She breathed.
She stayed.
Even when every instinct screamed to run.
She wasn’t a girl who disappeared anymore.
She wasn’t a life waiting to be claimed or broken.
She was here.
Choosing to stay.
Choosing to fight.
And tomorrow?
She’d show up.
She’d walk into that club with her head high, her heels sharp, her armor made of skin and grit and fucking fire.
Let him watch.
Let him think she was breakable.
Because she had learned a truth in the wreckage:
You can plant a thousand roses at her feet, but that didn’t mean she had to bleed for them.
CHAPTER 32
Smoke & Embers
Arden didn’t just walk into the club; she claimed it as if it had always been hers, everyone else merely borrowing it.
Confidence laced her every move, unapologetic and sure. The low golden light from the chandeliers flickered across her skin as she passed beneath them, drawing glances in her wake. Conversation dipped, briefly, long enough for people to track her path across the room, some staring longer than they should’ve.
Some looks held curiosity. Others, thinly veiled envy.
A few women whispered behind manicured hands, eyes narrowing with a kind of cold appraisal.
And then there were the men, the ones who measured her with practiced interest, mistaking her presence for something they could possess.
But one gaze burned hotter than the rest.
Gideon.
He stood near the bar, speaking with a patron, but the second she crossed the threshold, his attention snapped to her. He didn’t move. Didn’t smile. But she knew him now. She knew what that tightly held tension meant, the way his whole body stilled, like touch would tip him past pretending.
She saw it in the way his grip shifted subtly on the glass in his hand. The gentle roll of his shoulders as he adjusted his stance. The flicker in his eyes that gave him away before his expression ever changed.
And his mouth curved at the corner. Not a full smile. Onlyhers.
Heat stirred in her gut, slow and certain, but she didn’t let it show. Herstride never faltered. She slipped behind the bar with ease, settling into her space like it had been waiting for her.
Marco caught the shift immediately, grinning like he’d spotted the lead in his favorite drama.
“Well, well, well,” he said, draping his arms across the counter like it was all for show. His grin was lazy, but his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Someone’s strutting in like she owns the whole place.” He tapped a knuckle against the bar. “Feelin’ good, Mountain Mama?”
