“You quit,” I say, reminding him—grasping for something solid to hold on to in the middle of the chaos.
He turns back to me slowly, like he can’t believe I just said that.
One eyebrow arches. His voice is low and lethal. “Did we? Or are we just refusing payment?”
My breath catches, and something twists inside me.
“You’re not our job anymore,” he adds, his tone gentlernow. “You never were, not really. We fell for you the second you refused to get into your town car and tried to walk over six miles home, in heels.”
He doesn’t move toward me or invade my space. He just looks at me—steady and unshaken, daring me to challenge him again. And I want to. God, I want to. But deep down, I know the truth.
They didn’t quit protecting me. They just stopped getting paid for it.
A tense silence settles over the room.
I expect Carson to crack a joke. To defuse the bomb Graham just dropped with a wink or some well-placed innuendo. But when he speaks, his voice is quieter. Calmer.
Sincere.
“He’s not wrong, peaches.”
I blink over at him.
He’s leaning forward, forearms braced on his knees, fingers laced together, telling me this is more than just another conversation to him.
“When I offered to help you see Finn,” he says, eyes locked on mine, “I didn’t need to ask for permission from them. But I wasn’t hiding it either. They knew I offered.”
My gaze cuts to Graham. To Hunter. Neither of them looks shocked. Not even a little. My stomach dips.
“You knew?” I ask, incredulous.
Graham doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
Hunter’s mouth is tight, his hands on my thighs, but he nods once. “We figured if anyone could manage it without things spiraling, it’d be Carson.”
“And you just…what? Let it happen? Encouraged it?”
Carson shifts then, sitting back in his seat, stretching one arm along the back of the couch, ignoring the landmine I’ve just stepped on.
“Let’s be real, peaches,” he says with a half-smile. “Youdon’t let an omega like you do anything. You make your own decisions. Always have. At least if we went along with it, I could keep you safe.”
That pulls me up short. Because it’s true.
I look at them—at all three of them—and suddenly, I feel how much has shifted. How much has been slipping through my fingers while I’ve been so wrapped up in surviving.
Carson knew I would find a way to see Finn again, and he offered to help. And Graham and Hunter didn’t stop him. That should make me angry, but it doesn’t, not fully anyway.
“You think I don’t know how much you’ve all sacrificed?” I say quietly. “That I haven’t noticed the way things have changed?”
None of them speak.
So I keep going. “You gave up a paycheck. Gave up control.” I shake my head a little. “You gave me space. Even when you didn’t want to.”
He smiles faintly. “What can I say? We’re suckers for a strong-willed omega.”
A flicker of warmth threads through the tension, enough to take the edge off, for now. But I know this conversation isn’t over. Not even close.
Because Finn’s still across the street. And the question isn’t whether I’ll see him again. It’s what happens after I do.
