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“Looks like those races are useful for something after all,” Aiden adds with a chuckle.

“Yes,” Liam agrees with a nod. “You learned how to save your life.”

“I knew the car was going to be destroyed from that height at the speed I was going,” I explain.

Selene says nothing beside me. She’s barely breathing, her arms wrapped so tightly around me that it almost hurts. I don’t tell her my ribs ache every time she squeezes me like that. I let her hold me however she needs, reassuring her that I’m here.

“I unbuckled my seatbelt when the car started spinning across the road,” I continue. “I opened the door once we went over the edge, but I didn’t jump right away. I waited until the car had dropped far enough down the slope for me to have a chance of landing on the hillside instead of going all the way down with it.”

“Thank God they didn’t come down after you,” Thalia says seriously, tension still etched across her face.

“They didn’t,” I tell them. “They just fired a few more shots. This time, they actually hit the car.”

“I hoped you were at the races,” Selene says suddenly.

The room falls silent for several long breaths.

“When I found out you left with the Porsche, I hoped you’d gone racing.”

“Me too,” Ethan says at the exact same time, making all of us turn toward him. “I was about two seconds away from coming after you and killing you myself,” he adds immediately. “But I still hoped you were at the races.”

“At least one person always needs to know where we are,” Nick says, his tone serious, carrying a weight that wipes the humor from the room. “You hear me, Colt?”

“It’s not like I disappeared somewhere,” Colt replies, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t push it,” Nick warns him with a deadly glare.

“Yeah, new rule,” Liam adds. “Nobody goes anywhere without telling one of us first.”

“When I announced the truth about my relationship with Thalia, I thought I’d finally stopped living by rules,” Theo says with a grin.

Ethan throws him a murderous glare, cursing loudly.

“Fake relationship,” he corrects him instantly.

The rest of us burst into laughter, Thalia included.

For a long moment, the tension that has been hanging over the room finally breaks, replaced by something warmer and more familiar.

As I look around the room, I realize that every single one of them would do absolutely anything to protect me—to protect any of us.

And I’d do the same for them without hesitation.

Then my gaze drops to the woman who hasn’t let go of me for hours, and a new thought settles with sudden certainty.

I don’t want to waste any more time.

FIFTY-NINE

Selene

Kai is the last one to walk out of the house, and I close the door behind him, resting my head against it. My eyes fall shut as I try to breathe through the silence that settles over the room once they leave.

It’s quiet, which means I can hear my thoughts with deafening clarity inside my head—as if someone is whispering each one directly into my ear.

Today, I could’ve lost Zayn.

I could’ve lost him in such a brutal, permanent way, so suddenly, that even thinking about it makes my breathing quicken and my entire body turn weak.