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Aria's POV
The city smelt of smoke and champagne, the streets alive with laughing and flashing lights. I shouldn't have come out tonight-my phone vibrating with New Year's wishes felt like a reminder that I was alone-but something dragged me into the mayhem.
Then the gunshot shattered everything.
People yelled, bottles smashed. My heart slammed against my ribs as I hid behind a trash bin. And there he was.
A man, slumped against the alley wall, blood dripping through his white shirt. Not panicked. Not begging. Just... waiting, controlled, menacing, like a predator in pain.
"Please," he said, voice low, hoarse. "Help me."
Every instinct shouted at me to run. But I couldn't. Something in his eyes-fierce, vulnerable, magnetic-pinned me to the spot.
"Okay," I whispered, voice quivering. "Let's get you somewhere safe."
He leaned into me, weight substantial and real. My fingertips stroked his chest to calm him, and heat flashed through me-not fear, not just adrenaline-but something sharper, deeper. My pulse raced as I felt his heartbeat against mine, irregular, yet constant in a peculiar rhythm only I could feel.
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