There is only chaos, a violent clash of wills and raw power. The storm inside me hadn't calmed—it had only grown fiercer, roaring louder with every memory, every unresolved echo that haunted me.
Chandler's face lingered in my mind, etched sharply with a gaze so cold and calculated it could cut deeper than any blade.
The look in his eyes when the bottle shattered against him was the instant something snapped in him.
The second the glass splintered; whatever humanity he clung to crumbled with it. Trained in the military, it was as if the blow to his side had unlocked some buried instinct, some memory of war tucked beneath his usual idiocy.
For a brief moment, his facade cracked. He wasn't inept-no, for lack of a better term, he was lethal.
He'd been poised for the kill, his hand tightening around the blade with a terrifying calm, every muscle primed to end me. I had hesitated—just for a fraction of a second—and in that moment, he lunged.
The edge of his blade skimmed past me, his defiance twisting into something primal, something relentless. He stood there, unyielding, daring me to try to take back control.
Rowan Chandler was the unstoppableforce—unfazed, untamed. And I was the immovable object, bracing against the storm. The tension between us burned, a collision of two forces that neither could break nor bend.
I could have—should have—shot him when I had the chance.
Instead, I clenched my fists, the memory of his scent lingering, clawing its way back into my mind. A mix of hate and something darker, something twisted, lingered in each breath I took.
He despised me, and yet I was consumed by the thought of him, raw and electric, like a live wire buzzing under my skin. No amount of whiskey could erase him, no drink strong enough to burn away the image of his smirk, the taunting glint in his eyes.
Every tremor of his body beneath me was addictive-a tactile reminder of the power I held, a thrill that ran deeper than anything I'd ever felt.
My impulsiveness, that unyielding hunger to assert dominance, had become my undoing. It wasn't enough to punish him for threatening me; I needed to make sure he understood, to drive it into him, and remind him of his place.
