Chapter Nine: The Bullet That Almost Took Him
It was cold—bone-deep, paralyzing cold.
Elias's knees slammed into the concrete floor of some abandoned warehouse, the sharp pain lost beneath the sheer terror flooding his veins. His wrists ached where they were bound behind his back with a zip tie, too tight. The duct tape over his mouth was suffocating. He could still taste the blood in his mouth from the first blow.
Panic pulsed louder than his heartbeat.
The man pacing in front of him wasn't a stranger.
Detective Rourke.
The same officer who had spoken kindly to him. The one who had looked him in the eye beside a bloodstained corpse and told him "You're safe now."
Now, that same man was loading a silencer onto a black pistol.
Elias thrashed, tears streaking down his face. He tried to scream through the tape, but it came out a garbled, choked plea.
"Don't look at me like that," Rourke muttered, his voice low, trembling—but not with guilt. "It's not personal, kid. You were just supposed to be bait. But then you started poking around. Asking questions. You were never supposed to get this close."
Elias's mind raced. This was about Noah. About the necklace. The cover-up.
Rourke knelt, grabbed Elias's chin in a bruising grip. "You think your brother was a saint? He was knee-deep in this filth. He got what was coming. And if you don't shut up—so will you."
He stood. Raised the gun.
Time stopped.
This is it.
I'm going to die.
The thunder of the warehouse door exploding off its hinges stole the moment.
"DROP THE FUCKING GUN!"
Damien's voice roared like a storm, seconds before the real thunder came—gunshots—not from Rourke, but from the officers swarming in behind Damien.
Rourke spun, fired—
Elias flinched.
The shot went wide.
Chaos erupted. Shouts. Sirens. Smoke.
Damien tackled Rourke to the floor, wrenching the gun from his hand with raw violence. "You touch him again and I'll fucking end you!"
More cops stormed in, dragging Rourke away as he screamed something about "you don't understand, you're protecting the wrong one—he's part of it too!"
But Elias barely heard it.
Damien was suddenly in front of him, yanking the tape from his mouth, cutting the ties, and grabbing him—pulling Elias into his arms with crushing desperation.
"I told you not to run," Damien growled into his hair, voice shaking. "God, Elias—what did they do to you?"
Elias clung to him, sobbing so hard he thought he might pass out from it.
"You were almost—"
Damien stopped himself.
But the way his hand gripped the back of Elias's neck, holding him like something sacred—and the way he trembled—said everything he couldn't.
Blood splattered Damien's knuckles. A vein throbbed in his temple. His eyes burned with more than rage. Possession. Fear. Devotion.
And Elias, broken and trembling, realized something:
Damien would kill for him.
He nearly had.
But even as the sirens faded, a chill lingered in the air.
Because Rourke's words echoed in Elias's mind like poison:
"You're protecting the wrong one… He's part of it too…"
Elias had never heard a gunshot so close to his head before.
The crack rang in his ears long after the bullet slammed into the concrete pillar beside him, sending dust and debris across his face. His body locked in terror as Detective Rourke screamed something incoherent, the barrel of his gun swinging wildly—until Damien tackled him from the side with an animalistic roar.
The gun clattered to the floor, and the two men fought like monsters—grunting, cursing, fists cracking bone. Officers flooded the warehouse seconds later, yanking Rourke off Damien and pinning him to the ground.
"Get an ambulance!" Damien shouted.
He was on his knees beside Elias the next moment, cradling him like porcelain. His hands trembled as they skimmed over Elias's bruises and cuts, barely able to breathe.
"Don't close your eyes," he said, voice cracked and raw. "Don't fucking black out on me."
"I-I'm okay," Elias croaked, but he wasn't. He was shivering uncontrollably, blood trickling from his temple, his lip split. He couldn't tell if it was the trauma or Damien's scent that made him dizzy.
Sirens blared outside as paramedics rushed in.
"You're safe now," Damien whispered.
But Elias barely heard him as the EMTs lowered him onto the stretcher.
"Sir, we need to take him in," one paramedic said. "He's in shock."
Damien tried to follow, but an officer held him back for questioning.
"I'll be there," Damien called, his voice breaking. "You hear me, Elias? I'm coming to you."
The last thing Elias saw before the ambulance doors shut was Damien's bloodied face—wild with fury and something far more terrifying: affection.
---
Scene Shift – Later That Night
The cold fluorescent lights of the ER stung his eyes as nurses patched him up. Elias barely spoke. A detective took his statement. A nurse cleaned his wounds. They told him he was lucky to be alive.
He didn't feel lucky.
He felt hollow. Dirty. Haunted.
When the door finally opened again, Elias braced for Damien's return.
But it wasn't him.
It was a new voice. Calm, rich, and disarmingly gentle.
"Well, that's a hell of a first impression," said a tall man in dark blue scrubs, clipboard in hand and a stethoscope slung around his neck. "I'm Dr. Cassian Rowe. You must be Elias."
Their eyes met—and Elias forgot how to breathe.
Cassian smiled, one dimple deepening. "Don't worry. You're in good hands now."