“I’ll be fine.
For the first time tonight, her smile met her eyes.
And for the first time in four days, I felt like I could finally fucking breathe.
The door chimed behind us.
Michelle’s eyes flicked over my shoulder, narrowing. “Oh, here’s the traitor now.”
Brigham strolled in like he didn’t have a care in the world, grinning as Michelle scowled at him. But instead of ripping into him, she stepped forward and pulled him into a hug.
Something sour twisted in my gut.
I wasn’t jealous. But it didn’t feel good watching her go to him when she hadn’t come to me. I had made it easy, though. I had walked away, believed her lie without a second thought.
I had left her alone in this.
And if I could convince her to give us another chance, I was going to prove to her every single day that she would never be alone again.
Michelle pulled back, and Brigham muttered something to her, making her laugh. That laugh—the one I had missed so damn much—made me clench my jaw.
“I ought to kill you,” I muttered.
Brigham smirked, unbothered as he dropped into the booth beside Logan. “Figured as much. But it was worth the risk.” He stretched out like this was just another night, like we weren’t about to stare down the people who had spent the last week tormenting Michelle.
“Glad to see you have a posse now, Michelle,” he added, grinning at her.
She let out a slow breath, finally looking around the table.
Her people.
“I don’t have a posse,” Michelle muttered, rolling her eyes, but her cheeks flushed pink at the edges.
Brigham smirked, but his expression shifted as she suddenly tensed, her gaze locked on something in the distance.
“Shit.”
Her eyes narrowed, shoulders rolling back, posture shifting into something razor-sharp and unshakable. I followed her line of sight and immediately went rigid.
They were here.
A slow, controlled breath left me as adrenaline kicked in, lighting up every nerve in my body. My hands curled into fists at my sides, my body already tense and ready.
“What do you need?” I asked, my voice low.
“Just…stay here.”
Her voice didn’t waver, but her fingers tightened around the USB as Brigham handed it over.
“You aren’t doing this alone. Get used to it and stop wasting time,” Brigham muttered, but I was already standing, already moving to follow Michelle as she walked outside.
We followed her to the back of the lot, where the dim, flickering streetlights barely lit the cracked pavement. The air was thick with the scent of rain, heavy, but it hadn’t started falling yet. It smelled like the city, like garbage and damp asphalt, like something rotten lurking beneath the surface.
And then there they were.
Leaning against a broken light pole, looking every bit like the scum they were.
I recognized the older man instantly. The one who had been outside my mom’s nursing home, watching me, taking pictures. His face was weathered, sunken eyes filled with something cold and calculating. But it was the tall, wiry guy beside him that set me on edge. He was too twitchy, too restless, his body practically vibrating.
