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Jax holds me again, and something in me just breaks. The sob that comes out doesn’t feel like mine—too loud, too raw, dragged up from somewhere I’ve kept locked for over a year. I try to breathe and can’t. Each inhale catches somewhere behind my ribs and comes back out broken, in pieces, and for a few long seconds I’m not even sure I’m getting enough air. Jax doesn’t let go. He just holds on tighter, one hand pressed flat between my shoulder blades, grounding me while I fall apart against him.

Slowly, painfully, the sobs start to space themselves out. I breathe in for four. Hold. Out for six—the trick Aaron used to talk me through, the one I’ve never had to use for something this big. By the time I finally still, my throat is raw and my whole body feels wrung out, like something just left it.

“You still talk about him like he’s alive,” Jax says. “I never put it together because—”

“Because I didn’t want you to.” I turn my body towards him. “It’s been a year and I never fully accepted that he was gone,” I say, a fresh sob racking my shoulders. “I stopped living. I couldn’t cope with the reality, life without him. It was easier to pretend everything was still the same when talking to people who didn’t know,” I tell him. “It made everything feel safer. I didn’t have to suffer the pity and the looks.”

“And now?” Jax asks. Nodding towards the courtyard.

“They deserve the truth. I came here filled with grief, blame and hate,” I admit. “Meeting all of you changed that. I want to start living again, I want a life with you all in it… If you’ll have me after my lies—”

“It wasn’t lying. Not really.” Jax says gently. “It was grief and self-preservation. No-one will hold that against you, Saint, especially not me.”

We hug again and I feel a weight lift from my shoulders. I pull Craig in a moment later and we sit together, three grown men crying, hugging, and unpacking the grief, anger, and pain that has overshadowed all of us for the so long.

It's then I realise how much Aaron would love this. This closure. This healing. This new beginning.

Chapter 34

Luna

My feet ache so badly I can barely feel my toes, but it’s a satisfying kind of pain. The kind that comes after a day that reminds you why all the stress and twelve-hour days are worth it. We smashed our sales record today. By noon we were already ahead of last year’s final numbers. If tomorrow is anything like today, we’ll sell out completely before lunch. The thought makes me giddy with relief and for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe again.

“That was strange, even for Saint,” I say, laughing as Lennie unlocks our room door. “Do you think everything is ok? I wonder why he needs to speak to Jax privately."

He gives a distracted hum in response causing the knot in my stomach to tighten. I’ve been noticing it all day. The way he keeps checking his phone when he thinks I’m not looking—tilting the screen away from me. All the secretive little disappearances too, three times he vanished to ‘take business calls.’ But it didn’t feel like business.

I follow him slowly, my pulse beating harder with every step.

He shrugs off his jacket, dropping it over the chair without looking, and stands there, with his back to me. “I’m more interested in why my wife has been keeping secrets from me.”

When he finally turns, his eyes are dark, flashing with a pain that tears at my soul. “In all these years,” he says quietly, “we’ve been a team. A partnership.”

My stomach drops and I can't breathe properly. “I can explain—”

There's a hollow laugh. “I honestly thought we’d only gotten stronger,” he says, looking directly at me now. “I already know everything Luna.”

The room feels like it’s shrinking around me and my legs wobble as I flop down into the nearest chair, head in my hands. Through the open doors I can hear faint laughter, glasses clinking and music drifting softly through the warm evening air. It feels miles away from this.

His eyes lock onto mine. “Jax’s lawyer called me earlier.”

Jax’s lawyer? What does this have to do with Jax or his lawyer?

“Elijah found the online reports.” He snorts once, bitterly. “Turns out you weren’t the only person conned by James fucking Murray.”

Shame burns so hot I feel sick. “I was going to tell you.”

“When?” he asks quietly. “After we lost everything?”

Tears sting instantly. “This weekend,” I stutter. “This weekend if I sell out I’ll have all of our money back…”

He sinks into the chair opposite me, sighing heavily. “Oh, that’s ok then.” He laughs, but it’s hollow. “Lying to me is fine cos you might sell out.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I knew the money was missing before Elijah called me, I’ve known for weeks and do you know what I thought?”

“What?” I whisper.

His eyes glass over. “I thought the cancer was back.” A tear tracks down his cheek. “I thought you were distant because it was back, that you didn’t know how to tell me and…” he sobs. “That you’d taken our savings to make arrangements, planned your own funeral so the girls and I wouldn’t have to.”

“Oh, Lennie.” My heart shatters as I reach for his hand. He lets me take it.