𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗮 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲.
𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐞
I am the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
Francesca "Frank" Monroe. One of the most successful criminal defense attorneys in the history of Illinois. The woman everyon...
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Cold.
It seeped into my fucking bones, slithering through every broken rib, twisting around my spine like a goddamn vice. My body was a frozen ruin, the kind of cold that settled deep, refusing to let go. Peeling my eyes open was a battle against something thick and suffocating-pain, exhaustion, maybe both.
The sharp stench of antiseptic hit me first, drowning out the phantom burn of gunpowder and blood.
The fight. The ambush. The fucking agony. And then... nothing.
How the fuck did I get here?
"Noah?" The name tore from my lips, a ragged whisper barely escaping my swollen lips.
The door flew open with a dull thud, a figure loomed in the doorway. Sawyer. His expression was carved from stone.
I swallowed hard, expecting a well-deserved verbal beating, a reminder of how colossally I'd fucked up. But the words never came. Three years we'd worked side by side, and not once had I been able to crack the walls around him. He was a fortress, locked tight, unreadable.
My gaze dropped to his hands. Bloodied knuckles. Skin torn raw.
Flashes of memory flickered—Sawyer, fists slamming into a wall when shit got too much.
"I... I fucked up." The confession scraped out of me, leaving behind nothing but pain.
Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. Maybe he hadn't heard me. Or maybe the guilt in my chest was screaming so fucking loud that it drowned out everything else.
Sawyer moved, sitting at the edge of the bed like he wasn't sure how close was too close.
Then, without a word, he reached out.
His fingers skimmed my face, tracing the bruises, the cuts, the damage. The touch was careful, almost hesitant, but it still sent a sharp bolt of pain through me. I barely felt it over the warmth creeping into my chest.
"He'll pay," he said, voice rough, low, and simmering with something deadly. "There's nothing I hold sacred, Frankie, but I swear on my fucking life—Luigi Pagano will pay for this."
His mask cracked. Just for a second. And what I saw underneath hit harder than any punch.
Worry. Fear. Fury so goddamn hot it could burn down the whole fucking world.
I swallowed against the knot in my throat. He wasn't just my bodyguard. Not just the guy who had my back when shit went sideways. Sawyer was family—the kind that didn't need blood to prove it. The kind that stood between you and death without hesitation.
And I'd put him through this. Again.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, voice barely holding together as a single tear cut a path down my face.
