#chapter 44

The gun pressed up against the back of his skull didn’t budge. Alex’s voice came closer to Lando’s ear, before he laughed, the sound short and bitter. 

Something told Lando that Alex was most certainly not amused.

“Maybe it’s worth it,” the Thai man murmured. “Just for this. Just to see that look on your face while you sit here, like you’re anything but the reason she’s here in the first place.”

Lando’s jaw clenched. His fingers curled slowly around the edge of Y/N’s hospital blanket, not sure if it was to anchor himself or to keep from lunging.

Probably both.

In the silence of the moment, Alex took the opportunity to step closer. Lando could hear the sound of his shoe echoing — the shift of weight, the quiet squeak of the floor beneath his boots. 

It was only then that Lando finally turned. Slowly, he rose to his feet, careful not to startle the man behind him. Now, they faced each other, and it took everything in Lando not to betray the confusion that began to settle deep in his gut.

Alex looked… wrecked. 

Not furious, or even triumphant – just wrecked.

“Jesus Christ,” Lando muttered, swallowing thickly. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Alex didn’t answer. He just pressed the barrel of the gun up to Lando and stepped closer, shoving Lando forward a step, just enough to make the machines monitoring her beep harder. Lando caught himself by the edge of the plastic before he stumbled into her bedside.

“Really?” Lando barked bitterly. “You pull this shit now? Because what, you’re mad that you two broke up? Jesus. I knew you were soft, but fuck me.”

Alex didn’t flinch, but his eyes did darken while Lando’s quickly scanned the rest of the room. 

No Logan. No Oscar. No fucking security. Where the hell were they? This was a hospital. What kind of joke was this? They’d have posted people. Logan was supposed to be—

He didn’t have time to finish the thought before Alex was speaking again..

“You think this is about that?” Alex muttered. He sounded insulted. “You think I did this because of some breakup? Because, what, she dumped me?”

“Didn’t she?” Lando snapped. “I don’t know, you were barely around long enough to get dumped, mate.”

Now that got Lando the reaction he wanted. 

Alex shoved Lando — hard, the gun digging into his ribs now. Lando’s back hit the wall with a thud, the frame of a medical cabinet biting into his shoulder. But it was worth it — because Alex’s hand was trembling now, if even just barely. 

Standing there between the gun and the hospital bed, Lando watched him. He took in the twitch of Alex’s jaw, the way the man’s eyes kept darting to Y/N’s bed. It was clear that the guy wasn’t built for this – that much was obvious. Lando had worked long enough with killers to know the man standing before him wasn’t one. 

All Lando saw when he looked at him – when he studied the hatred darkening Alex’s face – was a man pretending to be much braver than he really was. All Alex seemed to be was a man playing at being a criminal and talking a big game, when in reality, there was no way he had the guts it would take to back it up.

“You,” Lando pointed, laughing, “are fuckin’ mental. I don’t even know you.”

“I’m not crazy,” Alex hissed, like the mere idea offended him. He pressed the gun deeper into Lando’s ribs, but his knuckles were white from strain.

“Sure,” Lando bit back. “Yeah. You’re just runnin’ around, what? Waving guns at strangers? Totally sane behaviour.”

“I’m not crazy!” Alex snapped, shoving harder metal harder until it bruised the bone beneath. “You just– You just don’t get it.”

“Then fucking make me understand, why don’t you?”

“I’m not crazy!” Alex shouted, this time loud enough to make Lando instinctively look toward the door. 

Someone had to have heard that, right? Security? A nurse?

No one came.

Where the fuck was Logan?

Logan always had an eye on her. He should’ve noticed something was off by now. And what kind of hospital just lets a guy walk into a private recovery room with a gun?

Lando’s brain was spinning, trying to calculate an exit, trying to keep his breathing even. He was interrupted by Alex pressing the barrel into his chest now, forcing him further backward.

“Don’t you get it?” Alex seethed. “I know you’re a lot of things, Norris. But I never took you for a fool.”

Lando exhaled slowly, jaw clenched tightly. “I’m not.”

Alex’s mouth twisted. “Then maybe you’re just stupid. Because you really think I’m going to let you walk out of here after this? After what you did to her?”

Lando’s jaw twitched. “I didn’t do shit,” he growled. “You’re the one that hurt Y/N!”

Alex's voice cracked — something bitter and cracked wide open. “I didn’t want to hurt her!”

The confession echoed too loud, seemingly reverberating through the walls. His breathing was starting to get shallow. Lando’s mind was moving faster now, trying to calculate distance, angles, timing. But the barrel was now practically lodged between his ribs, making it’s home there. 

He’d have to disarm or take a shot. Either way, it was close.

“She– She’s here because of you,” Alex said, lip curling. “Because of what you are. She was happy. She wasn’t supposed to be part of it. But then you showed up.”

Lando’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t want this for her either, asshole.”

“Bullshit,” Alex spat. “You could’ve let her go. But you didn’t.”

The gun pressed in tighter, sharper. Lando’s heart was hammering in his chest now, but he kept his voice even.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” Lando hissed. “Don’t put this on me. I didn’t make you do shit. You think I made you stick a knife in her chest? You think I—”

Alex shoved him against the wall before he could finish, gun pressed over his sternum now, Lando’s back knocking the emergency button that wasn’t wired to anything.

“Stop,” Alex snapped, voice booming. “You think I wanted to hurt her?!”

HIs eyes squinted like the mere act would be enough to remove the tears that threatened to cloud his vision. “You weren’t there. She trusted me. She looked at me like I was safe. You think I wanted to see her eyes change when she realized I wasn’t? You don’t know what it was like — to look in her eyes when she realized I broke that trust. You think I wanted to feel the knife go in? Hear the sound it made? Hear her choking as the blade punctured her lung–?”

Instantly, Lando’s face changed. Just like that, the sound of Alex’s voice was replaced by the sounds of her trying to speak, trying to fight the thick globs of blood that prevented from being able to say even the first syllable of his name without coughing within an inch of her life.

Her life. 

Lando’s ears rang, and for a moment he was somewhere far away. In that moment, he was back on the cold tile of Books & Brews, his eyes frozen on where her blood pooled on the tile, the weight of her in his hands the only thing grounding him. He looked down now and saw the black splotches — evidence of the hours he spent listening for the soft wheezing that meant that she was still alive. 

That fucking sound of her choking, gasping, drowning in her own blood…

That broke him.

Lando snapped.

In the blink of an eye, Lando surged forward, catching Alex off-guard just long enough to punch him straight in the face — again, and again, until blood slicked his own knuckles and Alex hit the floor with a groan. His fists landed, sharp and fast, knuckles splitting against cheekbone, nose, jaw, crashing into Alex and driving him backward with the force of every fucking ounce of anger in him.

“You fuckin’ bastard,” Lando shouted, breathing heavy now, voice raw. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to her! You had no right to even touch her. She trusted you, you piece of shit!”

Alex staggered, blood already in his mouth, but Lando didn’t stop. 

“You are fucking dead, you hear me? You don’t get to talk about her like that, you don’t get to fucking touch her, you sick fuck—”

He beat Alex down to his knees, blood speckling the floor. The gun slid a few feet across the room, metal clattering loudly as it spun across the marble.

Alex scrambled for it. Lando reached for a kick, but Alex got there first — his hand clambering for a grip before dragging it toward himself. As soon as his fingers wrapped themselves around the grip, Alex didn't hesitate to raise it in the air, aiming it directly at Lando.

Lando froze.

The nuzzle of the gun was now pointed right at his chest. The only sound in the room other than that of the monitors was the sound of heavy breathing, both men panting. Blood from Alex’s mouth mixed with split as it stained his teeth, trickling down his chin.

Now that he was more certain that Lando would be less likely to strangle him with a loaded gun pointed at him, Alex turned his face to the side, spitting the blood out of his mouth. “I did it to get your attention, you bastard.”

Lando’s chest heaved from the effort it took to hold himself back. Right now, all he could see was red. There was nothing but cold-blooded murder on his mind.

”She isn’t some– some thing!” Lando shot back. Anger filled his lungs like smoke, thick and toxic, making it difficult for him to breathe. He could barely even get the words out, red in the face. “You had no reason—”

“Because I saw the way you looked at her!” Alex shouted suddenly, voice ripping through the quiet like a whip. “I saw what you did every time you walked into that shop — like she was the only thing keeping you– keeping you human.”

Lando’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Alex kept going, his jaw clenched.

“You don’t get to be the kind of man you are and love someone like her. That’s not how this works. You don’t– You can’t have both!”

Lando shook his head slowly, his expression perplexed. “You’re not makin’ any sense—”

“I wanted you to lose someone you loved!” Alex roared. “I wanted you to know what it feels like!”

“What? What the fuck is this about, Albon?”

Alex stepped forward. One step, then another. Each one more unhinged than the last, eyes wide, blood dried blood marking his chin.

“I needed to get your attention. And, well, it worked, didn’t it?” he said, voice hoarse, eyes wild. “You’re here. You care.”

Lando’s heart dropped.

“I did it,” Alex whispered, teeth clenched, voice almost breaking. “I did it to get your attention. And now you know what it feels like, don’t you? To lose someone you love.”

He spit blood onto the floor.

“I wanted you to feel it, Norris. I wanted you to know what it’s like. What you did to me.”

Lando’s breath caught.

“What I—”

But Alex didn’t let him finish. 

“When I went to see her tonight, she looked happy to see me. Of course she was — I was her friend, wasn’t I? She hugged me.”

His voice cracked, but his grip on the gun didn’t.

“That was when I did it,” Alex whispered. “Right when she hugged me. I had to. It– It had to be close enough for me to feel the breath leave her lungs.”

Lando’s stomach churned, vision narrowing, red creeping in at the corners.

“I needed her to bleed slowly,” Alex explained. “Slow enough that you’d find her. So that you’d see her there. That way, when you walked in, when you saw her dying, you’d finally fucking look at me.”

Lando’s head dropped back against the wall, chest heaving. “Well,” he rasped. “You’ve got me. Congratulations.”

Alex’s eyes burned.

“That’s right,” he whispered. “Are you looking now?”

So she wasn’t just collateral.She was the price.

Shit.

Lando brought his hands up.

Not all the way — just enough to feign compliance, enough to give himself some room to move, to think. His breathing was still sharp, his pulse hammering in his throat, but he forced his face to stay slack. Blank. Calm.

If Alex saw panic, he’d pull the trigger.But if he saw calculation? He might hesitate.

And that’s all Lando needed.

He shifted slightly. Just enough to let the cuff of his trousers fall lower over his ankle. The hospital tile was cold against the back of his heel as he bent one leg slowly, moving like he was steadying himself from the earlier blow. His fingers twitched once.

The backup gun was still there.

Small, matte black, and concealed perfectly in an ankle holster. He flexed his foot, just to double-check it hadn’t come loose.

Then he moved.

Lando’s fingers inched toward his ankle — slow, practiced, the way he’d done a hundred times before. His backup piece was strapped just beneath the hem of his trousers, snug in the holster, easy to draw if he could just reach for the grip. His hand moved in the most miniscule motion, just a flick, smooth and practiced, a movement he’d done a hundred times before in dark rooms and back alleys—

But Alex wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

The second his fingertips brushed the grip, Alex’s eyes snapped away from Y/N’s still figure laying on the hospital bed and down to where Lando’s hand brushed dangerously close to his ankle holster. The next second, Alex’s boot came fast and hard, knocking Lando’s hand away before he could aim his weapon. The gun skittered across the floor, sliding somewhere under the hospital bed.

Bloody hell, now they’re both useless.

Then Alex slammed him back with the flat of his arm, until his shoulders slammed the wall. It forced Lando back hard enough that the back of Lando’s head cracked against the wall with a dull thud. His skull whipped against the plaster, white light bursting behind his eyes.

“Look. At. Me!” Alex barked.

Lando’s vision swam. His mouth tasted like metal. But he blinked the blur away, eyes locking on the man in front of him.

For a split second, he stared. Really stared. He tried to see past the split lip, the wild eyes, the too-tight grip on the gun. He tried looking for something familiar, anything – a connection, a moment, a why.

But his mind stayed blank.

Drug deal gone bad? Doubtful — he didn’t run his own deals that low-level. 

Did I short him? Not his style. 

A casino grudge? Maybe. Lando knew the look of a man who lost big and blamed everyone but himself — but this? This wasn’t that.

Scanning the situation, Lando kept his tone easy, shrugging like he wasn’t still bleeding from the mouth.

“Look, mate. If this is about money, you’re wasting your fucking time,” he tried to tell Alex. “I don’t pay every bloke who points a gun at me. If I did, I’d be flipping burgers or filing taxes by now.”

The next punch came fast — it split his lip wider, his head snapping sideways with the force. Before Lando could recover, Alex’s hand shot out and grabbed his jaw, his fingertips digging in, forcing the man beneath Alex’s hand to look straight at him.

“Look. Closer.” Alex gritted out between clenched teeth. “You better recognize me like your life depends on it. Because it does.”

Forced to look forward, Lando kept his eyes on him — locked in, face to face.

And yet, nothing.

“Clearly I don’t,” Lando mumbled through his swollen lip and locked jaw. “F’ I did, I wouldn’ be here, now would I?”

Alex hit him again.

The world blinked black for a second. Lando’s head snapped to the side, a splatter of blood landing on the floor beside him. He slumped slightly, groaning, chest heaving.

When Lando’s vision cleared, he kept his gaze steady this time. He stared, studying the angles of Alex’s face — the cut of his jaw, the bridge of his nose, the way his eyes flared when he was angry. He concentrated on him like he was a puzzle with missing pieces.

And maybe… maybe there was something.

Something faint, a distant resemblance – like a face he’d glimpsed in a room once or a name half-heard in a conversation he couldn’t remember the context for. Looking closer now, seeing Alex’s face felt a bit like looking at a blurry photograph buried in the back of his mind, stubbornly refusing to come into focus.

But no matter how much Lando tried to concentrate, he couldn’t make it out. Even despite his best efforts, he couldn’t drag the scrap of memory out of the murky depth up to the surface of his mind.

Alex watched him struggle, and smiled as if he was relieved. It almost seemed like he wanted Lando to suffer through it, like the not-knowing was some punishment Lando deserved for a crime he couldn’t even remember committing.

Whoever the fuck Alex Albon really was — Lando was going to remember.

Even if it killed him.

His head was pounding, his mouth slick with blood, but his brain was moving — one thought cutting through the haze: Logan.

Logan was supposed to be here.Logan was supposed to be watching her.He should've noticed.

If I could just call—Just one ring—

The cold barrel of his own gun jabbed harder into his ribs.

“Don’t fucking bother,” Alex snapped, his voice thin and shaking with something barely contained. “What, you trying to call the blonde bloke? Eh… something Sargeant, yeah?”

Lando froze.

“Don’t worry. He’s not dead. Wouldn’t be that stupid. George just helped me... put him down for a bit.”

Lando’s pulse kicked faster.

“George,” Lando muttered. “Russell?”

Alex smiled grimly. “Yeah. That one. Man’s a lot of things, but loyalty’s easy when you pay him enough.”

Lando stared, still panting through his teeth, still thinking at a million kilometers an hour.

George. George fucking Russell. Of course.

The man was a mercenary for hire who had gained a name for himself during the time he worked for the Wolff, an Austrian mob that had had its own golden era. Surveillance, hits, security, contaminants – he did it all. 

But when they stopped being able to produce top quality product, they kicked him to the curb in favor of newer blood – Kimi Antonelli. Russell had to watch as his rank as Toto’s right hand was discarded like his years of loyalty and hard work meant nothing, all because they lived in the naive hope that talent like Antonelli’s would help restore the Wolffs to their glory days.

The worst part was? The Wolffs gave up on producing the best drug in the market. They too now distributed Noxium for a partial cut, making their money off of someone else's hard work.

Yet they never took George back in.

George Russell had always been something cold and deadly. Hell, he’d been trained by the same guys in Williams that Logan had, but there was a certain edge to him that even the Wolffs seemed to sense – a certain madness that made him a loose cannon instead of an asset. 

Now Russell was left wandering the streets like a stray dog, offering his services to whoever paid him the right price – like sticking a needle in the neck of Lando’s favorite knife-wielding assassin, Logan Sargeant.

“Kid’s not getting up any time soon,” Alex continued, calmer now, more assured by the growing frustration displayed on Lando’s face. “And that means you’ve got my undivided attention.”

Lando’s lip curled. “You went through all that trouble just to see me?”

“No,” Alex muttered, shaking his head slowly. “I went through all that trouble to make sure you saw her. Like that.”

Lando’s gut clenched. It took everything in him not to look over at her. Something told him he was going to vomit if he did.

This is all your fault.

Lando’s brain worked fast — faster than his pulse, faster than the ache pounding in his skull. He measured angles from the door to the window, to the gun on the floor.

By all accounts, his chances were slim.

But hey, he’d worked with worse.

He shifted just barely, his weight tilting to the balls of his feet. He needed some trick, some distraction, anything – anything to reset the balance of power. “You didn’t have to hurt her,” Lando spoke just loudly enough, hoping it’d be enough to get divert Alex’s attention. 

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Alex snapped back, and for a second — just a second — he sounded sincere. He sounded wrecked.

Lando didn’t buy it.

“I wasn’t supposed to,” Alex tried to explain, like he was trying to convince himself of it too. “But it was the only way. The only way to get your attention.”

That was when Lando Norris made his only mistake. He glanced beside him to check on Y/N – just a flick of his eyes, barely noticeable at all. A motion done only on instinct.

But it was enough.

From where he stood, Alex Albon saw it instantly. It wasn’t much—a small crack, a human moment, the briefest flicker of emotion. 

But it was too late for Lando to take it back. Lando didn’t have to move more than an inch before Alex followed his eyes — flickering, just for a second, toward what mattered most.

Her.

That was all it took.

Alex’s expression shifted, like a wire snapping behind his eyes. As if coming to some sudden realization, he turned sharply and swung the gun away from Lando and aimed the barrel of it directly at her, finger tightening on the trigger. His hand shook not from hesitation, but from something worse — the unsteadiness of a man who didn’t want to do this but would anyway.

Lando recognized it too late.

Desperation.

“How about now?” Alex spat, voice suddenly frayed and frantic. “Now do you remember?”

Lando’s heart slammed against his ribs. His body moved on instinct, stepping forward, hand raised, voice cracking before he could think better of it.

“I— I don’t!” he shouted, breath hitching. “I don’t, alright? Fuck—don’t. Please. Don’t.”

No no no no, not like this. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen—

“Don’t fuck with me!” Alex bellowed, his voice breaking apart mid-shout. His whole frame was shaking now. “I’m done playing games with you. I’ll fucking kill her. Right now, Norris. You think I won’t?”

Lando’s hands stayed raised. His mind was burning, every thought racing past each other, tripping over the panic. 

What kind of man did this? What kind of sick bastard turned around and hurt the one person who trusted him most, who had nothing to do with any of this—

“You can’t do this,” Lando hissed, his voice low. “She trusted you. How could you do this to her?”

Alex’s eyes glistened not with tears, but with a grief so loud it had nowhere left to go. His eyes were red — not just from exhaustion, but from something deeper. A corrosion. “Don’t try to pull that clever shit with me. You– You think I’m stupid?”

“I’m not— I swear to God, I don’t know what you want,” Lando snapped, chest tight, rage and panic swirling, burning. “Just– Put the fucking gun down.”

“You think I won’t do it?” Alex snarled, louder now. “You think I won’t kill her right now?”

His whole body was shaking, but the gun was steady, pointed right at her. 

One twitch of his trigger finger. That’s all it’d take.

Lando’s hands were still up, but his fists clenched until his knuckles ached. He wanted to kill Alex. God knows he wanted to. 

But one wrong word, one wrong move, and it’d all be over.

For good.

“Why? Why her? Trust me, you don’t want to–”

“Because you hurt someone I loved!” Alex screamed, voice splintering down the middle.

Lando went still.

“What?”

Alex’s breath hitched again. His whole body jerked like he was fighting himself.

“My sister,” Alex spat, like the words themselves tasted bitter. “My sister, Norris. She’s hooked up to machines just like that — can’t walk, can’t fucking speak, because of you.”

Lando’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He only blinked in confusion.

He still doesn’t get it. 

How fucking dare he.

“What are you—”

“You don’t remember,” Alex snarled. “Of course you fucking don’t. She’s been in this hospital for four hundred and twenty three days. She’s hooked up to machines just like that — can’t walk, can’t fucking speak, because of you. She’s been lying here, wasting away, all because you don’t care who you hurt as long as you get to go home happy!”

And suddenly it hit, like glass shattering in Lando’s memory.

A crash.Metal on metal.Screams.Blurred headlights, a mangled car, reckless speed. The squeal of tires against pavement as he fled the scene in the midst of an Interpol chase..Collateral.

“You—” Lando whispered, eyes wide. “...There was someone in that car?”

Alex let out a cold, humorless chuckle. 

“That’s right.” His voice dropped low, gaze dark.

“Fuck,” Lando whispered. To his credit, he almost seemed sincerely remorseful – except for the fact that Alex wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, Alex’s gaze was focused on Y/N in the hospital bed in front of him, while his mind recalled another bed much like hers.

“She’s still here,” Alex said, his voice shaking. “Just down the hall. She breathes through a tube.”

Lando’s heart hammered, sweat cold on his back. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, breathless.

Alex’s laugh was dry. “Sorry? Fuck you.”

Lando swallowed.

“You were driving like no one else on the road mattered, like nothing could touch you. But for one single moment, your car hit hers and kept going. And she—”

His voice broke.

“She hasn’t woken up since.”

Lando’s mouth went dry.

“My sister,” Alex continued. “Was a fucking nurse. She worked night shifts to pay for my university. Ever since our mom died, she paid our rent. She—she loved me, you get that? She did everything for me. And you left her bleeding out in the street like she was just—”

His voice cracked again. “—like she was just some thing. Like roadkill.”

Lando’s stomach sank.

“And now she’s gone. She’s gone.” Alex’s head tilted. “She might still be breathing. But she’s not there. And you? You got to live, to keep going like nothing even happened.”

Finally, Lando seemed to find his voice again. “She– She didn’t deserve that.”

“No,” Alex said, stepping closer, “but it’s what she got.”

Alex’s gait was steady as he approached closer to the foot of her bed, but his eyes felt hollow as he looked up from her to glance at Lando now.

“It’s fair, isn’t it? A life for a life.”

And so, for once in his life, the reaper was laid bare, a phantom made human. For once, Lando Norris was nothing more than a scared boy with no cards left to play.

Lando’s breath caught, raw in his throat.

His eyes flicked between Alex’s hand — steady on the trigger — and her. Y/N, still motionless in the bed, chest barely rising under the weight of machines keeping her here, keeping her alive. Alex now had his gun pointed at the one thing he’d spent weeks, months, trying to protect — even when he’d done the exact opposite. 

Panic hit him like a brick to the chest.

“What are you doing?” he said, his voice suddenly frayed, raw. “You said you didn’t want to hurt her!”

Alex’s eyes were wild. “I didn’t.”

“Then don’t.”

“I didn’t want to have to,” Alex corrected, voice splintering now. “But if I have to make you understand, I’ll finish what I started.”

Lando’s breath stuttered. He stepped forward instinctively, hands up. “No. No—no, okay. Just—look, take anything. Whatever you want, I’ll get it. Just not her, alright? Not her.”

“Why not?” Alex asked, tilting his head curiously. “In just a second, I could–”

“Wait!” Lando’s voice broke, sharp and unsteady. “Wait.You don’t wanna do that. Take– Take me. You want money? You want– what– a car? I’ll give it to you. Whatever it is you want. You can have it all.”

The gun stayed fixed in its place.

“Just not her,” Lando whispered. “Please. She’s everything.”

Alex chuckled under his breath — low and humorless — before studying Lando for a moment. Something bitter and dark twisted behind his eyes. He didn’t lower the gun.

“Beg me.”

“What?”

“Beg me not to kill her.”

Lando’s mouth parted, a breath caught in his throat.

Beg me not to kill her.

“I–” Lando swallowed. “I don’t understand.” 

His eyes flit to the familiar face that lay in the center of the room, to the one person he knew for certain mattered more than anything.

Alex took a step closer to Lando, now standing between the two of them. He seemed to consider his next words very carefully, taking a steadying breath before he spoke. “I want to hear you beg, Norris,” he explained, gradually becoming more sure of himself with each word. 

“I want to see you brought to your knees. That’s what this is, right? You said she’s everything. So go on, prove it. Beg.

The room was still, its silence interrupted only by the hissing and beeping of the machines.

Lando stood there, hands still half-raised, pulse hammering so loud he thought he’d throw up. But when he looked at her — pale and fragile and so stupidly her even now — he didn’t hesitate.

His voice cracked when he spoke.

“Don’t.”

The word came out weak. Pathetic.

“Please,” Lando tried again. “Don’t hurt her. Please don’t take her away from me. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything. She didn’t deserve this.”

His knees almost buckled, but he stayed standing.

This is all your fault.

“Please.” Lando stood there, shaking — not from fear for himself, but from the sheer fucking terror of how close the gun was to her chest, to her heart, to what was left of his.

His pride scraped the back of his throat, but he swallowed it. He didn’t care.

“I…” he started weakly, “am begging you. Please. Don’t hurt her.”

Alex didn’t move.

“Say it again.”

Lando looked in Alex’s eyes, desperate for some semblance of control. But all he saw instead was own rage mirrored back to him only this time with something a thousand times more potent behind it.

Grief.

“I’m begging you. Don’t take her from me.”

Lando’s voice cracked as he offered all that he had left now in exchange for the life of his love. 

“Please.”

a/n: still not feeling 100% about this chapter, but if i proofread it any longer i was gonna start going crazy crazy. so here it is - consider this a totally not belated gift for lando's home race win!

i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always - lmk what you think :)