The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback (Astra and Zayne) novel Chapter 180

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

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I crossed to her on unsteady legs and dropped to my knees in front of the chair. The second my hands reached for her, her entire face crumpled.

“Zane…”

“I know.” My fingers shook so badly I could barely work the knots behind her back. “I know, Trouble.”

“Zane…”

“I’ve got you.”

The rope finally gave and her arms came free. She threw them around my neck with a broken little sob.

Fuck.

I caught her so hard the chair scraped backward across the floor. One arm locked around her waist while my other hand disappeared into her hair, pulling her against my chest. Her heartbeat pounded against me, her breath warm against my neck, and something inside me finally unclenched.

Alive.

She was fucking alive.

I buried my face against her neck and finally dragged in a full breath, breathing in the familiar scent of strawberries I’d spent four fucking days terrified I’d never smell again.

I stayed there, face hidden against her skin, until I trusted myself enough to speak.

“I’ve got you.” I said again, the words coming out rougher than I meant them to.

Her fingers tightened in the back of my shirt, and I held her closer.

“Zane!”

Landon’s shout snapped my attention across the room.

Astra startled against me as I turned toward Silas.

He wasn’t on the floor anymore.

Somehow, he’d gotten the gun back.

For one horrible second, I thought he was going to aim it at Astra again.

He didn’t.

Silas raised the barrel to his own head.

The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

SOMETHING WORTH SAVING

ASTRA

For several seconds I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.

Silas stood across the root with the pistol pressed hard against the side of his head.

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Blood covered his face and his nose sat crooked from Zane’s fists, one eye already swelling shut beneath the spreading bruises.

His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, but the hand holding the gun never wavered.

“No.”

I moved toward him before I even realized I was doing it, only for Zane’s arm to lock around my waist and pull me firmly against his chest.

“No.” His mouth was close to my hair. “You’re not going anywhere near him.”

When I tried to move again, he moved with me, keeping himself between Silas and me

Across the room, Mr. Ashton hadn’t budged.

“Mercer.”

Silas let out a tired laugh. “Don’t.”

“Put the gun down.”

“Oh, now you get to tell me what to do?”

“I’m telling you not to pull that trigger.”

Silas turned his attention to him. “Funny. You weren’t nearly this concerned when it was my family.”

Mr. Ashton had no answer for that.

God, I wanted to hate Silas.

Maybe I did.

I could still feel the handcuffs digging into my wrists if I thought about them too long. I remembered waking beneath that attic ceiling every morning wondering whether I would ever see Mom again.

He had ripped me out of my life because of something Landon had done years before I even knew either of them existed. I had every reason to hate him, every reason to believe whatever happened next was something he’d brought on himself.

And yet I couldn’t stand there and watch him die.

Because I remembered the breakfast trays too. The stupid fresh flowers he’d put beside them. The way he’d wiped tears from my face with such ridiculous care when he was the reason I was crying in the first place.

He had promised again and again that he wouldn’t hurt me.

Maybe the saddest part was that I thought he genuinely believed he hadn’t.

“Silas.”

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The Nerd Who Stole The Quarterback

His attention came back to me, and Zane’s arm tightened immediately.

I rested my hand over his forearm. “It’s okay.”

“The fuck it is.”

“Zane. Please.”

He still wouldn’t let me go, so I stopped trying and faced Silas from where Zane held me.

“You said I was going home.”

Silas stared at me.

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