“I was trying to protect you,” he says, almost too fast. Like that makes any sense to me.
“Fromwhat?” I fire back.
But he doesn’t answer. He turns and starts pacing, dragging a hand down his face like he’s trying to hold something in. When his hand drops, there’s blood smeared across his fingers. He looks like an animal caught in a trap—unsure whether to run or tear something to pieces. “I just wanted you safe,” he mutters. “That’s all I fucking wanted.”
And that’s what shatters me. I let out a sob, raw and shaking, and throw my arm out toward the bakery. Toward the still-smoking ruins of my life. “I feel really safe now, Damian.Real fucking safe,” I choke out. “Thanks for the excellent security detail.”
He stops mid-step. His eyes snap to mine, wild and wounded. He looks torn—ripped in half by it. Half of him is breaking apart watching me cry, the other half locked on Nathan like he's seconds from tearing him limb from limb.
And Nathan? Still hasn’t moved. Still standing behind me like he belongs there, like he doesn’t feel the danger radiating off Damian’s skin.
“Why do you think I need a stranger,” I say, pointing at Reese, “watching me?Silently. Secretly.Like I’m a prisoner. Or am I bait?” My voice shakes. My body shakes.
Damian doesn’t answer. His fists just curl tighter, and the silence thickens, heavy with all the truths he won’t say.
“You’re hiding things from me,” I say, my voice low, shaking. “And I don’t know who you are at all, Damian. Not really. Because youwon’tlet me.”
I take another step back.
He reaches for me, eyes wide, voice catching. “Lo?—”
But I cut him off.
“You know,” I say, swallowing hard, “I…loveyou. And my God, I’m an idiot for it.” My chest heaves, and the tears blur my vision, but I keep going. “And I don’t even knowwhatI love. Or what I’m holding on to. Because you never really gave me anything to hold, Damian. Not your trust. Not your truth. Just pieces. Just shadows. And I don’t understand right now why I can’t let you go.” I pause, my breath trembling, my heart aching. “But Jesus,” I whisper, “you’re starting to make it real easy for me to walk away.”
He says nothing.
Nothing.
So I turn toward the ruined building. The bakery. The blackened bones of the life I built.
And still, he doesn’t speak.
I nod slowly, just once, because I was waiting. Hoping.Beggingin my silence for him to say something. Anything.I love you too. Stay. Please don’t go.
But the silence stays.
And it breaks me. It scorches across my chest, lodges like glass in my throat—his silence. His unbearable indifference to my pain. His complete and utterwillingnessto let me walk away like none of it ever mattered. Tears slip down my cheeks as I turn away, heart hammering, lungs raw from ash and grief.
I can’t do this anymore. Not tonight. Not like this.
I turn to Nathan, my voice barely more than a breath. “Can you take me to your place? Please. I just… I need to get away from him.”
He nods without a word and walks to the car, opening the door for me like he’s been waiting for me to need something—anything—he can give.
Behind me, I hear it. “Lo.” Damian’s voice again. This time cracked. Quiet. Almost broken.
But I don’t turn around.
Because my name isn’t what I need to hear.
I slide inside the car, every muscle in my body shaking as I close the door behind me. The world outside muffles—voices, movement, the faint hum of wind—but I can still feel Damian watching.
I can feel his silence pounding against the window.
Nathan rounds the front of the car, calm, quiet, steady. He opens the driver’s side door.
Then it happens.
