“No!” she sobs. “It was Tyler… the night of the drug raid.”
I laugh. A hollow, broken sound. There’s no humor in it.
“Tyler.” His name burns like acid on my tongue. I remember that night—how she was supposed to be safe, tucked away at a friend’s house. Instead, she took the wrong goddamn street.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve done to protect you? The lines I’ve crossed? The deals I made just to keep Jackson’s men from touching you?”
I drag a hand through my hair, a bitter laugh escaping.
“You think they just disappeared? No. I brought you here and I turned a blind eye. I stopped investigating. I let them have what they wanted—anyone but you. And for what?” I meet her eyes, burning. “Forthis? For the one thing I thought I’d kept untouched to already belong to someone else. And now there’s women locked up in warehouses, being raped, tortured and murdered because I stopped investigations. Because I let it slide for you.”
The silence that follows is heavy, trembling, the kind that feels like it might break the walls apart. She meets my eyes like a dare, calm and cold enough to cut. My chest tightens around the words as they fall from her lips.
“I never asked for any of this. But fine. You’ve made your point. Save the others,” she says, voice steady, frightening in its steadiness. “Get them out. Get them living again. I’d rather—” Her voice breaks, just for a second. “—I’d rather hand myself over than have this on my conscience.”
For a second the room tilts. The idea of her choosing to disappear into that darkness to ease my guilt somehow lands heavier than any blow. Anger spikes—at her, at myself, at the world that keeps producing monsters—but under it is something worse: a cold, searing clarity.
No.
“No,” I say before I can stop it, and the single syllable carriesmore than denial. It carries the promise of everything I am. “You will not be anyone’s bargaining chip. But Summer I?—”
“Yes, Jacob,” she interrupts, her voice trembling but steady enough to land every word like a blade. “I did sleep with Tyler. I did lose my virginity. But it wasn’t—” she swallows hard, shaking her head “—it wasn’t anything likethis.” She gestures between us. “Not even close to what we’ve shared.”
I can still taste the fury in my mouth, bitter and metallic, but her words hit something I can’t quite name—something between shame and relief.
She draws in a slow breath, straightens her shoulders, and takes a cautious step back.
“Right now, I’m going to shower,” she says quietly. “You need space, Jacob. Time to calm down.”
For a second, I think she might look back. But she doesn’t. She just walks past me, her footsteps light but defiant, leaving me standing in the wreckage of everything I thought I controlled.
Chapter 17
Run
Summer
Ihead upstairs, my footsteps careful at first, then faster once I’m out of his sight. Not to shower. Not to calm down. I’m heading upstairs to run. To grab my bag, and whatever I can carry in it. I’m going to see Constance and Adelaide. To take them up on that hotel room they offered, the one I swore I wouldn’t need.
The website terrified me—seeing my face, my name twisted into something filthy—but that isn’t what finally pushed me over the edge. It was him. The way Jacob’s rage filled the room, how his voice tore through the air when he realized I’d been with Tyler. The chair flying, his computer shattering. The look in his eyes.
Something broke inside me watching that.
I never meant to tell him. I promised myself I wouldn’t—that I’d bury that part of me deep enough he’d never dig it up. But the words just fell out. The adrenaline, the disgust, the horror—it all collided, and I opened my mouth before I could stop it.
Because seeing those words on that page—virgin—made my stomach turn. Saying out loud that I wasn’t one felt like the only weapon I had left. Like if I said it, maybe it meant they didn’t know me after all, like maybe it would make me safe.
Jacob’s words echo in my head—the other women.The ones he said he’d ignored. The ones he let suffer while he was busy keeping me safe.
And now my heart feels like it’s splintering under the weight of it. I can’t stop thinking about them, about what they must have gone through. What they might still be going through. The faces he didn’t save because of me. Because his obsession blinded him.
If he’d helped them instead—if he hadn’t been so consumed withus—maybe they’d still be free. Maybe they’d still have their families, their lives.
But they don’t. Because Jacob decided I was the one worth saving.
And now, standing here, all I can think is that I’d rather hand myself over than live with that. The guilt of it burns hotter than his anger ever could.
He’s disgusted with me—I saw it in his eyes. That flicker of betrayal when he realized I wasn’t the untouched girl he’d built in his head. He doesn’t see me anymore. Not the same way. Now, to him, I’m marked. Stained. A possession he thought was perfect, spoiled by the thought of another man’s touch.
