POV: Daniel

The stairwell absorbed Rob’s footsteps until silence was a weight upon us.

I should have killed him.

I breathed and it was a leash. I clawed at the wall and every mark in plaster was a reminder that I had not. The bear inside me snarled. He was fucking furious I’d allowed him to walk away breathing. My chest heaved ragged with the effort of constraint.

But the tether burned hotter than scars in plaster. It pulsed with the terror in Clara’s chest, her ...