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My knees trembled, knocking against one another as they threatened to drop me flat onto the floor. My mind spun out, fracturing into a thousand jagged pieces.
Hannah. The name tasted like ash in my mouth.
A white-hot spike of pure, unadulterated fury cut through the fog of my panic, tightening my jaw until my teeth creaked. What the fuck had she done?
I promised her that I would always protect her. Them. Every promise I’d ever made to Isabella collapsed in that single moment. I knew with certainty that they were gone. Everything I had been planning, the future I had envisioned.
Gone.
A crushing weight sat in the center of my chest, suffocating me. The world around blurred as tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Someone hurt my girl. And I wasn’t there.
Not only was I not there for her, but I was the reason she was hurt to begin with.
Hannah hurt her. Hannah killed my girls.
A hollow pressure built behind my ribs that made it hard to pull in air. Marcel was saying something—my name, maybe—but it sounded far away, muffled.
I blinked, trying to make sense of them. It was as if I were underwater and everything above the surface was out of reach. Black spots crept into the edges of my vision. I swayed.
“What the fuck did you do?”
Sebastian exploded with a loud, angry grunt. His words had barely had time to register before his entire mass collided with mine. The world flipped upside down. The hospital floor rushed up to meet my shoulder blades with a sickening, hollow thud. It vibrated straight through my skull.
The impact didn’t just empty my lungs. It paralyzed my diaphragm, locking my ribs into a tight, agonizing cage. I lay there, flat on my back, gasping while the room spun in circles.
Before I could drag in a full breath, he was on top of me. Then came the flash of white light. His fist slammed into the left side of my jaw with a heavy crack that echoed in my ears. My head whipped sideways. My cheek scraped hard against the floor.
The world went gray at the edges. Instantly, a hot, thick rush of copper flooded the back of my throat. It pooled under my tongue before spilling out past my split lip.
“You got my sister pregnant?” he roared, the spray of his spit hitting my face. “You knocked her up, you bastard.”
I had.
Sebastian’s face hovered inches from mine, his eyes crazed, his veins bulging like ropes against his neck. His fingers dug into my hair, yanking my skull back up to force my eyes to meet his. His face was a distorted, furious mask of tears and sweat.
Another hit. My head rocked back against the floor, stars bursting behind my eyes as the world flickered in and out of focus.
“She was fucking off limits. You knew that. I told you so many damn times to stay the fuck away from her.”
He had.
Another punch landed, this one to my right eye. My vision blurred further, the edges darkening. Everything around me warped, stretching and distorting in a way that didn’t quite match the rhythm of the hits.
“You promised me. You’re nothing but a fucking liar. You did this.”
I had.
His words hurt more than his fists because each word was true. Every strike he landed burned across my skin, but it couldn’t come anywhere close to what was tearing through me from the inside out.
The reality was deeper than any pain or cut could make. I failed her. The thought pulsed through me with every impact, louder than anything else.
I failed her.
“Damn it, Sebastian, knock it off. This isn’t helping,” Marcel shouted.
Hands grabbed at Sebastian, pulling, trying to drag him off me. The pressure lifted for a split second, enough for me to suck in a breath. Marcel caught his shoulders, hauling him back with more force this time.
It gave me a moment. A small one. I rolled slightly onto my side, coughing. Blood slipped from the corner of my mouth as my jaw throbbed in time with my pulse. My eye was already swelling, the skin tightening, and the heat building beneath it.
