed the phone back, and Liam looked at the dark screen a moment before slipping it into his jacket pocket, unhurried, as though it were now simply his to keep.
Something in Camille’s chest caved in on itself entirely — the one person who might have looked for her, might have somehow saved her, now believed she was perfectly fine, tucked safely into some clinic bed that didn’t exist.
She had never in her life felt this alone, not even in the hospital corridor two weeks ago, not even standing over a dying stranger with no one else around to help her carry the weight of it.
Liam’s gray eyes settled on her, and for one absurd second she thought she saw something almost like reluctance pass through them, gone before she could be sure it had ever been there at all.
“Now,” he said quietly.
“Let’s go.”
Before she could get another word out, a guard stepped behind her and pressed a folded cloth firmly over her nose and mouth, the sharp chemical scent hitting her a half second before the panic did.
Her eyes went wide with panic.
She fought instantly, twisting against the grip with everything she had left in her, a last, useless burst of strength that did nothing but buy her a few more seconds of consciousness.
It made no difference.
Her strength drained away in slow degrees, her limbs growing heavy and distant, the world blurring at its edges until the dark finally swallowed the rest of it whole.
The last thing she saw before it took her completely was Liam — standing exactly where he’d been the entire time, watching her, that same faint, unreadable smirk still resting on his mouth, the very last image she carried with her down into the dark.