The softness in his expression vanished. Replaced by something harder. Something dangerous.
His voice dropped darker. Lethal. “That man hit you. Repeatedly. If you think there won’t be consequences for that, you don’t know me at all.”
My stomach plummeted.
“Your parole hearing is less than two months away, Knox.”
“I’m aware.”
“So, you’re just going to throw it all away? Everything you’ve worked for? Everything we could have?”
His jaw tightened. “He hurt you.”
“And hurting him back fixes that how exactly?”
Silence. His forearms flexed.
“I’m asking you.” My voice cracked, and I hated it. “I’m standing here, asking you to let this go. To choose me. Choose us.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “You want to know what’s not simple? Watching someone you care about choose something else over you. Every. Single. Time.”
Something flickered across his face.
“My parents chose the bottle,” I said. “Every day. They looked at me, their daughter, and they reached for the vodka instead. Silas chose his fists. And now you’re standing here, choosing vengeance.”
“Harper—”
“You made me believe in second chances.” My throat burned. “I don’t give those out, Knox. Not anymore. Not after everything. But I gave one to you.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“And you’re going to take that second chance—our future—and flush it away? For what? Revenge that won’t undo a single bruise he left on me?” A tear slid down my cheek. I didn’t wipe it away. “Even when I’m telling you it will destroy me?”
“I can’t let him walk free after what he did to you.” His voice was raw. “I can’t.”
I took a step back. “Can’t? Or won’t?”
We stared at each other. Two people standing on opposite sides of a line neither of us had drawn.
“You killed a man to protect your daughter,” I said quietly.
His expression shuttered.
“Did you ever stop to wonder, if you’d let the police handle it, maybe you’d actually be there for her right now?”
The silence that followed was catastrophic.
I watched the words land. Watched them carve through him like shrapnel. His face didn’t change, but something behind his eyes fractured, and I knew—I knew—I’d hit the one wound he couldn’t protect.
Oh God. What had I done?
“Knox”—his name scraped out of me—“I didn’t mean?—”
“Yeah.” His voice was hollow. “You did.”
He was right. Some part of me had meant it, and that was the worst part.
