I wanted to get out of the truck. Wanted to walk up and say something—anything—to finally close the book on all the damage she’d done. But I couldn’t move. Not because I was scared, but because Floyd’s grip on my hand had shifted from “steady” to “restrain.” The tendons in his arm stood out, the skin stretched over his knuckles. His jaw clenched so hard I half-expected the stitches to tear.
Miller popped the back door of the cruiser, and Vivian, still in full banshee mode, tried to throw herself backward into thestreet. For a second it looked like she’d break free, but Latham was there, blocking the escape, voice calm but final: “Get in the car, Viv. It’s over.”
She thrashed, spat, then locked eyes with the truck. She saw us—saw me. The mask dropped, just for a second, and the hate that poured out could have salted every field in the county.
She screamed something that was half my name, half a slur. The words bounced off the glass and stuck in my skin, but I didn’t let myself flinch.
Floyd did, though. His breath went sharp, and the hand in mine went rigid. Then he looked at me, the anger draining out, replaced by something softer. Something like grief.
I squeezed back, held tight.
Vivian finally lost her footing, landing hard on the vinyl back seat. Miller and Daniels shut the doors, ignoring her muffled threats and curses. The cruiser pulled away slow, a parade of shame, and I watched her face shrink to nothing in the rear glass.
For a long time, Floyd and I just sat there. The heater ran, the radio low. I could hear the blood rush in my ears.
He said, “It’s done.” The relief in his voice was almost a whimper.
I let out a breath I’d been holding since the hospital. “She’s not coming back from that.”
“She’ll try.”
I nodded. “Let her.”
We sat a while longer, watching the neighbors gather in little knots on their driveways, pointing at the empty house, already weaving the first rumors.
I turned to him, tried to speak, but all I could do was shake my head. He grinned, lips split and ugly but beautiful, and said, “You want to say it. Go ahead.”
So I did. “Nobody fucks with what’s mine and gets away with it.” My voice was calm, almost gentle. “Not my shop. Not my town. And sure as hell not you.”
Floyd’s eyes went glassy, but he laughed. “You’re a psycho,” he said, but the pride was clear.
I leaned over, pressed my lips to his forehead. “You love it.”
“I do.”
We pulled away, slow, driving past the crowd and the scene of the crime. The silence in the truck was a promise. The world could say what it wanted; we’d already won.
As we drove back to the station without a word, the sun set behind the valley. Floyd’s hand never left mine, and for the first time in my life, I felt safe. We were a mess, both of us, but for the first time, the mess belonged to us alone.
Let her rage. Let the whole town talk.
I had him, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
~ Floyd ~
The quiet in my living room was a different breed than the silence of a hospital, or the hush that comes after a gun goes off and the world waits to see who falls. This was the hush after you finally call the fire department, and the ashes are still warm but the flames have nothing left to eat.
I’d always hated the sound of my own house after a long day—tick of the fridge compressor, the radiator pipes burping at odd intervals, the ghostly echo of a TV I never bothered to turn on. But with Ransom on the couch beside me, knees almost touching, it didn’t bother me at all.
The quiet was full, not empty.
He slouched at the far end, one arm thrown over the back like he owned the place, the other twirling a pen between his fingers. I could see the bruises coming in on his knuckles, just like mine. We matched, in a way, though I doubt either of us would ever admit it out loud.
For a while we said nothing, just watched the sunlight crawl down the far wall, bleaching the edge of the old family photos and pooling on the hardwood like gold.
Ransom’s eyes tracked the movement, but every few seconds he’d glance at me, just to check if I was still there. I did the same to him. It was like neither of us trusted the other not to vanish if we blinked.
