Chapter 15
The gunshot is deafening this time.
But it doesn’t hit her.
It shatters glass instead, exploding a window panel beside her, wind screaming in as alarms instantly flood the building, the city roaring up into the room like it’s furious to be included.
Saxton advances, gun steady, expression focused, no rage, no hesitation, just execution.
“You’re forcing me,” he says.
She sees something flicker in his eyes.
Fear.
Not of her.
Of losing.
She dives.
Muscle memory she didn’t know she still had.
Her hand finds the gun in her bag.
The shot goes off without thought.
Without planning.
Without intention.
Saxton staggers back, shock replacing control instantly, his body colliding with the glass railing, blood blooming across his shirt like something obscene and expensive.
“Michelle,” he breathes, disbelieving.
He falls.
Not dramatically.
Just gone.
The city swallows him.
Silence follows, thick and absolute, broken only by alarms and Michelle’s breath tearing in and out of her lungs like it’s trying to escape her body.
She drops the gun.
Her knees give out.
She didn’t want this.
She didn’t want any of it.
