With a long look at Briggs, silently conveying something, Rush glanced between Mallory and me again before asking, “So, it hasn’t been annulled yet?”
“Ever,” I corrected. “It won’t be annulledever.”
I watched the corner of Mallory’s mouth twitch before she was able to control it. She could fight that smile all she wanted, the heat slowly creeping into her cheeks gave her away.
But I was so focused on studying her and the light in her eyes, that I didn’t notice the heavy silence filling the room after my declaration until Briggs cut through it.
Clearing his throat, he leaned against the table and started speaking, only to hesitate.
Briggs never hesitated.
He spoke with confidence, never worrying about how his words would be taken, even if they offended every last one of us. So, for him to hesitate over this?
I spared another glance to see Mallory just as tense and stone-faced as before as she waited, but that wasn’t anythingnew for her. Thatch and Rush’s solemn expressions? Those were new. And they were just as worrying as Briggs’ hesitation.
“I’ve waited for this,” Briggs finally said. “Not a surprise elopement, but just the two of you together. I’ve also worried about when it would eventually happen.” Nodding to Mallory and me as he spoke about us, he admitted, “I knew you’d do something to break her heart, and I knew you’d try to kill him. And I knew it’d wreck our team.”
He’d said something eerily similar last week, in this very room, and yet, there was something about his tone and his expression that told me this conversation was about to go very differently.
A pit opened in my stomach as I watched him hold his hands out above the table before letting them fall flat. “Look at our team.”
“That—”
“That’s my fault,” Mallory said over me. “I pulled away and hurt your company because I was trying to protect myself. I take full ownership of that, even if it means losing my position.”
“Don’t,” I cut in before Briggs could respond, one hand outstretched in Mallory’s direction. “Don’t fire her. She was reacting to things Ihaddone and others I’d unintentionally made her think I’d done.”
“Should the rest of us be here for this?” Evans asked on a low rumble.
“Family,” Thatch muttered softly but meaningfully. “We get through things together by walking through them together.”
Briggs dipped his head in confirmation, then drew in a deep breath and focused on Mallory. “We talked.”
“We did,” she confirmed.
“From that conversation, I was sure you would no longer be here in two weeks.”
A muscle in my jaw feathered as I forced myself to remain silent, waiting for her next response.
Not that I was questioning anything she’d confessed to me earlier. But those confessions let me know just how much Mallory Monroe could surprise me. And leaving Shadow? That...thatwould surprise me.
“I was too,” she finally said, and I went still. “But this is my home. Like Thatch just said, this is my family.”
My attention drifted to find her watching me, and I felt my pulse quicken.
Briggs grunted some sort of assent before asking, “And what happens when the two of you are at each other’s throats again? What happens when Gray pushes you to bodily harm, Monroe?”
“That clearly hasn’t changed,” I responded for her as the corner of my mouth slowly lifted into a smirk. “I hope it never does.”
I practically felt Briggs’ hesitation that time before he carefully said, “What happens when y’all decide you can’t do this anymore?”
Evans and Thatch hissed low curses.
Rush dragged a hand over his face.
Mallory tensed at the implication, but just as those shields started forming, my attention snapped to our team leader. “What happens when you and Lainey don’t work out?” I tossed back coldly and watched as his expression darkened in warning.
“We’re different.”
