Anderson sat in silence.

The weight of Ren’s words pressed against his skull like a vice, but his body didn’t move. Not even a twitch. He just sat there, hands resting on his knees, eyes locked on the door she had walked out of.

His breathing was slow. Too slow.

Mia was asleep in the other room. Safe—for now.

But that threat? It was real.

Ren wasn’t bluffing.

Anderson had been in the game long enough to know when someone was just talking shit and when they were serious. Ren was serious.

She would kill Mia without hesitation.

And that was the moment something snapped.

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Anderson pushed himself up from the chair slowly, methodically. He walked over to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water over his face.

His reflection in the window above the sink stared back at him.

Dark circles under his eyes. A split lip that had barely healed. A face that had taken too many punches, both literal and figurative.

He looked like a man who had nothing left.

And yet—he still had something.

Mia.

And that meant Ren had just made the worst fucking mistake of her life.

Anderson reached for the whiskey bottle on the counter but stopped himself. His fingers hovered over the glass before curling into a fist.

Not tonight.

He needed a clear head.

Because tonight, he was making a decision.

Ren thought he was out of options.

She thought she had him pinned.

But what she didn’t understand—what she had never understood—was that Anderson didn’t fold.

He survived.

Every damn time.

And if she wanted a war?

He’d give her one.