“Only on days I’m not getting threatened with sharp objects.” He pours us both another shot without asking. “Look, I get it. Waking up to a stranger in your kitchen after your… whatever the hell Reth is… ghosts you? Rough morning. But I’m not here to make it worse. I’m here because the big idiot actually gives a shit, even if he’d rather chew glass than admit it.”
I turn the shot glass in my fingers, the liquid catching the sunlight from the window. “You say that like youwantme to think he gives a shit.”
Ian’s voice softens, just a fraction. “I’ve known him a long time, Sophia. He doesn’t send me in for just anybody. Hell, he barely sends me in forhimself.”
I drink the shot, and he pours another. By the fourth, the light outside has shifted, and somewhere between the tequila and the view, the edge has come off enough that I ask the thing I’ve been turning over for a while.
“What does he do, besides kidnapping women?”
Ian’s mouth curves into that crooked, troublemaker grin. “He does a lot of things. But kidnapping women ain’t one of them.”
“Yet here I am.”
“Yeah.” He rotates the glass between his fingers, suddenly more careful with it. “It’s probably no consolation, but he didn’t want this.”
My chest does something stupid and painful. A tiny, traitorous flutter that feels dangerously close to hope.He didn’t want this.The words should comfort me. Instead, they twist like a hook behind my ribs.
“What is he protecting me from?”
He shifts. The easy humor in his shoulders tightens. “You’re a smart girl, Sophia. You know I can’t answer that.”
“Do I need protection from him?”
“There is not a chance in hell Reth will hurt you.” No hesitation. No qualifier. Flat and absolute the way only true things are.
Something moves in my gut—small and inconvenient and completely unwelcome. A soft, dangerous warmth that makes my eyes sting.God, I want to believe him.I want it so badly it scares me. Because believing that means admitting I’m already halfway to forgiving the man who stole my life. And forgiving him feels like the first step toward losing what’s left of myself.
“So, I can trust him?”
Ian is quiet for a moment. He sets his shot glass down, turns it once on the bench like he needs something to do with his hands. When he looks at me, there’s something more careful in his face than there’s been all day. “I can’t tell you whether to trust him or not. What Icantell you is—I trust him. With my life.”
I study him. “You’re loyal to him.”
He says nothing.
“What did he do to deserve that?”
Something passes through his eyes. Raw and fast, gone before I can read it properly. He looks back at the mountains like they might save him from the question. “Showed me there’s still some good left in this fucked-up world we live in.”
The silence that follows isn’t heavy. It’s just…there. The tequila is warm in my veins, and the ache in my chest is growing teeth.Good.The word feels too big, too fragile. Reth has been nothing but shadows and secrets and the terrifying certainty that he could ruin me.
“You’re doing the thing,” I say, voice rougher than I want.
“What thing?”
“The deflection thing. I know enough about it to recognize it.”
He looks sideways at me, that crooked grin flickering back to life. “Huh. How’s that working out for you here?”
“Not great.”
“Yeah.” Almost sympathetic. “He’s not easy to read.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I call it a lot of things. Depends on the day.” He pours us both another shot, the bottle clinking softly. “Some days it’s ‘broody motherfucker.’ Other days it’s ‘the only person alive who can make silence feel like a loaded gun.’ But here’s the thing nobody sees—” he hands me the shot “—he doesn’t do it to be a dick, or mysterious, or whatever the fuck you call it. It’s just the way he is. Quiet. The kind of quiet you only earn when you’ve walked through places that don’t let you come back the same.”
I lick my lips, look at the tequila between my fingers. “I know that kind of quiet. Worked with kids, parents who wear silence like armor because speaking would crack them open again. Reth carries the same fracture.”
