Chapter 19 Breathe
Aiyana's P.O.V
The terrace became peace temporary, fragile, precious.
Gerald leaned against the railing, telling half-ridiculous jokes to loosen the weight in my chest. I laughed, real laughter, not the quiet, strained sound of survival. The wind touched my cheeks. The sky felt bigger and for the first time since I arrived, I wasn’t surrounded by walls, just space and air and possibility.
It was freedom, but only for a moment.
Gerald was mid-sentence when every hair on the back of my neck stood up, like the air itself shifted. Like something unseen approached on silent feet.
He felt it too. I could see it from the way his posture changed, relaxed humour dissolving into sharpened alertness. His eyes flicked around us, scanning the corners, the way Jerome’s men do when danger hums in the shadows.
“Stay behind me.” He murmured, placing a protective hand in front of me as I moved behind him.
That alone sent panic spiking under my ribs. Gerald may have been playful but when his voice dropped like that, joking was dead.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
The next thing was a rustle so soft. Too soft if I do say so myself.
Then footsteps followed. Light and controlled.
Then a whisper of movement behind the terrace garden fence.
Gerald reacted before I could think, pulling me behind him with a grip like steel as he turned to face the danger.
Three men emerged, guns drawn, clothes dark and dusty like they’d been moving through underbrush, and worse, I recognized one of them.
Not his face.
His voice.
The same voice from that night.
The gang that beat me until breath was a ghost.
Until life nearly slipped away at the iron gates.
They had come.
For me?
All i did was stop them from kidnapping a boy. Was that really worth all this trouble to kill me?
A coldness swallowed every inch of me, but Gerald stepped forward, his expression empty of fear, and posture loose but ready.
“Well.” He sighed, as if mildly annoyed, “you boys really couldn’t wait your turn, huh?” Still teasing, even I'm such a situation.
The leader sneered. “We heard she’s alive. Thought we’d come finish the job.”
I froze, lungs refusing air. My legs wanted to run but stayed locked in terror.
Gerald was the opposite, he didn’t freeze. Instead, he moved.
Fast, pushing me backward first, the only warning I received before gunfire burst like thunder, echoing across the compound. I hit the ground behind the marble planter box while Gerald disarmed the first man with brutal efficiency. A hit to the elbow, knee, and a twist that echoed through the wind.
A gun slid across the terrace tiles, sparks flying, but three men were not easy prey, not for any ordinary person, and in this moment, I realised that Gerald was many things. Reckless, carefree, infuriating, but not ordinary.
He fought like a man who had danced with death often enough to call it by name. One man swung, Gerald ducked. Another aimed, Gerald kicked his wrist until bone cracked like dry wood.
Still, there were too many.
Too close. Too armed and quite strong.
Still engrossed in how good of a fighter Gerald was, I heard a click and upon following the sound.
It was a gun lifted, pointed directly at me.
I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. Terror strangled sound itself, and unable to do anything else, I closed my eyes ready to accept whatever it was that was my fate.
But like an answer to my underlying whisper for a savour, a shadow more terrifying than bullets descended.
Jerome.
He ran toward us like he had been carved out of rage and terror all at once, eyes wild, steps lethal. Not calm like usual. Not still like the storm held inside him.
This was a man who thought he was too late.
He reached us before breath could refill my lungs. His fist collided with the gunman’s jaw so hard the man collapsed instantly.
The body was immediately limp, unconscious or dead. I couldn’t tell and before he could recover, If he could, two shots were fired.
Jerome didn’t flinch.
He shot back with precision, and mercilessness. One bullet tore through the second man’s shin, another ripped into his shoulder.
Screams split open the air.
The third attacker lunged toward Gerald, but Jerome reached him first, and the rage he unleashed wasn’t human.
He slammed the man against the wall, hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing with so much fury the stone beneath cracked. The man clawed at him trying to loosen his hold but it was useless.
Blood filled the attacker’s mouth, and I could see the moment the light in his eyes flickered.
“JEROME!”
Gerald’s voice roared out. Sharp and urgent, the only thing strong enough to snap through that murderous haze.
Jerome froze.
Maybe because of Gerald or because his eyes found me.
I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t screaming.
I was curled against the floor, breath shaking, body trembling like prey that survived the hunt but barely.
Fear had hollowed me out, but not because of him.
I was afraid of losing him.
I was afraid of them dying because of me.
Jerome released the dying man like he had touched fire.
The attacker dropped, gasping, broken but alive. Barely
Then he turned to Gerald, and something snapped.
“You took her out of her room.” He spoke. His voice was low. Lethal.
Gerald wiped blood from his cheek, unfazed. “She needed air.” He responded as he cleaned himself up.
“You risked her life.”
“And you’re the reason she needs rescuing from her own thoughts.” Gerald responded with a similar fire in his eyes. It shocked me.
“You could have gotten her killed!” Jerome raised his voice so loud and so angry. It almost brought tears to eyes even though I wasn't the one being spoken to.
Gerald finally understood.
It was written in his face. The shock, quiet and dawning.
He looked between us slowly.
At Jerome, shoulders shaking with adrenaline he couldn’t hide.
At me still gripping the planter like my hands needed something solid to believe in.
“Oh.” Gerald whispered.
Not mocking. Not teasing.
Just realization.
“You’re terrified of losing her.”
Jerome didn’t answer. His silence was louder than a confession.
My heart stumbled.
Gerald backed away a little. Gaze gentler now, tone stripped of humour.
“She isn’t just yours to protect, Jerome. She’s a person. She’s drowning in here.”
Jerome turned to me, and I had never seen his eyes like that.
Not cold.
Not powerful.
Not untouchable.
Just afraid.
“Aiyana…”
My name trembled in his voice.
He looked like a man standing on the edge of something he could not afford to fall into.
I tried to speak firmly but my voice came out thin and breakable.
“I just needed to breathe.”
His jaw flexed, but not in anger.
In relief.
“You’re breathing.” he said quietly. “So I didn’t lose you.” He said and I saw G
erald step back, giving space neither of us asked for but desperately needed.
“I’ll leave you two.” He murmured. “Before he decides to finish strangling me.”