It felt pathetic, like a message in a bottle tossed into an empty house.
But it was all I had.
I took one last look around the wrecked study, the ring on my finger glinting like it was trying to remind me of something. Then I walked out, pulling the front door closed behind me as best I could with its damaged latch.
The cold air hit me hard as I stepped onto the porch. I didn’t look back as I crunched across the gravel to my car.
All I could do now was wait and hope someone came home to discover my note.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
BEN
December 21, 10:30 PM
Pain wasthe first thing I knew. Not the clean burn of a blade or the white-hot spike of bone shattering on impact. This was the after. The deep, throbbing sort of pain that pulsed in time with my heartbeat and reminded me I’d survived when maybe I shouldn’t have.
Stitches tugged when I breathed. The world smelled like rubbing alcohol, old wood, and Henry’s cheap coffee.
“Lucia?”
My voice came out rough, scraped raw from shouting and pure rage.
Henry stepped out of the guest room at the end of the narrow hallway, pulling the door almost closed behind him. He looked exhausted, his gray hair rumpled, dark circles bruised under his eyes. There was dried blood on his forearms that wasn’t his.
“She’ll be all right,” he said quietly. “She’s sleeping now. Sedative finally kicked in.”
My eyes flicked to the door of the guest room in Henry’s modest little house. Don’t get me wrong — Henry’s place wasn’t rundown or shabby, far from it. It was the kind of modest a man chooses when he could afford flash but doesn’t see the point. A nice brick ranch on a quiet street, trimmed hedges out front, porch light that always worked. Inside, everything was clean, organized, and comfortably worn, like a place someone respected but didn’t linger in. Nice, but it didn’t have that lived-in warmth. This was a place he kept ready for emergencies… a bolt-hole he almost never used. Until tonight.
He spent most of his life in staff quarters wherever I was living, and it showed. The house felt more like a well-maintained safe harbor than a home. Sturdy furniture. Fresh linens. Kitchen smelling faintly of coffee grounds and gun oil. Pictures were sparse but carefully placed: his old military unit framed on the mantel, a photo of my father shaking his hand at some long-ago event, a faded polaroid of Lucia from years back — smiling in Ashgrove’s old kitchen, shoving a plate of manicotti at the camera like she was scolding whoever held it. That photo hit harder tonight. Henry had kept it all these years, tucked away like a secret. The way he’d looked charging into that room earlier — fury carved into every line of his face when the knife was at her throat — told me more than words ever could. He’d loved her quietly for decades, and tonight he’d finally acted on it without hesitation.
“Her husband?” I asked, voice low.
The bastard had kicked me square in my stitched-up side when Henry and I cornered him. It had hurt so goddamn bad I’d nearly blacked out, vision tunneling to pinpricks while Henry finished what needed finishing.
Henry’s mouth tightened into a hard line.
“That man is… not a problem anymore.”
I let my head sink back against the worn couch cushion, vision flickering at the edges. My side flared again, the freshly re-stitched knife wound along my ribs screaming its protest.
“Not a problem,” I echoed. “You sure?”
Henry gave me that look — the one I’d seen a hundred times when I’d been reckless and stupid, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
“You really want details right now, kid?”
No. I didn’t. Because the images were already burned in: Lucia’s soon-to-be-ex pounding on her sister’s door, drunk and raging. Lucia flinching when the son of a bitch pressed a knife to her throat after Henry kicked the door in. Her quiet, broken sobs as we closed in, trying to talk him down before everything went sideways — before his boot connected with my ribs, busting stitches open in a hot bloom of blood. Before I dropped, lights out, leaving Henry to handle the rest alone.
The room had smelled like fear and cheap whiskey. Lucia’s sister huddled in the corner, phone in hand but too terrified to dial. I’d lunged to distract him, taking the kick that reopened the stab wound Brett gave me — fire exploding along my side as old scars pulled and fresh blood soaked through. Black spots danced in my vision and the whole world went hazy and far away, but I heard the struggle: grunts, a choked gasp, the dull thud that ended it. When I came to, Henry was already cleaning up, face grim, hands steady. He’d done what needed doing — for her. Always for the people he considered family. And I’d been useless on the floor, just like the night of my accident, helpless while the world burned around me.
I swallowed hard, tasting copper.
“She knows she’s staying here? Safe?”
“She knows she’s not going back to him,” Henry said, voice steady but edged with something raw. “And I won’t let him — or anyone — get anywhere near her ever again. That’s what matters tonight.”
