Chapter 24 · The Override Isn't His

Levi's forearm hit the wall an inch from my ear, and the label went from my fist to his in one dumb second, then back to mine when I twisted under him.

"Give it here," he said. Not loud. Worse than loud.

"No."

His knee wedged between mine, pinning my hip to the cinderblock. I felt the stitches on his side drag against my scrubs, felt him hiss through it and not stop pressing. Bone against bone, his hip into mine, no room left to call it professional distance.

"You don't get to read a name that's not yours," he said.

"You don't get to bleed all over evidence and call it privacy."

His hand closed over my wrist, grinding the little bones together until my fingers went numb around the label's edge. I didn't let go. He leaned in until his breath hit my jaw, hot, fast, the kind of breathing a man does when the fight's already gone past the part where words matter.

"Ortega."

"Grant.