The certainty hits me without ceremony, cold and absolute, and I feel it lodge in my chest like a weight I won’t be able to set down.
Outside, the city blurs past, bright and careless and loud.
Inside the car, everything is quiet except for Rafe’s breathing and the slow, terrifying realization that loving him is no longer enough to keep him safe.
24
I’ve beenawake for hours. Spending the night freaking the fuck out, wondering what would have or could have happened to Rafe if we hadn’t arrived, will do that to a man.
It feels like the ground underneath my life has shifted.
The sun has already risen and climbed into the sky, spilling pale light across the mansion’s kitchen like nothing happened last night. Like we didn’t drag Rafe out of a house full of strangers while he bled and couldn’t stand. Like I didn’t watch people laugh at him while my stomach turned with something sharp and violent and sick.
Like my hands weren’t shaking so badly in the car that Vinny quietly asked if I wanted him to drive me somewhere else.
I said no. I said it too fast. Because if I leave—even for a second—I don’t know what happens next.
Rafe is upstairs.
Miles told me he’s still asleep the last time he checked on him. Drew told me he’s okay. Eli told me not to overthink it, which would be easier if my brain wasn’t actively chewing itself to pieces.
Rachael arrived just after eight, all calm efficiency and quiet authority, and told me to breathe—like oxygen has ever fixed a mess this deep.
She’s sitting at the kitchen island now, laptop open, hair pulled into a sleek knot like she’s about to run a board meeting. Which, I guess, she is. She’s fielding calls, typing, setting schedules, moving pieces around on a chessboard while everyone else pretends this is normal.
Rachael doesn’t ask why I’m here. She doesn’t ask why I haven’t left. She doesn’t even ask why I look like I haven’t slept in a week, or why I flinch every time someone says Rafe’s name.
She’s not stupid. I’m sure she’s noticed things over the years—patterns, proximity, the way Rafe orbits me without seeming to realize he’s doing it. But like any good agent, she keeps her suspicions neatly folded away. What she doesn’t know, she doesn’t name. What she doesn’t name, she doesn’t have to manage.
Right now, she’s focused on damage control, not emotional archaeology. And I’m grateful for that, because I don’t think I could survive being seen any more clearly than I already am.
Miles is pacing.Drew is leaning against the counter with a mug of coffee in his hands he hasn’t touched. Eli is on the couch, foot bouncing, eyes fixed on the floor.
Vinny is nearby, not inside the room, but close enough that he might as well be. A presence. A wall. A witness. And Robyn, I think, has the day off. Honestly, she deserves a week if this is the shit she keeps having to deal with.
The last time I was in this kitchen, it was for birthdays and laughter, for music blasting at midnight, for Rafe shoving me against a counter and kissing me like he didn’t know how to stop wanting me.
Now it feels like a hospital waiting room.
Rachael clears her throat. “Okay,” she says, calm and unyielding. “The facility is confirmed. Private entrance. No intake photos. No paperwork trail that can leak. He’ll be admitted under a different name.”
Miles stops pacing, hands on his hips. “He’s gonna hate it.”
She doesn’t blink. “He can hate it all he wants. He needs it.”
Drew rubs a hand over his jaw. “He’s gonna refuse.”
“He won’t,” Rachael says, like she’s already made the decision. “He’ll argue, he’ll insult everyone, and then he’ll go. Because deep down, he knows.”
I breathe in slowly through my nose. I haven’t said much. I’ve been in the room, but it feels like I’m not really in it. Like I’m hovering beside myself, watching it happen. Watching my husband’s life get rearranged by people who love him while I sit here holding the weight of my part in it.
Rachael’s gaze slides to me. “Ollie.”
I look up too slowly. My eyes feel gritty. My head feels too full. “Yes?”
She softens a fraction. Just a fraction. “We need you to talk to him.”
Those words alone tell me she knows a lot more than I gave her credit for.
