Page 42 of Reckless

The families.

Three years.

I built this one interview, one document, one terrified conversation at a time.

I know every late night and every risk I took to get this far.

Which means somebody else does too.

I delete the preview from the notification bar, lock my phone, and look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror for approximately four seconds, which is about as long as I allow myself.

Then I take one slow breath.

It’s enough.

It has to be.

I unlock the bathroom door and head back out before anybody comes looking for me.

Marley hands me a drink the second I walk into the main room. Deek is still arguing that soup counts as a beverage, Koa is threatening to throw him out, and Bear looks as though he’s reconsidering every decision that’s led him to this conversation.

I laugh because it is easier than explaining, then my eyes find Piper.

She’s at the bar, making Kyle laugh so hard he’s had to put his beer down, and just like that, she looks like she’s belonged here forever.

Ghost is back at his workstation by the time I look over, like nothing happened, and he didn’t just turn my entire afternoon inside out. I stand here for another second anyway while life carries on. It always does, and I wrap both hands around my drink, square my shoulders, and walk back into it.

Nobody looks at me twice.

Nobody asks if I’m okay.

By the time I reach the bar, I’m smiling again.

Somehow, I almost believe it.

The corner of Ghost’s screen catches the light. He doesn’t turn around, but I find myself walking toward him anyway, stopping behind his chair, saying nothing. His hands are still on the keyboard. The screens do what they always do, running data in patterns I’ve learned to half read over the past months.

“Thank you,” I say.

He doesn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth moves. And I stand there for one more second, behind him, with the weight of everything I’m carrying pressing quiet and steady against my ribs.

Then, I head back to the party.

Chapter Nine

SAGE

The Next Day

The clubhouse feels different this morning. Not quiet, because the Defiance clubhouse is never quiet. Koa is banging around in the kitchen, Deek is already arguing with someone about something that probably doesn’t matter, Marcus has decided sleep is for the weak, and somewhere in the clubhouse Victoria is laughing anyway.

But underneath all of it, something has shifted.

The brothers aren’t pacing.

They’re waiting.

That’s why I took the morning off work today to be here. Sin mentioned it a couple of days ago without making a production out of it—his mother is coming.