Easton stared at him. “I’m fine.”
Ryan grabbed his wrist and lifted Easton’s hand anyway. His eyes moved over the split knuckles, the swelling, and the blood smeared between his fingers. Then he looked at Easton’s face, the bruise, the cut mouth, and the way his shoulders still hadn’t dropped from the fight.
Ryan’s voice went low. “I told you this was going to happen.”
Easton’s jaw flexed. “Not now.”
“Yes, now.” Ryan’s anger sharpened, controlled and furious. “I told you that you were going to crack. I told you this shit was eating you alive, and instead of dealing with it, both of you kept dragging everyone around you through the wreckage like this was sustainable.”
“Ryan,” Briggs warned.
Ryan didn’t look away from Easton. “No. This shit needs to stop before you fuck up your life.”
Easton’s eyes flashed. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know it and keep doing it anyway.”
The words hit the room hard.
Easton went still, but Ryan wasn’t done. He turned his head toward me, and the force of his stare made my spine straighten on instinct.
“Fix this,” he said.
My mouth parted.
He pointed between Easton and me, leaving no softness and no room to hide. “Both of you. Enough is enough. You’re destroying each other and pretending everyone else is dramatic for noticing. You’re bleeding all over the people who love you, and tonight proved it isn’t staying contained anymore.”
“Don’t put this on her. Put it on the piece of shit in the parking lot,” Easton snapped.
Ryan’s eyes cut back toward him. “I’m putting it on both of you because it belongs to both of you.” He pointed toward the parking lot. “That was just the spark to this inferno.”
The bar went so quiet I could hear a fryer basket drop in the kitchen.
Then Charm made a small sound.
It barely counted as anything. Not a sob. Not a word. Only a broken inhale that slipped out before she could make it pretty.
Ryan heard it, and his whole face changed.
The anger didn’t vanish, but it shifted direction, softening around the edges as he looked at her. Charm stood near Bliss with both arms wrapped around herself, tears streaking her cheeks, looking like she hated being seen and couldn’t stop shaking.
Ryan crossed the room without asking permission from anyone.
Charm looked up as he reached her. “Ryan.”
That was all she got out before he pulled her into his arms.
Not casually. Not with some half-hidden, almost-friendly touch they could explain away later. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and the other around the back of her head, tucking her into his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world to hold Charm Harlen in front of half the team, Cade,Bliss, me, and every secret they had clearly been pretending wasn’t growing teeth.
Charm folded into him, and he kissed the top of her head.
The whole room noticed.
Bliss blinked through her tears, her mouth parting slightly. Cade’s eyes narrowed for half a second. Briggs somehow looked like even his grief had paused to process it. Rider’s gaze flicked toward Ryan’s hand in Charm’s hair, then away like he had just learned something he didn’t know what to do with.
Ryan didn’t care.
He bent his head close to Charm’s and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was made her fingers tighten in the front of his jacket.
