He's her enemy. Her obsession. And the only man who has the power to destroy her.
▫️▫️▫️
My name is Frank Monroe, and I am the most dangerous woman in Chicago. Not because I kill, but because I make it legal. I'm the lawyer the Irish mob calls when...
"It's nothing that complicated, I just want to kill him."
- Masashi Kishimoto
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I couldn't remember my feet touching the ground.
The world was a smear of lights and shocked faces, a tunnel at the end of which was either salvation or a void. My lungs were raw, shredded things, screaming for an air that felt too thin. My legs were on fire, but the real inferno was in my chest, a heart beating a frantic, tribal drum against my ribs: alive, alive, he has to be alive. My hands were slick, my mind a single, repeating prayer wrapped in a threat: Sawyer Huxley does not get to die.
Isn't it funny? The universe's favorite punchline. You don't know the precise weight of someone in your life until you're standing on the cliff, watching him dangle over the edge.
I was so goddamn angry at him. His betrayal was a fresh wound, salt still ground deep into the muscle. But he was mine. A cornerstone in the chaotic architecture of my world. A fixed point in a universe that loved to spin out of control. If that light went out, a part of my own sanity would flicker and die with it. And I wasn't certain I was built to survive in that kind of permanent darkness.
I exploded into the hospital corridor, a force of pure, undiluted panic. Barefoot, hair a wild corona around my head, I was a hurricane shoving through anyone unfortunate enough to be in my path. The whispers were static. The stares were irrelevant. There was only the mission: find Sawyer.
"Doctor!" The word was a ragged tear from my throat as I zeroed in on a white coat. I practically skidded to a halt in front of him, my body trembling. "Sawyer Huxley. Where is he? Is he breathing?"
The silence that followed was a physical presence, thick and suffocating. It stretched, each second a tiny eternity, while a beast made of pure dread clawed at my insides.
"He's still in surgery," the doctor finally said, his voice carefully neutral.
A gust of air I didn't know I was holding ripped from me. My knees buckled, but I locked them. Alive. He was still in the fight.
"His condition is critical."
The fragile hope shattered, its shards digging into my soul. My breath hitched, a sharp, cold, painful thing.
No. Hell no. Sawyer was built from grit and granite. He doesn't lose. He can't.
"Frankie!" The voice was an anchor, pulling me from the riptide.
I turned. Papa was there, my discarded heels looking absurdly small in his big hands. We had hit gridlock, and something in me had snapped. The car door was a memory, the run a blur. Waiting was not in my vocabulary.
I collapsed against him, the dam breaking. Sobs wracked my frame, tears I didn't know I had left soaking into his shirt.
"He might not make it, Papa!" The confession was torn from me, raw and ugly.
