Chapter 215

Chapter 215
~Brian~

Everything was collapsing.

The warehouse suddenly felt smaller than it had an hour ago, the concrete walls seemed to press inward while rain hammered the roof hard enough it sounded like gunfire overhead. Every noise outside, closer: boots, voices. Metal breaking somewhere deeper in the building.

Torin. The name twisted violently through my chest while my grip tightened harder around the gun. Marlowe stood across from me, chest rising too quickly while her eyes stayed locked on the weapon in my hand now instead of me.

That hurt more than it should have. She looked at me like she was afraid.

After everything I’d done trying to protect her, she still looked at me like I was the threat in the room instead of the man outside tearing through walls to drag her back into that life.

“Marlowe,” I muttered carefully, forcing my voice lower while another crash echoed through the warehouse. “You need to understand what happens once he gets in here.”

Her expression hardened instantly. “I understand perfectly.”

No, she didn’t. That was the problem.

Torin poisoned everything around him so slowly people stopped recognizing the damage until they were already drowning in it. Violence became normal around men like him. Fear became routine. You adapted until chaos felt safer than peace.

I’d watched it happen to her piece by piece.

The constant checking over her shoulder every time a bike sounded, and still she chose him.

The realization hollowed something out inside my chest because no matter how carefully I explained this, no matter how much danger Torin brought into her life, she kept looking at him like he was salvation instead of destruction.

Another boom thundered through the building.

“Marlowe!” Torin’s voice echoed again somewhere beyond the walls.

The sound visibly hit her. Relief broke across her face and tears burned in her eyes immediately afterward, while her body shifted instinctively toward the noise. Toward him. As if her entire soul already belonged to him.

Something ugly cracked wider inside me then. “You’d run right back to him,” I muttered.

Her gaze snapped toward me again. “Yes.”

The answer came instantly and somehow that hurt worse than if she’d screamed.

I laughed once. “Even after tonight?”

“You kidnapped me,” she shot back while anger flashed hard across her face again. “You don’t get to act betrayed because I’m upset about it.”

My jaw tightened sharply. Kidnapped, like that was all this was. As if I hadn’t spent months watching her spiral deeper into Torin’s world while everyone else stood around pretending it was romance instead of slow destruction.

“You think he’s going to save you,” I muttered quietly. “But he’s the reason you needed saving in the first place.”

Another violent crash echoed nearby before male voices shouted through the warehouse. Closer now, much closer.

Panic clawed harder beneath my ribs while I backed toward the side exit automatically, gun still raised while Marlowe tracked every movement carefully.

She was watching for an opening. Still fighting me. Always him over me.

The realization hit so hard I almost couldn’t breathe around it. “I would’ve taken care of you,” I muttered before I could stop myself. “You could’ve been safe.”

Marlowe stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind. Maybe I had.

“Safe isn’t locking someone in a warehouse,” she whispered.

No. Safe was keeping her away from Torin. Safe was making sure she lived long enough to have a future not soaked in biker wars and blood and grief. But standing here now, hearing Torin getting closer by the second while Marlowe looked at me like I was the villain instead of the only person trying to protect her…

Something finally started sinking in beneath the panic. She was never going to choose me. Not eventually, not if I explained harder, not if Torin disappeared…never. That truth hollowed me out completely.

Another scream of metal split through the warehouse. Then the sound of boots close enough now I could hear them clearly through the storm outside.

Marlowe heard it too because hope flashed across her face instantly.

My chest tightened painfully while exhaustion suddenly settled over me all at once. Months of obsession, planning, convincing myself this could still somehow work, all collapsing under one brutal realization:

She loved him more than she feared what loving him cost, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

The side door behind me rattled violently, then Torin’s voice exploded through the warehouse again.

“BRIAN!” The sound hit like a gunshot.

Marlowe flinched hard while my pulse slammed wildly against my ribs. Instinct tightened my grip on the weapon immediately, adrenaline roaring through me as footsteps thundered closer.

Suddenly Marlowe moved, her hand slamming into my wrist hard enough the gun jerked sideways just as the side door burst inward.

The sound of a gun going off exploded deafeningly through the warehouse, and for one horrifying second, nobody moved.