Knox grunted, then said, “You keeping him under lock and key?”
I let my voice go flat, steel in every syllable. “He needs time to heal. He’s staying with me. Don’t come by unless I say.”
Knox bristled, I could hear it. “You think I can’t protect my own brother?”
I smiled, thin and mean. “He doesn’t need a jailer. He needs to know he’s not alone.”
For a second, nothing. Then Knox let out a breath. “Fine. Just—let me see him tomorrow. For five minutes. That’s all.”
“Maybe.” I ended the call, no goodbye.
My coffee was half-gone, my head clear, the anger settled into something colder, more focused. Nobody was going to hurt Bo again. Not while I was here to stop it.
I finished my coffee and went back inside, locking the balcony behind me. I checked on Bo one last time—still sleeping, peaceful as anything.
I closed the door, sat at the kitchen table, and started making a new list, this one not for parts or tools, but for everything I’d need to make sure the next time Bo got hurt, I’d be the last thing that stood between him and the world.
No one ever fucked with a Moxley twice. Not if they wanted to keep their hands. And now, Bo was mine.
I’d make sure the whole world knew it.
Chapter Five
~ Bodean ~
Waking up in a stranger’s bed is usually the start of a bad joke, but this time it felt like a goddamn miracle. At first, all I registered was the bright gray light pressing in from a window somewhere, the soft weight of blankets, and the fact that I wasn’t dead.
My mouth tasted like old copper and cigarettes, and my limbs felt nailed to the mattress, but compared to the way I’d spent the last month, I’d call that a win.
I peeled one eye open, bracing for a hangover or the sudden spike of panic that usually came with not knowing where I was. Instead, I found myself staring at a ceiling that wasn’t a water-stained motel rafter, but bare wood beams—polished, warm, dust motes floating through the air like tiny satellites.
There was a plant on the windowsill, actually alive and green, and shelves lined with what looked like real books, none of them the trashy mass market kind I read when I was trying to impress nobody.
My first thought was: Where the fuck am I, and how did I get here? My second thought was: If I’m dead, this is a pretty on-brand afterlife.
I tried to sit up, but my ribs screamed a sharp, familiar warning. Right. ER, stitches, the fight, and then Jo, staring at me with that world-ending look and hauling my sorry ass out of Yreka like a dog he’d found at the pound.
I’d half-convinced myself that part was a fever dream, but the throbbing in my side and the tightness of tape on my cheek said otherwise.
I let my head sink back onto the pillow, and that’s when it hit me: the scent. Not the cheap detergent or the stench of someoneelse’s hangover, but something deep and warm. Motor oil, cedar, a faint, spicy bite of aftershave.
It was so intensely Jo I felt a punch straight to the gut. I buried my face in the pillow, inhaled until my brain spun, then let the air out in a slow, shaky sigh.
Fuck.
Part of me wanted to roll over and sob, the other part wanted to laugh until my stitches popped. I did neither. I just lay there, limp as an old rag, feeling the aches stack up one by one as the sleep fog burned off.
The bedding was soft, sheets smooth as cream, the blanket a heavy old quilt with frayed edges and stitched patches. I tucked my arms in tight, a little kid’s move, and let the weight settle over me.
I could hear footsteps somewhere out in the house—steady, deliberate, every step landing with the conviction of a man who owned the floorboards. Coffee percolating, a mug clink on the counter.
Jo, then. Not a dream. Not a joke.
The humiliation should have made me want to crawl under the bed and never come out. Instead, I closed my eyes and let myself be wrapped in it. All those years I’d spent orbiting around this man, dodging and baiting, pretending I wanted to run when all I really wanted was this—two seconds of not having to fight for air.
I’d never admit it out loud, but the urge to belong to someone, even for one fucked-up morning, was as strong as the ache in my chest.
The painkillers must have still been working, because even with the bruises, I felt a dopey contentment spreading through my limbs.
