Chapter 27
677words
The warehouse was a swarm of tactical gear and emergency lights, but for the three of us, the world had shrunk to a small circle of blood-stained concrete.
The EMTs were rushing toward us with a gurney, their footsteps thundering on the wood, but I knew they were too late.
I could feel the life draining out of Liam beneath my fingertips, the heat of his body fading into the damp chill of the morning.
Noah knelt beside me, his hand resting firmly on my shoulder. Usually, Noah's touch was a claim, a possessive reminder that I was his.
But now, his grip was a support. There was no jealousy left in him, only a heavy, somber respect for the man who had just taken a blade for his family.
Liam's hand, trembling and heavy with the weight of his final moments, reached up toward me.
He wanted to touch my cheek he had ignored during our 'marriage,' he had mocked in front of his mistress, he had betrayed for a lie.
But as his fingers came close, he paused. He saw the dark, wet red on his skin. He saw the pristine white of the medical coat I was wearing.
He pulled his hand back, resting it instead on the floor. Even at the end, he realized he didn't have the right to leave a mark on me.
"I'm... I'm so sorry, El," he whispered. The words were a struggle, a battle against the fluid rising in his lungs. "For everything. The lies... the child... I was... a coward."
"Don't talk, Liam," I choked out, tears blurring my vision until the world was nothing but a smear of grey and red. "The medics are here. They're going to help you. Just hold on."
"No," he let out a small, bubbling laugh that turned into a cough. "I'm a... doctor's husband, remember? I know... I know the anatomy. I'm already gone."
He turned his head slightly, his eyes finding Noah.
"Blackwood," Liam gasped, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur.
Noah leaned in, his face inches from Liam's. "I'm here, Sterling."
"Take care... of them," Liam wheezed, his eyes drifting to the ultrasound photo that had fallen out of my pocket during the struggle, lying now in the dust.
"Don't be... like me. Don't be... late. Always... look at her."
"I will," Noah promised, his voice thick with a raw, honest emotion. "I will protect them with my life. You have my word."
Liam looked back at me one last time. The light in his eyes was flickering, like a candle reaching the end of its wick.
"I thought... I was the star," he breathed, a single tear cutting a track through the grime on his face.
"But you... you were always... the sun. I just... forgot to look up."
He reached into the pocket of his tattered jacket. With a final, agonizing effort, his fingers brushed against something. He pulled it out just an inch.
It was the blue scarf. The one from Minnesota. The one that proved I had saved him ten years ago. He had kept it with him until the very end, a tattered piece of the truth he had finally found.
"I don't... deserve..."
His voice trailed off into a long, ragged exhale. His chest gave one final, shallow heave, and then it went still.
The hand that had been reaching for the scarf went limp, falling to the concrete with a soft, final thud.
The silence that followed was more deafening than the flashbangs.
Liam Sterling was gone.
The man who had been my greatest love and my greatest enemy was now just a body in a warehouse, his final act the only honest thing he had ever done.
I stayed there for a long time, my hands still pressed against his cooling skin, until Noah gently pulled me away.
He stood me up and tucked my head into the crook of his shoulder, shielding me as the EMTs moved in to cover the body with a white sheet.
