"Isn't it?" He finally looked at me again, his hazel eyes dark with old pain, shadows playing across his handsome features. "I spent years trying to earn my place in that family. Being louder, funnier, more charming than everyone else. Making myself impossible to ignore. You know what I figured out?"
"What?" I asked, my heart aching for him.
"It doesn't matter how hard you try. Some people are just going to see you as an outsider. A mistake that got elevated above his station." His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath his skin. "David's own brothers still call me 'the bastard' when they think I can't hear them."
"They're assholes," I said fiercely, surprising myself with the venom in my voice, my free hand clenching into a fist.
Leo blinked at me, then laughed, a real laugh this time, warm and surprised, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Yeah. They are." He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek, warm despite the cold. "See, this is why I like you, Red. No bullshit. No pretending everything's fine when it's not."
"Is that why you wanted me?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it, my pulse quickening under his touch. "Because I don't pretend?" His expression shifted, the playfulness fading into something more intense. More serious. His hazel eyes locked onto mine with an almost physical weight.
"I wanted you because you saw me," he said quietly, his thumb tracing along my cheekbone, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. "That night at the party, when you were eighteen. You looked right through all my bullshit and saw the scared kid underneath. No one had ever done that before. No one had ever bothered to look."
"Leo..." I started, my breath catching in my throat.
"I know what you're going to say." He dropped his hand, pulling back slightly, his walls going back up like shutters closing over a window. "I was twenty-three. You were eighteen. I should have known better than to fall for David Harper's business partner's daughter. Should have kept my distance, let you live your life."
"That's not what I was going to say," I said softly, surprising us both.
He raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but I could see the hope flickering beneath the doubt. "No?"
"No." I reached out and caught his hand, threading my fingers through his, feeling the calluses on his palm. "I was going to say that I saw you too. That night. I saw how scared you were,underneath all the jokes and the charm. It terrified me, because if I could see through you, that meant you could probably see through me."
"You were planning to run," he said, and it wasn't a question. His eyes saw straight through me, just like they always had.
"I was planning to run," I confirmed, my voice barely above a whisper. "And you knew it. You tried to warn the others."
"Lot of good it did." He squeezed my hand, a rueful smile tugging at his lips, bittersweet and tired. "You still got away. Disappeared for three years while we tore ourselves apart trying to find you."
"I'm sorry," I said, the words inadequate but necessary.
"Don't be." He shifted closer, pulling the blanket tighter around both of us, his body warm against mine. "You did what you had to do. I get it. Better than the others, probably. I know what it feels like to want to escape. To want to be anywhere but where you are."
"Did you ever try? To leave?" I asked, searching his face for the answer before he could speak it.
"Once." His jaw tightened, the muscle working beneath his skin. "I was sixteen. Packed a bag, stole some cash from David's safe, made it about fifty miles before Mason tracked me down."
"What happened?" I asked, leaning into him, needing to know.
"He didn't yell. Didn't threaten. Just sat down next to me at the bus station and said, 'If you really want to go, I'll give you enough money to disappear. But I'd rather you came home.'" Leo shook his head, something like wonder softening his voice. "He was only eighteen himself, barely an adult, but he was already more of a father to me than David ever was. No one had ever given me a choice before. Not my mom, not David, not anyone. Mason was the first person who made me feel like I actually mattered. Like my leaving would hurt him."
"So you stayed," I said, understanding settling over me like the blanket around my shoulders.
"I stayed." He met my eyes, and I could see the younger version of him there — the angry, lost teenager who'd been handed a choice for the first time in his life. "And I've been trying to earn my place ever since. Trying to prove that I deserve to be here. That I'm not just David's mistake."
"You're not a mistake," I said firmly, squeezing his hand hard enough to make him look at me. "And you don't have to earn anything. You're their brother. You're pack." Something cracked in his expression. A vulnerability I'd never seen before, raw and unguarded, stripping away years of armor in an instant.
"You sound like you actually believe that," he whispered, his voice rough with barely contained emotion.
"I do," I said simply, holding his gaze without flinching. He stared at me for a long moment, his hazel eyes searching my face for something. Whatever he found there made his breath catch, made his whole body still.
"God, I love you," he breathed, the words tumbling out like he couldn't stop them, like they'd been trapped inside him for years and finally found their escape. "I've loved you since you were eighteen years old and looked at me like you could see every broken piece I was trying to hide. I've loved you through three years of missing you so much I thought I'd lose my mind. And I love you now, even though you're not ready to hear it, even though you might never love me back."
"Leo—" I started, my heart slamming against my ribs, but he shook his head.
"You don't have to say anything." He pressed his forehead to mine, his breath warm on my lips, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head with impossible tenderness. "I just needed you to know. The others have their ways of showing it, Mason with his protection, Caleb with his carvings, Ethan with hisresearch. But me? All I have is this. Words. The truth, for once, instead of a joke."
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. His face was inches from mine, his eyes closed, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding himself back.
