“But also…” I trail off, struggling to put words to the chaos in my head. “I just can’t stop overthinking my side of it. I didn’t want to wait—I’m thirty-nine, not nineteen—but the minute it ended, I started second-guessing everything. Even now, I’m questioning whether I’ve already rushed things.”
“Rushed?” Demi blinks. “Sable. There are women who wait three years in a relationship before anyone finds their clit.”
I crack a smile. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s why I’ve never been married. I jump into things. I don’t demand more respect.”
“No.” She pulls off her sunglasses dramatically. “You’ve never been married because you stayed in a long-term situationship with a man who could find a new reason to emotionally disappoint you every fiscal quarter.”
“That is disturbingly accurate,” I say, chewing at a hangnail.
“Thank you. I’ve had a decade to solidify my thoughts on your relationship.”
We’re halfway to the shop when I stop cold, my stomach lurching.
I grab my best friend’s arm. “Demi.”
The lock. Not tampered with or rusted through—destroyed. The deadbolt hangs crooked in the frame, metal warped like it took a hit from something brutal. Cracks web outward from the impact point in the glass, fine and splintered veins, with one jagged fracture slicing down the lower pane.
Her face turns from shocked to raged. “That bitch.”
I pull my phone from my bag and text the only person I know who will have answers and zero chill:
[Sable]:I think someone broke into the shop.
The reply comes almost instantly.
[Hex]:Don’t go inside. I’m coming.
I stare at the screen.
[Hex]:5 minutes.
Demi’s eyes go wide. “Damn, he’s on it.”
A moment later, the low growl of a blacked-out Silverado curls around the corner, familiar in a way that makes my skin prickle. It slides to a quiet stop. A ghost by design.
Hex steps out of the truck, black shirt clinging to his chest, jeans hugging thighs built for murder.
Demi’s jaw drops. “Oh, thank God you’re here, Frank.”
“Frank?” Hex questions, looking to me for some semblance of an answer.
I rub my temples. “She thinks you’re The Punisher.”
Hex lifts a brow. “Oh yeah? I can see that.”
Demi claps. “SEE?! I knew you had Punisher energy!”
Hex lets out a quiet huff of laughter, shaking his head. Then he turns to her, nodding with a kind of unexpected grace.
“Hex Alvarez,” he says, voice pitched low. He’s polite, but far from soft. “Don’t believe we’ve officially met.”
Demi fans herself theatrically. “No, but I’ve heard plenty. You really should come with a warning label, sir.”
He gives her half a smirk, then the shift is immediate. His expression darkens the moment he sees the broken lock. In one fluid move, he draws the gun from the waistband of his jeans, holds it low against his thigh, and turns to me with sharp intent.
“Stay behind me.”
Demi edges closer, her voice tight. “Wait. He’s got a gun. Do we seriously need to go in?”
