Chapter 25 · Forty-Five Seconds

"Give it to me, Ortega." Levi's hand closes over my wrist, not asking. "Now."

"You had your shot." I twist the label flat against my palm, ink side down, and shove my shoulder into his sternum. Bone meets bone. He doesn't move an inch, and that pisses me off more than the grab did.

"Forty seconds," the intercom says, flat and bored, like it's reading a bus schedule instead of counting down to the moment his nephew sees his uncle's blood work laid out on a gurney tray. "Visitor badge cleared. Corridor door releasing."

Levi's jaw goes tight. First real crack I've seen in him since he walked into my cage with a suspension letter and a lawyer's smile.

"He can't see this," he says. Quiet. Not a command anymore. Something closer to a man asking.

"Should've thought about that before you bled dirty."

"Nash." My name, not my last name. That's new too. "Thirty seconds. Help me or don't, but stop talking."

I look at the panel in my fist.