My pulse steadies instead of spiking. The decision already lived inside me before this meeting ever started. This isn’t about anger or ego. It’s about protecting what we’ve built and keeping rot from spreading inside the walls we defend.
Brooke crosses my mind without warning. Her laugh. The way she leans into quiet moments like the world isn’t dangerous. The way she trusts me to keep the ground under her steady.
Lucky leans closer, voice low. “No rot in the walls.”
“No,” I murmur. “Not anymore.”
Mason turns back to the room. “We handle this. Then we move forward.”
I don’t pullinto Brooke’s driveway until two-thirty in the morning.
The house is dark and quiet when I let myself in, moving slow out of habit even though I know she’s safe. The air inside still smells faintly like the candle she likes to burn in the evenings, something clean and soft that doesn’t belong anywhere near the night I just walked out of. I toe my boots off by the door and move down the hall, every muscle in my body tight and heavy at the same time.
She’s asleep when I push the bedroom door open.
Curled slightly on her side, hair spread across the pillow, breathing slow and even. One arm tucked under the blanket, the other resting against the mattress like she fell asleep reaching for something that never came. The lamp on the nightstand casts just enough light to soften the edges of her face. Peaceful. Unaware. Safe.
She looks like a damn angel.
The contrast hits me hard enough that I have to pause in the doorway for a second, grounding myself before I step any closer. The last thing I’m doing is bringing what’s still clinging to me into her space. I already washed up and changed after we handled the traitors, after we made sure nothing would ever surface again, but it isn’t enough. My skin still feels tight, like the night hasn’t let go of me yet.
I quietly grab clean clothes from the dresser and back out of the room, easing the door mostly shut behind me. The bathroom light clicks on low, casting a muted glow across tile and steam-stained mirrors. I strip out of the clothes I changed into earlier and step into the shower, twisting the handle until hot water pours down in steady sheets.
The heat hits my shoulders and neck and I let my head drop forward, bracing my palms against the tile wall. The water runs over my hair, down my back, over my arms, washing away the last of the night’s tension inch by inch. I scrub slower than I need to, methodical, grounding myself in the simple reality of soap and steam and steady breathing. The sound of the water fills the space, steady and constant, giving my thoughts somewhere to settle instead of spiral.
I’m standing there with my forehead resting against the cool tile when I feel the shift in the air behind me. Before I can turn,her arms slide around my waist, as she presses in close, her cheek settling between my shoulder blades. The contact steadies something in me that hasn’t quite come down yet. “Hey,” she murmurs, her voice still thick with sleep.
My hands flex against the wall before easing. “You should be in bed,” I say quietly.
She hums like she has no intention of listening and leans in, her lips brushing a slow line of kisses along the damp skin of my spine, unhurried and soft. “I woke up and you weren’t there,” she says. “Heard you moving around in here.”
I turn my head enough to see her hair is already damp from the steam, lashes heavy, eyes still carrying that half-asleep haze that always pulls tight in my chest. “Couldn’t bring the night into bed with you,” I admit.
Her arms tighten around me. Not hard. Just enough to make the point that she’s not fragile. That she gets to decide what touches her space. “You don’t have to carry everything by yourself.”
I reach up and cover her hands where they rest against my stomach, grounding myself in the simple fact of her being here. My breathing slows, the noise in my head easing until the steady rush of water is the loudest thing in the room.
We stay like that for a moment, close and quiet, the heat of the shower filling the small space around us. I keep my forehead against the tile another beat before finally speaking.
“We had to make some hard decisions tonight,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I expect. “But it was for the good of the club.”
She doesn’t pull away or push for more. Her arms tighten just enough to let me know she hears me. “I know,” she says. I glance back and catch her eyes before she settles back against me, breathing slow and steady. “It’s not easy carrying that,” she adds. “You always come back heavier on nights like this.”
Something shifts in my chest at how easily she reads me, how little I ever have to explain. “I don’t like bringing it home,” I say. “I don’t want this world bleeding into yours.”
Her lips brush my skin again, slower this time. “You coming home is what matters,” she says. “Not pretending it didn’t happen.”
I reach up and lace my fingers with hers where they rest against my stomach, anchoring myself in the simple reality of her touch, the heat of the water, the quiet of the house around us.
Eventually the water cools enough that she notices before I do.
She shifts behind me and reaches past my shoulder to twist the handle off, the sudden quiet settling into the bathroom. Then her fingers slide into mine and she tugs gently, guiding me out of the shower and onto the bath mat.
“Come on,” she murmurs.
I follow without argument, my body loose now in a way it wasn’t when I stepped in.
She grabs a towel from the rack and starts drying me off, brisk and thorough, catching the water still clinging to my shoulders and arms, then pressing the fabric against my chest and along my back. The care in the motion hits deeper than anything else tonight. No questions. No hesitation. Just steady attention.
