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“It’s not a bad thing to ask for help, Karyna.”

A choked laugh spills past my lips. Those words are completely unexpected, and I can’t help feeling just a little hysterical. “It is when you’re always the one needing it, and it’s never the other way around⁠—”

“Never means you know what the rest of the future holds,”Patrick says gently. “But you don’t, do you? None of us do.”

I’m starting to see Patrick in a completely different light, with how he’s making me reassess the things I used to think were true and unchangeable.

“I just hate feeling like a burden all the time,” I confess unevenly.

“I get that,” Patrick says with a crooked smile. “I get that, believe me. My sister wanted to be a doctor like our folks, but she’s already failed med school thrice. Our parents want to keep trying, but she told them she was done being a disappointment.”

“So what happened?”

“She cut off all communication between us. She says she wants us to stop worrying about her. That she’ll find a way to make it on her own.”

“And your parents?”

“Worried sick about her every night,” Patrick says soberly. “That’s why, you gotta remember…people who care for you hurt when you hurt. Same goes for people who do the right thing, like Mr. de Laigny. So…” Patrick looks at me intently. “I’m not just saying this because I like you.”

O-Oh!

“I’m saying this as someone as your friend and coworker. Mr. and Mrs. de Laigny will feel like they failed you if they find out from someone else that you were mistreated by one of the members. So just consider it, will you? Talking to them about what happened.”

Patrick’s words stay with me for the rest of the day. Mom has never cared for me the way Patrick’s parents obviously cared for their kids. But if I think about Ruel, and the eighteen months we’ve been together…

I…don’t know Keiran and Cadence well enough, but I do know Ruel, and so maybe…

Even if it feels awkward and scary and, frankly speaking, potentially humiliating for me to tell Ruel about what happened between Sadie and me…

He’s the only one I know I can ask for help and not be worried about whether or not he can handle the other woman.

Especially since I caught them kis⁠—

No, stop, don’t think that, Kar.

Thoughts of them together will only make me lose my resolve. Ruel is a good and honorable man. Equally importantly, he's rich and powerful, which puts him—at the very least—on equal footing with Sadie.

So I'm going to do it, I vow to myself.

I’m going to tell him everything and ask for his help.

I truly am.

Really!

And yet somehow, just the thought of keeping my promise makes the last three hours of my shift fly like it’s nothing, and I have to resist the urge to ask for overtime.

Don’t chicken out, Kar!

I tell myself I’m not a coward even as I take my time in the shower and act like choosing what to eat for dinner is as complex as solving world hunger. It's nine in the evening by the time I finally run out of excuses, and I’m already in my pajamas when someone knocks on my door.

Oh no.

I tense up as my PTSD kicks in.

Not again.

I don’t want to make a habit of being paranoid, but a part of me is already wondering if this will be Round 2 for Sadie and me, and as I slowly open the door, I’m already trying to remember what I learned from all the self-defense lessons⁠—