The silence stretches. I watch Wyatt’s jaw tighten.
“I handled Mason,” he says quietly. “During his deep cover with the Zavala cartel. Watched what it did to him. How much of himself he had to give away to make the lie hold.” His thumb traces absently over his forearm, over the tattoo I’ve seen but never asked about. Zoey’s name in delicate script. “When they took his daughter, when we didn’t know if we’d get her back... I thought it was going to break him. Thought I was going to have to watch him shatter and not be able to do a damn thing about it.”
“But you got her back.”
“We got her back.” His reflection meets my reflection’s eyes. “And I made him a promise. That if anything ever happened to him and Callie, Zoey would never be alone.” He taps the tattoo. “Backup plan. Godfather duties. Whatever you want to call it.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The weight of it—the kind of commitment that gets inked into skin.
“My point is,” Wyatt continues, “I’ve seen what deep cover costs. What it takes from people. You’re not the only one carrying that kind of weight.”
The weight on my chest eases slightly. Not absolution—nothing that clean. But the sense that maybe I’m not speaking into a void.
“I can only speak for what I observed from the outside. But Mason had that, briefly. Belonging. Purpose. Even if it was ultimately a lie. Vicente gave you that too.”
“He gave me everything.” My voice sounds distant. Detached. Like I’m talking about someone else. “Structure. Approval. A place in the world that made sense. And when I performed well, when I pleased him?—”
I stop. My throat closes around the rest.
“Chris.”
“The sex wasn’t—” I force the words out. “It wasn’t like what you’re imagining. He never forced me. Never hurt me. It was—” Reward. Recognition. The only time I felt real. “I wanted it. That’s the part that fucks me up. I wanted it so much.”
Five years. Five years of learning to feel when his eyes were on me, when his attention shifted, when he was pleased or disappointed or interested. The conditioning runs deep. Deeper than I want to admit.
My hands are shaking. I set the glass down before I drop it.
“So when I walk into his house today and he looks at me like that—like he still knows me, like he still owns me—” I drag in a breath. “Part of me wants to run. And part of me...”
I can’t finish. Can’t say it.
But Wyatt’s looking at me now. And I see the moment his gaze drops—just for a second—to where my body has made the confession I couldn’t.
Heat floods my face.
“Chris—”
“Don’t.” I’m on my feet before I’ve decided to move. “Just—forget it. I shouldn’t have?—”
“Hey.” Wyatt stands too, but he doesn’t close the distance. Just holds his ground, hands open at his sides. “You don’t have to run from me.”
“I’m not running.”
“You’re literally backing toward the door.”
I stop. He’s right. I’m at the top of the steps that lead out of the sunken living room, my whole body angled toward escape.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I say. “Whatever this is. I only know how to?—”
Perform. Submit. Disappear into what someone else wants.
Wyatt rises from the couch. Climbs the steps slowly, giving me time to bolt if I need to. But he doesn’t stop until he’s on the same level, close enough to touch. Patient. Steady. Not pushing, not retreating. Just there.
The last of my resistance crumbles.
41
Chris
