Life-changing? Sure—if you count “questioning why you were born with taste buds” as life-changing.
The lobby is plastered with glossy posters and brochures.Awaken the healer. Repair and Heal Your Womb. Rebirth Through Flame.Each one a new cult starter pack. Then I spot it, front and center on a sleek glass table: The Couples Retreat.
I grab one, flip it open. The price hits me like another organ smoothie to the face. $40,000 for three days.
Forty grand to camp out in matching white robes while Phoenix tells you kale is God and orgasms cure migraines.
Still, my brain is already moving. This? This might be Willow’s way in. As much as I want to throttle myself for even thinking about it, the retreat could get her close enough to take him out.
I slip the brochure into my back pocket like contraband.
The relief that washes through me as I step outside is instant. I feel like I just escaped the fucking Temple of Doom. The desert heat clings even as the sun dips low. The building’s glow makes the whole block feel like a shrine, humming with the devotion of the desperate.
And then, as I’m walking back to my car—my stomach revolts. No warning. Just full mutiny.
I dive for the nearest hedge and projectile-launch the smoothie of Satan back into the world. It splatters against leaves and the dirt like a Jackson Pollock painting no one asked for.The smell wafts up, a grotesque perfume of undigested liver and kale.
A couple walking by gasps. “Is he okay?”
No, sir, he is not. He just willingly ingested a nightmare because he’s fallen for a woman who stabs assholes to tables like it’s foreplay.
Another heave. Another splatter. My abs are seizing, sweat slicking down my neck. I cling to the hedge like it’s the only thing keeping me from collapsing face-first into my own shame.
And then my phone buzzes.
With shaking, sweat-slicked hands, I pull it from my back pocket.
Willow.
Can I take you out for dinner tonight?
I start laughing, breathless and half-choking on bile. Dinner? After what I just survived? Girl, unless you’re serving bleach martinis and a side of stomach pump, I’m not surviving a dinner date.
I type back:
Not feeling great tonight. Can we do breakfast tomorrow instead?
The thought of any food going into my body sends my body into fight or flight. Another heave. More kale liver spray for the bushes.
She replies almost instantly:
Are you okay? Do you need me to bring you something?
And that—that—undoes me. Because she’s worried. She’s worried about me, the man who’s just committed a war crime against his own digestive tract for her mission. It’s been more than a damndecadesince anyone worried about me.
I stare down at the mess I’ve made, bile burning my throat, and grin like a lunatic.
The things I’ll do for this woman.
I would choke down another round of organ sludge. I would eat kidneys, spleens, eyeballs, whatever nightmare Phoenix serves, all without blinking—if it meant Willow got her justice.
Hell, I’d drink it every morning for the rest of my life if she asked.
Because that’s what obsession looks like. And it’s not pretty. It’s not sane. But it’s hers.
I spit one last time into the hedge, wipe my mouth on my sleeve, and stagger to my car. The smoothie may have won the battle, but Willow? She’s the war. And I’m all in.
chapter eleven
