DAMIAN
Marlowe stands there, tense and defiant, her chin tilted up like she’s daring anyone to question her. Not trembling. Not hesitating. Not running after a sister who sold her out or a father who traded her life away to pay his debt. She stares down the echo of Taylor’s voice like it means nothing. Like it never deserved her attention in the first place.
And fuck, I think I stop breathing. She’s not just a storm. She’s the reckoning that comes after. Not wild and flailing. Not a flash of chaos that burns itself out. She’s the kind thatendures. The quiet, brutal kind. The kind that floods everything soft, strips away the rot, and leaves only what deserves to survive. She doesn’t just know what’s worth saving—sheiswhat’s worth saving. And everything else can drown.
She just lost everything—her home, her bakery, the one safe place she ever had—and after all that she stood there and chose herself. She didn’t fold. Didn’t go back to her old ways. She cut the line and let it bleed. I’m so fucking proud of her.
My hand is still on her back. I don’t move it. Ican’t. And I can’t stop looking at her. I don’t even blink. There’s a bruise on her cheek from where something hit her during the fire—small, but dark—and a burn along her forearm that she hasn’t said asingle word about. She hasn’t complained. Hasn’t winced. She just took the pain and kept standing like she always does. And I swear to God, I’ve never seen anyone look so fucking beautiful in my entire life. Not just beautiful—mine. Mine in a way that makes my blood run hot. Mine in a way that turns reverence into violence. I want to wrap myself around her, keep her locked against my chest, and never let the world get close enough to touch her again. Because after everything that’s happened—after everything she’s lost—she’s still here. And I’ve never wanted someone more in my life.
She’s going to rebuild it all. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. She’ll dig her nails into the wreckage and pull something new out of it. And whatever it is, it’ll be stronger than what burned.
I don’t know what I would’ve done if she hadn’t made it out of that fire. The thought alone is a poison that drips down the back of my throat and settles in my bones. This isn’t like before. This isn’t like when Joel had her and I kept telling myself it would be fine, that she’d get out of it on her own. No. This is different. Because now, I love her. Not the way people write about it in poems or whisper it across pillows in the dark. This isn’t gentle. It’s not clean. I love her like a man who knows what it feels like to lose everything and finally finds something worth bleeding for. I’m fucking obsessed with her. She’s in my head when I close my eyes. In my chest when I breathe. She’s carved into my skin and wired into my fists and sleeping beside her feels like the first time in my entire goddamn life I’ve been able to put my weapon down and not feel naked.
And still, the fear claws at me. Because just thinking about her hurting—about her screaming, bleeding, calling my name while I’m too far away to stop it—makes something monstrous crawl up my spine. It makes my vision go red. Makes my hands curl into fists and stay there. Makes my heart pound like it’s begging me to kill something just to keep her safe.
What I’m capable of if anything happens to her? That thought terrifies me more than anything else in this world. Because there is no limit. There is no version of me that lets her go, that stands back and watches while someone touches what’s mine. I’d burn this entire city to ash just to make sure no one ever looks at her the wrong way again.
She’s it. She’s everything. And if the devil himself reached for her, I’d slit his fucking throat without blinking.
And Clay? That bastard lit the match, whether it was with his hands or his orders I know it in my bones. He tried to take her from me. He has no fucking clue who I am now or how deep I’m going to bury him.
I don’t care what it costs. I know what I’m protecting. I know what it feels like to have something I’d rip the world in half for. I gave her my vow, I’d burn the world down for her, and I sure as shit will.
I press my palm flat against the center of her spine. She doesn’t look up at me, but she leans into it.
Bridger exhales like he’s been holding it for ten years, then drops back into the chair in front of his laptop. “Okay,” he says, fingers tapping keys. “I just booked five plane tickets to Turks and Caicos. We leave from Atlantic City International. Quick hop to Orlando, then a connecting flight there. Now I’ll find a place for us to crash once we get there. Everyone needs to start packing.”
Marlowe turns to look at him. There’s no fire in her face this time. Just exhaustion and something hollow sitting behind her eyes. “All I have are the clothes you guys bought me last night,” she says quietly, like she’s apologizing for it. “I don’t even have the plug to my phone. Everything was destroyed. So… yeah. I’m all ready to go.”
Everyone shifts at once, like they can feel her pain. Cody rubs the back of his neck, mumbling something about buying her whatever she needs. Neve hangs her head in her hands.
“Fuck, Lo. I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke,” Bridger says.
“It’s okay, I know. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
I pull her closer to me, arms circling her waist, fitting her against my chest. “Come on,” I murmur, close to her ear. “We’ve got a few hours before we have to leave.”
She tilts her head up, eyes searching mine.
“Let’s get back in bed,” I say, my voice rougher than I mean for it to be. “Make each other forget again.”
Something flickers in her expression—a brief flash of peace, or maybe just surrender. She nods once, presses her fingers to my chest like she’s anchoring herself, and lets me lead her out of the room.
The second the bedroom door clicks shut behind us, the air changes. Full of heat that’s too heavy to breathe.
She stands near the bed, arms wrapped around herself like she’s holding in whatever’s threatening to break loose. Her eyes are wild and distant, her skin flushed like she’s trying not to come apart. And I know that look. I know that ache. That need to feelanythingother than helpless. To stop thinking. Stop remembering. Stop bleeding inside where no one can see it.
She wants an escape. And I’m going to give her one. My body moves before my mind does. I reach her in two steps, and the second I touch her, she unravels. Her mouth crashes into mine like a punch, all teeth and desperation, and I groan into her lips becausefuck,this isn’t soft or patient or sweet. This is pure fucking heat.
Her fingers claw at my shirt, dragging me closer, and I lift her right off the ground and slam her back against the wall,kissing her like I’m starving. Like if I stop, the whole world might collapse around us.
Her legs wrap around my waist, her nails scoring down the back of my neck, and I can feel how badly she needs this—needsme—to shut it all out. The fire. The loss. Her goddamn sister’s voice begging for help she doesn’t deserve. I want to fuck it all out of her.
I kiss her harder, deeper, swallowing every gasp, every broken sound she gives me. My hands are under her shirt, roaming, gripping, memorizing every inch of skin I almost lost. Her hips grind against mine, and it’s not slow. It’s not careful. It’s a fucking collision.
I drop her on the bed, and she drags me down with her, legs locking around me like she can’t let me go. Our hands won’t stop moving. Clothes are in the way—ripped, shoved, gone. Her skin is hot against mine, and I bury my face in her neck, breathing her in like she’s the only oxygen left on the planet. I can’t get close enough. It’s not enough. It never fucking is. I need to beinher. Under her skin. Etched into every nerve ending so she never forgets who the hell she belongs to.
She moans my name like it’s a plea and a curse at the same time, and I swear I could come undone just from that. But I won’t yet. Not until I pull every last scream out of her. Not until she’s trembling and marked and so far gone she couldn’t find her way back even if she tried.
