Logan looks at the prospects lining the walls then back at Olivia. “He died like a brother,” he says quietly. “So we bury him like one.”
Fuck.
Even Joker drops his eyes for a second. Connor looks wrecked. Tate’s jaw tightens hard enough to crack. The women are emotional too. Emma leans into Cain’s side while Brooke quietly wipes at her eyes. Mac presses close to Logan despite his injuries, her hand sliding into his. The room mourns together without falling apart. And Olivia absorbs every second of it like she’s trying to carry the entire weight herself. Too much.
She’s taking in too much. I feel it happening. See the way her breathing changes again. See exhaustion dragging at her harder now that adrenaline’s fading. She needs out of this room.
Now.
My hand slides lower against her back, pulling her tighter against my side. “I’m taking her upstairs.”
Logan nods immediately. No hesitation. No argument. “Go.” That’s all he says.
I don’t waste another second. Olivia clings to me the second I start moving. Not subtly. Not carefully. Like letting go would physically destroy her. And maybe it would.Her fingers stay locked in my shirt while I guide her toward the stairs slowly, keeping one arm tight around her waist the entire time. Nobody stops us. Nobody says anything.
The room parts automatically.
Family protecting family.
As we reach the stairs, Olivia presses closer again, her breathing uneven against my throat. I tighten my hold instinctively. She’s here.
Alive.
Broken in ways I don’t fully know how to fix yet. But she’s here.
And I swear to fucking God…
Nobody will ever touch her again.
I don’t remember deciding to hold on to him. I just do. My hand is fisted in the front of Cobra’s cut, fingers locked so tightly in the leather that my knuckles ache. My other hand wraps around his wrist like it’s the only solid thing left in the world. Every step up the stairs feels too long, too open, too far away from the ground, and if his arm wasn’t around my waist, I don’t know if my legs would keep working.
He slows without asking. He feels everything. Every stumble. Every hitch in my breathing. Every tiny tightening of my fingers against him like some desperate, terrified part of me is afraid he might vanish if I loosen my grip. He doesn’t tell me to calm down. He doesn’t tell me I’m safe. Not yet. Maybe he knows I’m not ready to believe words like that. He just keeps me tucked against him, one arm locked around my waist, his body angled slightly in front of mine like even the hallway is something he has to stand between me and.
I press closer. I can’t help it. The loss of contact feels impossible. Physical. Like if there’s too much space between us, everything inside me will spill out before I’m ready. I can feel it there already, pushing hard behind my ribs, behind my throat, behind my eyes.
Fear. Grief. Shame. Relief. All of it packed too tightly inside my body.I held it in for the car ride. For Matteo. For the main room. For Logan and the women and the brothers who watched me come back like I was something fragile enough to shatter if anyone breathed wrong. But now it’s only him.
That terrifies me more than the room did. Because I don’t have to hold it together with him. Because he’ll let me break. And I don’t know if I’ll know how to stop once I start. His room comes into view, and something inside me twists so sharply I almost make a sound. The door. The hallway. The ordinary shape of a place that became mine before I understood I was allowed to have it.
Cobra opens the door and guides me inside. The second it closes behind us, the world shrinks. No main room. No eyes. No questions. No Matteo. No auction. No collar. Just this room. His room.Our room.
The air smells like leather and smoke and him. His bed is there, rumpled from before everything changed. My things are still where I left them. A brush near the dresser. One of my shirts folded badly on the chair because Cobra folded it and he’s terrible at it. My charger still plugged into the wall. Normal things. Tiny things. Proof that I existed here before they took me. Proof that some part of me was waiting to come back. That’s what breaks me. Not the blood. Not the fear. Not even the memory of Eli’s body hitting the floor. A charger in the wall. A shirt on the chair. My life, paused.
I make a sound I don’t recognize.
Cobra turns instantly. His hands come to my waist, steadying me, his eyes moving over my face with that intense focus that usually makes me feel seen. Right now, it makes me fall apart. “Angel.” One word. Soft for him.Ragged.
I shake my head, but I don’t know what I’m denying. The tears come so fast I can’t stop them. One second they’re burning behind my eyes, and the next I’m crying so hard my whole body folds inward. Ugly crying. Broken crying. The kind that steals air and bends your spine and makes sounds no one should ever have to hear from themselves.
Cobra pulls me into him immediately. No hesitation. No panic. His arms close around me, one hand spreading across my back, the other cradling the back of my head like he can hold the pieces of me together if he presses close enough.
I bury my face in his chest and sob. Not pretty. Not controlled. Not the quiet tears I let fall when no one could see. This is everything. It rips out of me so hard my knees weaken, and he catches me before I can drop. He lowers us both to the edge of the bed, pulling me into his lap because apparently standing is no longer something I’m capable of doing.
I cling to him. My fingers dig into him. My face presses into his neck, and I cry until I can’t tell if I’m breathing or choking.
He doesn’t tell me to stop. He doesn’t tell me it’s okay. He knows better than that.
Nothing is okay.
