He glances up. “You too?”
“Yeah.” My voice is low, rough. “I tried to stay out of it. Tried to treat her like another assignment. But she’s not. She’s fire and gravity and every bad decision I ever made wrapped into one.”
He goes still. His fingers tap the glass once before falling quiet again. “Three weeks,” he says finally. “She’s been here three weeks, and we’re all unraveling.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” I say.
His eyes lift, questioning but filled with hope. “What do you mean?”
My stomach twists. “Maybe she’s not here to tear us apart,” I say. “Maybe she’s the only thing that’ll ever keep us together.”
He studies me for a long time. There’s no denial in his expression this time, only that reluctant kind of understanding—the kind that hurts because it’s true.
“How do you plan to convince her to stay?” he asks.
I shrug, sitting back. “By giving her a reason.”
Rook huffs out something that sounds like a laugh, but it’s not amused. “You think she’ll choose us?Allof us, and everything that comes with it?”
I look past him, out the window. Rain streaks down the window like veins of silver. “I think she already has,” I say quietly. “She just hasn’t figured it out yet.”
He’s silent for a while, staring at the map but not really seeing it. I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am—that somehow, without meaning to, she’s become the axis everything turns on. Finally, he says, “If she’s the glue holding us together… what happens when she breaks?”
“Then we break with her, and burn everything to the ground,” I answer.
The rain gets heavier, thunder rolling low over the city like distant warning fire. Rook lifts the glass, takes a slow sip, and sets it down again. “You always did have a way of saying things I don’t want to hear.”
“Someone’s got to,” I say.
He smirks faintly, just enough to show he’s still human. “Alright then. We make her part of this.For real. No lies. No half-truths. She deserves to know what she’s standing in.”
I nod. “It’s going to get messy.”
“It already is.”
We sit there in silence, the storm raging outside, two men circling the same truth neither of us can deny.
I’m the first to stand. “We can make this work, Rook. All of it. If we stop fighting the inevitable.”
He tilts his head. “And what’s that?”
“That we both love her,” I say. “Maybe all of us do. Maybe she’s the only thing that can keep us from killing each other in the end.”
He lets out a slow breath, nodding once. “Then let’s make damn sure she survives long enough to decide if we’re fucking worth it.”
For a long moment, we just watch the rain together, the reflection of lightning painting white scars across the sky.
And in that quiet, I realize something that sits heavy in my chest. It isn’t jealousy I feel anymore. It’s acceptance.
Because if she’s the fire that consumes us all—I’ll burn willingly.
Chapter 35
Ash
In the morning, the house feels different.
Not quieter. Not calmer.
