Prologue
Berkley
Past
I used to believe the world unraveled piece by piece. A hairline fracture here, a quiet shift there, until everything finally gave way. But mine didn’t crumble slowly. It shattered in an instant—with one phone call.
The day my mom died, I was out back painting the fence with my dad. It was one of those warm spring mornings that carried the promise of something new. Freshly cut grass, sun-warmed cedar, and the faint sweetness drifting over from Mrs. O’Hara’s garden. I was only ten, yet I remember every detail, because it was the last moment of my life that felt simple.
Dad’s phone buzzed on the porch railing. He wiped his hands on his jeans and answered, careful not to smear paint across the screen.
“Is this Anderson Monroe?” A deep, strained voice came through the line.
“Yes?” Dad replies, uncertainty tightening his tone, as if he already sensed disaster closing in.
A beat of silence followed. Then words that didn’t feel real. Not at first.
“I’m so sorry. There’s been an accident. Your wife, Evelyn Monroe, and another woman, Daphne Calder... they didn’t make it.”
From that moment, nothing looked the same. Dad drifted through the days hollowed out, moving like a man trying to hold his own pieces together. We leaned on each other because there was nowhere else to put the weight.
The Calders were drowning in their own grief. Uncle Dean lost his wife. And Rowen, Ronan—my boys, my inseparable shadows—and Reign, my best friend, lost their mother. Our families fused into something unbreakable, bound by a hurt so deep it became its own language.
Reign was my lifeline. She never cried where anyone could see, but I heard her muffled sobs when I stayed over. We survived that year through whispered conversations in the dark, shared blankets, and long walks when the world felt too quiet to bear.
But it was the boys who changed the shape of me.
Rowen and Ronan carried a soft kind of sweetness. Gentle hands. Quiet words. Glances that lingered just long enough to make my heart flutter. They’d always been affectionate, but after the accident, everything held a little more meaning—their hugs a little tighter, their eyes searching mine as if they were trying to speak truths they didn’t know how to say.
And then there was Emerson.
He was different. Sharper around the edges, quieter with his emotions. His smiles became rarer as the months passed, but when they did appear, they were golden. After his mom spiraled—pills, vodka, missed dinners and slurred apologies—he changed too. Hardened. Guarded. But when it was just the two of us, I could still see the boy beneath the armor. The one who watched me like I was something fragile, something precious, something he wasn’t sure he deserved.
I kept my feelings for them buried deep, locked away where no one could reach them. I never said a word about the way my stomach fluttered when Ronan tucked a picked flower behind my ear, or how Rowen’s arm around my shoulders felt too right to be casual. I hid how Emerson’s quiet intensity made something in my chest tighten. I pushed it all down, terrified of risking what we already had.
Reign and I were closer than sisters, bound together by loss and loyalty. Hurting her—or stepping away from the family we’d built—was a thought I couldn’t stomach.
But the truth grew heavier by the day. I wasn’t just their friend anymore. I was falling.
It happened in Reign’s backyard the night everything shifted. A bonfire snapped and hissed in the pit, smoke circling up toward the stars. The guys lounged around in worn hoodies and jeans, passing a bottle back and forth. I sat at the edge of a blanket, letting the flames blur while my thoughts tangled.
Reign nudged me and whispered, “You’re quiet. What’s spinning in that head of yours, Berk?”
I forced a shrug. “Just tired.”
Emerson caught my eye from across the fire. One lifted brow—silent, sharp—calling me out without a single word. He wasn’t judging. He just saw me the way he always did, too clearly. I tried to look away, but his stare didn’t let me. It pinned me gently, insistently.
Then he shifted, glancing at the twins as if giving an unspoken cue. Suddenly, all three sets of eyes were on me—Rowen, Ronan, Emerson—each holding a different weight. Concern. Curiosity. Something deeper I wasn’t ready to name.
Rowen looked at me with steady seriousness, like he was bracing for whatever truth I was about to spill. Ronan’s gaze was soft, searching, as if waiting for permission to fix whoever or whatever had hurt me. And Emerson... his stare was the hardest to face. Heavy with understanding. Like he already knew the secret I’d been trying to smother.
For a moment, I felt seen in a way that shook me. And the part of me that always tried to run? She went completely still.
Hours later, after the fire had burned down to a slow, glowing pulse and everyone drifted inside—chasing warmth, conversation, or maybe a moment alone—I stayed outside. The quiet steadied me. The faint hiss of the embers, the crack ofsettling wood, the cool breath of night air on my skin... it all kept my emotions from overflowing.
I watched the remaining coals pulse like a heartbeat, mine racing far too fast.
“You okay?”
