I take a step toward her, the forest closing in around us, thick with memories I can’t shake. The last time we were here flashes behind my eyes—the way she looked up at me, trembling, when I held her down; the way her voice cracked when she told me she was falling for me.
The lump in my throat swells until it’s hard to breathe. A bitter sting bites the back of my nose, and before I can stop it, my vision blurs with unshed tears.
I’m not just sad. I’m furious. I’m wrecked. Every emotion bleeds into the next until I can’t tell where rage ends and heartbreak begins.
All I want—all I fucking want—is to go back. To crawl into that bed with her, feel her warmth against me, and live the night over again like it never ended. Like I never walked out that door without waking her and telling her that I was headed to her parents’ home.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch me,” she sobs. Folding in on herself, she catches her breath.
I move closer, slow enough that she can see every step I take, and stop at the tree between us. My palm finds the rough bark, fingers spread wide, showing her my empty hand.
“I’m not touching you,” I rasp, voice raw from everything I’m holding back. “Not unless you let me.”
The silence that follows is thick, alive with the sound of her breath—fast, shallow, uneven. It breaks something in me just hearing it.
“You weren’t there,” she says at last, her voice splintering in the dark.
“I know,” I whisper, the admission tearing through me. “I know.”
“Did they—” Her voice cracks. “Was it the fire that killed my parents? Was it an accident?”
“No.” The word rips out of me, raw and unwilling.
She makes a sound that isn’t human—half sob, half animal—and the trees seem to lean in with it.
“Moore’s men?” she asks, brittle now, testing the edges of what she already fears.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. The truth is all she gets from me, even if it paints me black. “But I’ll find out.”
A beat, then the knife slides in deeper—quieter, thinner: “Benny.”
My jaw locks. His name in her mouth is a blade. It burns.
“He’s alive,” I say. “For now. But he won’t be when I’m finished.”
“No.” Her voice breaks, but there’s iron beneath the crack. “Don’t kill him.”
The fact that she still cares about him—despite everything—twists something inside me until my teeth grind. I want to tear his insides out and make him eat them.
“I’ll deal with him,” I snap, every syllable brittle with promise. “But he won’t touch you again.”
She stares at me, a flicker of something like relief and terror fighting in her eyes. I press my palm flat to the tree, feel the rough grain under my skin, and for a second I let the calm pretend to sit on top of the hunger. Then I meet her gaze and mean it: I will find out who did this. I will burn whatever needs burning to keep her safe.
Her weight shifts, subtle but there—she’s closer, the night air pulling tight between us.
“I was going to go with him,” she whispers. No guilt. No softness. Just the raw edge of truth. “He knew about my parents. He was taking me to Constance and Adelaide. I still want to?—”
The words land like a bullet. I don’t dodge.
“I didn’t know,” I rasp, cutting her off. “I swear to Christ, Summer, I didn’t want to believe that they were dead. The call said a house fire, two casualties. I left you here because I thought I had time. I thought I could stand in both places. Protect you and save them. I was wrong.”
My hand slams into the tree beside me, splinters driving into my palm, but I don’t care. Pain’s the only thing that makes sense.
“And I came straight back once it was confirmed, to hold you, to tell you myself. Instead, I came back to find him holding you like you belonged to him.”
Her breath trembles, uneven, misting in the moonlight.
“You don’t understand,” she says, voice shaking. “I needed someone. And he—he told me they were gone. I crumbled, Jacob. He held me because I could hardly stand. Because my whole world fell apart back there and he was there for me.”
