The world tilts again—spinning, stretching, warping around the edges.
I try to fight.
I try to pull away.
But my limbs won’t listen.
My voice fractures.
“How many times?” I whisper it now, breath hitching, vision flickering. “How many times—Noah, how many fucking times?—”
He doesn’t answer.
Which means the truth is worse than the lie.
My eyes drift shut even as I claw them open.
The house blurs.
His face blurs.
My own thoughts blur.
Panic punches through my chest.
“Kai,” slips out of my mouth without permission.
Noah freezes.
The world goes black.
And I fall.
Kai
Isee the headlights before I see the car.
Noah’s fancy black SUV tears out of the driveway like he’s running from something—or toward something—but either way, he’s going too fast for a man who claims he loves the woman inside that house.
I watch from the trees, arms crossed, breath a calm I haven’t felt in hours. The night is cold, biting, sharp enough to carve truths into bone. The wind pushes through the branches above me, carrying the scent of her—faint perfume, sweat, fear, alcohol.
Alcohol he didn’t give her.
The rest?
Yeah.
He gave her that.
The engine fades down the road, swallowed by distance and arrogance.
I wait.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
