But it was nothing compared to the pain in my chest.
Three years ago, a rival faction kidnapped Brent. I brought every last one of my family's men from Kingsport to pull him out, and a knife went clean through the small of my back. Eighteen hours of surgery. Thirty-six steel pins just to hold me together.
On the day I was discharged, Brent knelt in front of me.
Told me he could never repay what I'd done for him. Not in this lifetime.
For three years after that, every overcast day, every rainstorm, the pain locked me in place so completely I couldn't move—and every time, Brent would cancel everything, meetings, dinners, all of it, just to kneel beside me and hold warm compresses against my back, hour after hour.
And now, for one woman, he'd driven his foot into that very spot.
"Maya. I told you. Apologize—or you don't get to walk away from here clean."
Brent's voice, ice-cold, dragged me back.
He planted his foot on the small of my back.
A crack.
White-hot numbness and a searing ache ripped through my lower back at once, and I couldn't hold back the groan. I knew—somewhere in there, something had just given way.