And then it happens, and the moment his fist connects with my jaw, I hear sirens in the distance. The pain radiating through my body tells me that this is getting real now, and I need to push him over the edge.

I land a few more punches in his stomach, but I’m holding back my real rage. I want to kill this son of a bitch, but I can’t, and I won’t because that’s not who I am. That’s not the kind of man Harper wants me to be either.

As we go back and forth trading punches, the crowd around us starts shouting, and the sirens get closer. And that’s when a split-second break in concentration from looking at the police cars tearing down the street leaves me vulnerable. He lunges at me, knocking me to the ground, and in a second, he has the knife in his hand and his arm is moving. Feeling a sharp prick in my side, I have no idea what he has done to me, but I know I’m in trouble.

Shit.

I’ve fucked up here.

But before I have time to try to push him off me, his weight disappears off my chest, and the sharp pain in my side lessens as he is being pulled backward. Everything starts happening quickly, and I just lie here watching Ashton and one of his guys pin Chester to the ground, his face pushed into the concrete, his hands behind his back, and the knife by my side where he dropped it when they took him by surprise.

Putting my hand on my side where it hurts, I’m hesitant to look but know I need to, and as I pull my hand back up, I see the red dampness on it. The sight of blood should have me freaking out, but instead, it just fuels my rage. Who the hell assessed this man and deemed him stable enough to be let free from prison, and why wasn’t he being monitored by the parole system when he started searching for Harper? If it wasn’t for Ashton stumbling on this by accident while looking into another case, then we never would have known, and I can’t even bear to think of what could have happened.

I try to push onto my side so I can get up, because I made a deal that I would be standing and alive at the end of this, and I’m a man of my word.