The gates are manned around the clock—two brothers at all times, armed and vigilant.
Security cameras are checked and rechecked, angles adjusted, blind spots eliminated.
Nobody comes or goes without being logged in a notebook that Ruger keeps in the chapel.
Every vehicle is inspected, inside and out.
And I am never, ever alone.
If Garrett has to leave—for church, for work, for anything—someone else takes his place.
Maddox. Coin. Bracken.
Even Ruger, a few times, sitting quietly in the corner of the main room while I pretend to read a book.
Ounce stops by every evening to check in, his dark eyes scanning the room like he's cataloging every shadow.
At first, I feel guilty about it.
All these men, rearranging their lives to babysit me.
All this chaos because of a problem I brought to their doorstep.
But when I try to apologize—to Coin, to Maddox, to anyone who'll listen—they shut me down.
"You're family," Maddox says. It's the most I've ever heard him say at once. "Family protects family. End of discussion."
So I stop apologizing.
And slowly, the constant presence starts to feel less like suffocation and more like love.
"How are you holding up?" Tildie asks, settling beside me on the couch.
It's been three days since the photos arrived, and she's made it her mission to keep me company whenever the brothers are busy with other tasks.
"I don't know," I admit. "Scared. Angry. Tired of being scared and angry."
"That's fair."
"I keep thinking—" I stop, not sure I want to say it out loud.
"What?"
"I keep thinking this is my fault. That I brought this on everyone. If I hadn't been an addict, if I hadn't gotten involved with Virgil in the first place?—"
"Stop." Tildie's voice is sharp. "Don't do that to yourself."
"But it's true. None of this would be happening if?—"
"If what? If you'd made different choices years ago?" She shakes her head. "You can't change the past, Vanna. You can only deal with the present. And in the present, you're clean. You're fighting. You're building a life. The man who's threatening you is a predator who would have found anothervictim if it wasn't you. This isn't about what you did. It's about what he is."
I want to believe her.
I want to accept that Virgil's evil is his own, not something I created or deserve.
But the guilt is hard to shake.
The sense that I've brought danger to these people who've welcomed me in.
