“Don’t call it that, Holden,” she says, voice sharp but wavering. “That was never my home.”
Mary is beside her, eyes narrowed and steely as always. She speaks before I can, her voice cutting through the icy air like a blade. “You don’t belong here.”
“I have documentation,” he sneers, reaching into his coat like it proves something. “Psych evaluations, behavioral statements. Court papers, if you’re curious. She’s been declared mentally unfit. I’m her emergency contact. Her conservator. She belongs with me.”
“She belongs to no one,” Mary snaps.
Tessa trembles. Not with fear. With fury.
“You forged those,” she says. “You manipulated every test. You made sure I had nowhere to go but you.”
And he smiles like the devil. “I did what I had to. You weren’t yourself. You needed me.”
That’s when I step out of the trees.
I don’t speak right away. I walk slowly, boots heavy in the snow, posture loose, deliberate—lethal. He sees me too late. He blinks, adjusts his stance like it matters, and his mouth curls into something half smug, half confused.
“You must be the mountain man,” he says with a smirk. “I expected... more beard.”
I stop just short of him, barely a foot away, and let the silence speak for me.
His smirk twitches. “Well? You gonna grunt at me, or are you capable of actual words?”
“I’m going to give you one chance,” I say, voice quiet, calm, and edged with something primal. “Turn around. Get in your car. And don’t stop until you’re back in whatever corner of the world you slithered out from.”
He scoffs. “She’s not yours. She’s sick. She needs help.”
I step closer. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to make you disappear.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
He moves to step past me, to reach her—and I grab his coat, slam him against the wall of the house hard enough to rattle the siding.
Tessa gasps. Mary yells, “Darius?—!”
But I’m already inches from his face, claws punching through the skin of my fingertips, breath steaming in furious clouds.
“I’ve killed before,” I say, voice thick with the growl rising from my chest. “Men stronger than you. Men who thought they could touch what’s mine.”
“Yours?” he sputters, struggling against my grip. “She’s not—she’s not a thing!”
“No,” I whisper, “she’severything. And that’s exactly why I’ll destroy you if you ever come near her again.”
His face goes pale, the fear finally sinking in. He tries to twist free, but Mary’s voice cuts through again—calmer now, firm. “Darius. Let him go.”
“I should rip his throat out.”
“But you won’t,” she says gently. “Because that’s not who you are anymore.”
I stare at the man squirming in my grasp, eyes wide, breath short. Every instinct in me screams to finish it—to end the threat. But I don’t.
I drop him.
He stumbles backward into the snow, scrambling for footing, sputtering half-formed threats and gasps. Tessa hasn’t moved. Her hands are fisted at her sides, but her eyes are locked on me—not with fear, not with judgment. With something quieter. Warmer.
Holden straightens, spits blood into the snow. “Oh, how convenient, Tessa. Did you know, when you got here?”
