I turn, looking back at Lucky’s house. The curtains pulled tight like she’s barricading herself from the world. The duffel bag was left open on her bed, half-packed, like she tried to run mid-breakdown. The last trembling breath she took before collapsing on that shower floor.
All of it slams into me at once.
“My responsibility,” I say. The words leave me low and final, as if they’ve always been there, waiting for shape.
Another beat.
“Understood,” Sam replies. “Send me everything.”
A rustle on the line. Then: “Ethan. You back in the game, or just dipping your toes?”
“Neither.”
My gaze shifts again to the house—small, dark, silent. The place she locked herself inside because she thinks she’s safer alone. My jaw turns to steel.
“I’m eliminating a threat.”
A short hum. Calculating. “To you?”
“No.” My pulse thuds, heavy and dark. “To someone who doesn’t realize she matters.”
There’s no hesitation this time. “You still at the lake house?”
“Yeah.”
A slow exhale slips out of him, a sound of acceptance, of readiness. “I’ll be there by dawn.”
The call ends with a soft click.
I slide the phone into my pocket and stand in the wet quiet, the late afternoon air thick on my skin. Lucky’s place sits like a sealed-off confession, windows shut tight, lights off, her fear soaked into the walls.
She can push me out.
She can throw words like knives.
She can run, hide, shut down, pretend she doesn’t need anyone.
None of it changes a damn thing.
Because while she’s upstairs tearing herself apart, shaking so hard she can barely breathe—I’m going to make sure the man who put that terror in her never comes near her again.
Not while I’m alive.
Chapter 25
Lucky
Ihearthefrontdoor click.
My chest caves in. My stomach twists, a knot tightening so fast I can barely breathe. Ethan’s gone. He’s actually gone.
And suddenly, the world—my stupid, messy world—is quieter than it’s ever been.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, uninvited, but they come anyway, streaking down my cheeks. I’ve fallen for him. Forhim. Ethan Maddox. And in the chaos of my life, the paranoia, the fear, the screaming ghosts of my past, he is the one constant, the one thing these past weeks that made the noise stop, even for a moment.
And I pushed him away.
I can hear the words I spat at him echoing in my head, sharp and ugly.
