Tonight. Like time meant anything anymore.
I dragged my good hand down my face, felt the rasp of stubble, the rough trail of scars pulling tight across my cheek.
“I’m not exactly inconspicuous these days,” I muttered. “You sure it was smart bringing me into that mess?”
“You followed my lead,” Henry said. “Kept it contained. No spectacle. That’s what mattered.” He crossed the living room and handed me a glass of water, his gaze sweeping over me in that efficient, assessing way. “How’re the stitches now?”
“Like somebody shoved a dull spoon under my ribs and twisted,” I said. “Better than when that motherfucker reopened them, but I’m fine.”
One corner of his mouth quirked — the closest he ever got to a smile these days.
“Your definition of fine has always been suspect.”
“You still stitched me up. Twice in a week.”
“Somebody had to.” He sat on the scarred coffee table across from me, joints cracking like old timber. “You took a hit that should’ve dropped you harder. Adrenaline’s a hell of a thing.”
I thought of Chrissy’s face in the barn that day — wide brown eyes filled with terror and fury. Her scream cutting through the storm, dragging me out there like a puppet on strings.
Adrenaline was a hell of a drug. Love was worse.
It had kept me upright in that barn too, shovel in hand, rage blinding me as I ended the threats to her. But love had also twisted me into the man who watched her for years, built the Game around her, lied with every breath as Jacob. The same love that made me let her go, thinking distance would heal what I’d shattered. Now it just left this void, aching worse than any wound.
“I’ve had worse,” I said quietly.
Henry’s eyes softened, just a flicker.
“You’ve had enough.”
We sat in silence for a beat, the house creaking around us like it was settling into the night. Somewhere in the guest room, Lucia shifted in her sleep, murmuring something indistinct.
“I owe her better than this,” I said finally, the words scraping out. “All of them. You. Lucia. The staff. I dragged every one of you into my mess — the Game, the lies, the blood.”
Henry snorted.
“Vivian dragged you into hers first, kid. Poisoning your father. Fleeing the country. Leaving that damn clause like a landmine. You just got… creative about surviving it.”
“Creative,” I repeated dryly.
Rigging a twisted wife-hunt in an isolated lodge. Luring the woman I’d been obsessed with for four years into it. Splittingmyself in two — Ben the domineering monster, and Jacob the scarred but kind groundskeeper — like that made any of it less fucked up.
I could still see her in that hardware store, red beanie askew, kneeling to bandage my bleeding hand without a flicker of disgust at my scars. That moment had hooked me deeper than anything else ever could have. Four years of files, shadows, excuses… all just to keep her in my orbit without risking rejection. And when I finally had her close, I poisoned it with lies. No wonder she’d looked at me like I was a stranger who’d stolen something precious.
“Lucia’s safe tonight because of you,” Henry said. “You gave her somewhere to land when she finally walked away from that bastard for good. That matters more than the semantics.”
I stared at my hand on my thigh, the faint tremor betraying how badly my body craved real rest.
“Chrissy walked too.”
Henry’s gaze sharpened.
“I know.”
“I let her,” I said, the confession tasting like rust. “Told her to go. Handed her the prize money like it could erase everything. Blew my own game to hell just to get her clear of the blast radius.”
“And now?”
“Now…” I laughed once, hollow and bitter. “Now there’s nothing standing between Vivian and the entire Stonewood empire except a ticking clock, a reclusive scar-faced heir who’s too goddamn lovesick to marry anyone else, and zero clue if thewoman who hates my guts even went back to the lodge to read the letter I poured my soul into.”
