Page 33 of Collateral Love
The weight of the gun felt different in my hand than it had in my bag. Heavier. More honest. I pressed it against Brandon’s chest, right where his heart hammered uselessly beneath bone and fear.
He looked at me then.
Really looked.
“Please,” he whispered. “I got kids?—”
“So does my brother,” I said.
The room felt too quiet.
Zayden’s presence was solid at my side, grounding me, anchoring me. I wasn’t alone in this. That mattered more than I’d expected.
I pulled the trigger.
The sound was sharp and final.
The man collapsed forward, weight dead and sudden.
Zayden turned to Bradley, who was whimpering and begging. “No… please man?—.”
He shot him between the eyes.
The sight of blood, I didn’t feel sick.
I felt relieved.
Outside, the night swallowed us whole.
We walked back to the car without speaking. Zayden started the engine and drove as if nothing had changed.
But everything had.
A few blocks away, he glanced at me.
“You good?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “But I will be.”
He nodded.
“That’s why I trust you. You honest as fuck and I can fuck with that.”
Trust.
That word wrapped tighter than fear ever could.
When he pulled up in front of my house, he didn’t turn the engine off right away.
“You know what this makes us,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Besties,” he said. “The real kind.”
I laughed, small but real.
“For the restie, ZZ.”
