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“Where is he?”

My mom’s head disappears behind the screen again with a murmured, “Wherever criminals go to evade prison, I imagine.”

That barrier drops, letting all the pain pass at once. A sonic boom of anguish pummels me until I can barely breathe. The little bit of breath I do have is used to cry. I can’t help it. He left me. Again. I saved his life and he skipped town. Him and his dad, on the lamb, like the thieves they are.

I can’t believe him.

Well, I can. I should. After what he did to Guy. After what they both did to my mom, swindling her out of her hard-earned money. Graham’s the one that married her under false pretenses but Khaos enabled his dad’s bad behavior. He moved here just so he could go along with it. They’re a team—the Swindlers of Sea Haven.

It makes me sick.

Not as sick as losing him. Because he wasn’t just that. Not to me. I’m not even sure he was that, period. Graham has a history of deceiving Khaos. Deceit Khaos would rationalize out of love. Misguided love maybe, but he still believed it was from a good place. If Khaos thought his father’s reasons were compelling enough, I have no doubt he’d follow that man into an active volcano.

Until recently. Ever since we got together, he was short with Graham, sometimes downright pissed off. Apart from that first meeting, where he did try—somewhat—blackmailing me, he was very adamant about not taking my money. My mother’s money, maybe, but never mine.

Even the thing with my tire, that was…Graham’s idea. Khaos was strictly against me giving him—or them?—any money for that. He lost it when I offered my credit card.

That’s why I took that bullet. Not just because I loved Khaos but because I believed in him. I’m not saying he was innocent, but he was coerced. That I know, by looking at Khaos and seeing the strides he’s made to become a completely different man than the one I met in the kitchen all those months ago. He was generous, even in what he thought were his final moments when he put himself in front of my mother, a woman he loathed but was willing to protect anyway because he loved me.

He did love me. Just not enough to stay and fight.

Some fighter he turned out to be.

“Will I be able to cheer again?” I croak.

My mom doesn’t even have the decency to look me in the eye as she says, “It’s too early to tell right now but…things don’t look good. I’m not sure how someone can perform elite stunts with a bum shoulder. You may very well have cheered your last game last night.”

Each word spoken is like another bullet until I feel like a colander, everything inside me free to spill out.

Whatever I was yesterday, whatever I had, is gone.

With a quivering lip, I start to bawl.

I sacrificed everything for love, just like Elle in that mafia romance, except I lost everything. I lost cheer. I lost Khaos. I lost—

“Where’s Onyx?”

I gasp. That voice. His voice.

There, in the doorway, is a haggard-looking Khaos. Somehow the sight brings more tears to my eyes. His wrists are free now—raw but free—and he’s wearing a different shirt than the one he had on at the house. It’s clean, unlike his pants that are stained with…blood. Mine?

“Onyx?”

“That stufty he insisted I bring,” my mom supplies haughtily.

“I know who Onyx is. I just don’t understand why he’d be here.”

“To prevent that.” Khaos nods at me.

I lower the hand in my hair. Wrapped up in various materials, my entire right arm is totally unmovable, but my left hand is free to roam, which is exactly what Khaos just caught it doing.

He sees everything.

“I thought you left me.”

“Never,” is said with such conviction, I almost gasp all over again.

His thumb over his shoulder, he says, “I was talking to the police. They have…a lot of questions.”