For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Just breathing together, sharing this moment across the distance that separates us.
"I love you," he says finally. "I know I don't say it enough. I know I show it in ways that are fucked up and possessive and probably unhealthy. But I love you, Jade. More than anything in this world."
"I love you too." The words feel like a vow. A promise. A surrender.
"Get some sleep. You have a flight to catch in the morning."
"I'll text you when I book it."
"I'll be waiting." A pause. "Jade?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. For giving me another chance. I won't waste it."
The line goes dead, and I lie there in the darkness, my heart pounding, my body still humming with aftershocks. Tomorrow I'll go back to California. Back to Phoenix. Back to the life we're building together, whatever that might look like.
Back to danger and secrets and a love that might consume us both.
But tonight, for the first time in days, I sleep without nightmares.
CHAPTER 19- PHOENIX
I've given Maria more instructions in the last hour than I have in the past year.
Fresh sheets on the bed, the Egyptian cotton ones with the high thread count that Jade loved. Every surface dusted and polished until it gleams. The refrigerator stocked with her favorites, the ones I memorized without her ever knowing I was paying attention. Greek yogurt with honey. Fresh strawberries. That expensive sparkling water she pretends she doesn't like but drinks whenever she thinks I'm not looking.
Maria watches me pace the kitchen while she arranges groceries, her expression carefully neutral in the way that tells me she has opinions she's too professional to voice.
"The flowers," I say, checking my phone for the third time in five minutes. "Did they arrive?"
"Yes, Mr. Crawford. I placed them in the living room and the master bedroom, as you requested."
I nod, but I'm already walking toward the living room to check for myself. The peonies are perfect, soft pink blooms that reminded me of the blush that spreads across her cheeks when I say something that catches her off guard. I bought enough to fillevery room in the house, and now the whole place smells like a garden in spring.
It's too much. I know it's too much.
But I don't know how else to show her that I'm trying. That I heard what she said about control and suffocation and becoming my father. That I'm willing to do the work, whatever that looks like, to become the man she deserves.
I catch sight of myself in the hallway mirror and pause. The dark circles under my eyes have faded slightly, and there's color in my cheeks that wasn't there a few days ago. The haunted expression that's been staring back at me since she left has softened into something closer to hope.
Is this what it feels like to have something worth fighting for?
My phone buzzes. A text from my father.
I'm looking into the situation. We'll talk soon.
Cryptic as always. I don't know what "looking into it" means, whether he's already moved the body or simply gathering information before he acts. Part of me wants to call him, demand specifics, understand exactly what he's planning to do with the evidence I left buried in frozen ground.
But another part of me knows better than to ask questions I might not want answered.
The conversation we had yesterday keeps replaying in my mind. Nicholas Crawford, my father, the man I've spent my whole life trying to impress and escape in equal measure, admitted to killing people. Multiple people, from the sound of it. He dismissed my questions about his past, shut down the conversation before I could probe deeper, but the admission itself was enough to shift something fundamental in my understanding of who he is.
Whatever he's planning, it won't be free. Nothing with my father ever is. Every favor comes with strings attached, andsooner or later, he'll come to collect. The weight of that future debt settles heavy on my shoulders, an IOU written in blood that I'll be paying off for years.
I should be worried about that. I should be calculating the cost, planning my exit strategy, protecting myself the way he taught me to.
Instead, all I can think is that I'd do it again.
