DAMON
One minute I was walking toward the car.
Keys in hand, jacket on, mind already halfway to the airstrip where Riley's jet was supposed to land. I had been running on low sleep for three days straight, surviving on black coffee and the kind of controlled focus that eventually snaps if you push it too far, but none of that mattered because Riley was coming home. That was the only thing I needed to hold onto tonight.
Then it hit me.
A slam, right in the center of my chest. So hard, so sudden, that I bent forward with a grunt and grabbed my own ribs like something had physically struck me from the inside. I squeezed, trying to locate it, trying to breathe through it, but there was nothing to press on because it wasn't that kind of pain. It was coming from somewhere deeper. Somewhere I
