Then I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for a year.
“Go straight for two more blocks,” I tell her, voice still shaking. “Then make a left onto the expressway.”
She nods and punches the gas. The silence that follows is thick and vibrating, broken only by the hum of the stolen engine and the pounding of my heart.
“They’re going to be okay… right?” My voice cracks even though I try to keep it steady. It barely comes out above a whisper.
Neve glances away from the road for just a second, her eyes meeting mine. And that flicker of uncertainty in her expression guts me. “I never met him,” she says quietly. “But the stories I’veheard… Damian never talks about it, but Delilah did. And even then, it felt like she was pulling her punches.”
My chest aches. “What did he do?”
Neve exhales, looking back at the road, her hands tightening on the wheel.
“Delilah told me once… when she first started having memory problems.” Neve’s voice is low, almost reverent, like she’s handling something sacred and broken. “She said Clay used to lock them in a crawlspace in the basement to discipline them. Damian. Bridger. Cody. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes overnight. No lights. No food.”
My stomach twists. I picture them—young, terrified, in the dark. My Damian, barely more than a boy.
Neve swallows. “She said it always came after the belt. But not just the strap part. He used the side with the buckle. Hit them until they bled. And then he’d drag them to that space and leave them there. Still bleeding.”
I cover my mouth, trying to breathe through the wave of nausea.
“She said sometimes they’d pass out. From the pain. Or hunger. Or both. And when Clay let them out, they were expected to thank him. For ‘correcting’ them. For making them men.”
Tears sting my eyes. My throat is too tight to speak.
“She didn’t do anything to stop him?” I ask, my voice brittle and too loud in the confined car. “Delilah?”
Neve lets out a breath. “You know one of the ways people get early onset dementia?” she asks, eyes fixed on the road. “Repeated trauma to the head.”
That makes me freeze.
“It increases the risk of developing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE. It’s a form of early-onset dementia, andit’s usually linked to pro athletes. Boxers. Football players. People who get hit in the head over and over.”
My skin goes cold.
“It didn’t sound like Delilah had it any better than her sons,” Neve continues.
I don’t know what to say.
Damian never talks about his childhood. Not in full. Just the edges of it—sharp enough to cut, but never enough to see the whole wound. But there’s always been this deep rage in him. Not anger. Rage. Like something old and feral trying to drag him under. And this desperate need for me to be safe. For him to be in control. For the world to be ordered and quiet—at least around me.
Now I understand why.
It’s not just protection. It’s survival. It's penance. It's him trying to rewrite the ending he never got. And suddenly I feel it in my chest—what it means to love a man like that. Someone stitched together with broken glass and fury. Someone who would burn the world to keep me warm.
My chest tightens. I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Neve, drive faster.”
We hit traffic. It doesn’t make sense—a two-lane road, middle of nowhere, and cars slowing to a crawl like the air got heavy. I shoot forward in my seat, straining to see past the cars in front of us. “What the hell is this?” I breathe.
Neve doesn’t answer. She yanks the wheel hard to the right and jerks us onto the shoulder.
My head knocks against the side window as we bump and grind over gravel and dips in the dirt. I grip the dash, my heart slamming so hard it rattles my ribs.
“Neve—”
“We don’t have time,” she snaps, eyes razor-sharp. “I’m not losing Bridger.”
I don’t argue with that. I get it.
