Chapter 25
“I’m just saying,” Demi drawls as I turn the wheel to round the corner toward the shop, “he dropped to his knees and there’s still no ring? Girl, slip a cock ring on that man, declare him your emotional support orgasm, and lock it the hell down.”
I choke on my iced coffee, nearly spilling it down my shirt. “It’s been less than two weeks.”
“Modern problems, modern proposals.”
“Can you not?”
She grins wickedly and wraps her lips around her straw. “I absolutely cannot not. So? Have you committed full penetration yet? Was it everything I’ve built up in my head? Did he flip you over and smooth out your rough edges like one of your vintage cabinets?”
“Jesus, Demi.”
She shrugs unapologetically. “I’m just living vicariously through your orgasms, babe. I've been in a dry spell so long my vibrator’s begging for a vacation and a union rep.”
I laugh despite myself as I pull up to the curb, shifting the car into park. The sound of the locks snapping free in the doors loosens something in me; breath rushes out, and the tension slips from my spine one vertebrae at a time.
“I’m doing my best to take it slow,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt. “But every time I see him… the depravity that goes through my mind is concerning.”
Demi lets out a low whistle and snaps her fingers. “Lean into that!”
I pull the shop keys from my bag and sigh. “I mean, yeah, he’s hot. Obviously. And apparently murder does something to my sex drive I wasn’t prepared for.”
Demi snorts. “We all have our kinks.”
“But also…” I trail off, struggling to put words to the chaos in my head. “I just can’t stop overthinking my side of it. I didn’t want to wait—I’m thirty-nine, not nineteen—but the minute it ended, I started second-guessing everything. Even now, I’m questioning whether I’ve already rushed things.”
“Rushed?” Demi blinks. “Sable. There are women who wait three years in a relationship before anyone finds their clit.”
I crack a smile. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s why I’ve never been married. I jump into things. I don’t demand more respect.”
“No.” She pulls off her sunglasses dramatically. “You’ve never been married because you stayed in a long-term situationship with a man who could find a new reason to emotionally disappoint you every fiscal quarter.”
“That is disturbingly accurate,” I say, chewing at a hangnail.
“Thank you. I’ve had a decade to solidify my thoughts on your relationship.”
We’re halfway to the shop when I stop cold, my stomach lurching.
I grab my best friend’s arm. “Demi.”
The lock. Not tampered with or rusted through—destroyed. The deadbolt hangs crooked in the frame, metal warped like it took a hit from something brutal. Cracks web outward from the impact point in the glass, fine and splintered veins, with one jagged fracture slicing down the lower pane.
Her face turns from shocked to raged. “That bitch.”
I pull my phone from my bag and text the only person I know who will have answers and zero chill:
[Sable]: I think someone broke into the shop.
The reply comes almost instantly.
[Hex]: Don’t go inside. I’m coming.
I stare at the screen.
[Hex]: 5 minutes.
Demi’s eyes go wide. “Damn, he’s on it.”
A moment later, the low growl of a blacked-out Silverado curls around the corner, familiar in a way that makes my skin prickle. It slides to a quiet stop. A ghost by design.
Hex steps out of the truck, black shirt clinging to his chest, jeans hugging thighs built for murder.
Demi’s jaw drops. “Oh, thank God you’re here, Frank.”
“Frank?” Hex questions, looking to me for some semblance of an answer.
I rub my temples. “She thinks you’re The Punisher.”
Hex lifts a brow. “Oh yeah? I can see that.”
Demi claps. “SEE?! I knew you had Punisher energy!”
Hex lets out a quiet huff of laughter, shaking his head. Then he turns to her, nodding with a kind of unexpected grace.
“Hex Alvarez,” he says, voice pitched low. He’s polite, but far from soft. “Don’t believe we’ve officially met.”
Demi fans herself theatrically. “No, but I’ve heard plenty. You really should come with a warning label, sir.”
He gives her half a smirk, then the shift is immediate. His expression darkens the moment he sees the broken lock. In one fluid move, he draws the gun from the waistband of his jeans, holds it low against his thigh, and turns to me with sharp intent.
“Stay behind me.”
Demi edges closer, her voice tight. “Wait. He’s got a gun. Do we seriously need to go in?”
“I have to know what happened. It’s my shop,” I whisper, following him in. “You can stay out here.”
“Bitch, please,” she mutters. “If you die, who’s gonna narrate the sequel to your filthy little love story? No. I’ll take a bullet for you. You’ve got multiple orgasms left to live.”
I ignore the ridiculousness that is my best friend.
The front of the shop is a mess. A table’s flipped, my vintage rug crumpled and crushed underfoot, and all the carefully placed details—sculptures, trays, bowls—have been tossed everywhere.
Hex sweeps through it methodically, clearing each space as we move behind him. His body tense. Protective.
When we make it into the workshop, air is stolen from my very lungs.
The three-piece antique armoire—the one I’ve spent weeks restoring, hours carving, gluing, and shaping with care—is destroyed. The center door lies in shards. One of the legs is completely split. Deep gashes cut through the delicate scrollwork I showed Hex just two days ago.
Something between a gasp and a sob escapes my throat. I didn’t even know such a wretched sound lived inside me.
Hex turns immediately. “Shit,” he says, stepping toward me, his voice suddenly gentle. “Sable, fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I crouch near the ruins. “This is commissioned work. It’s already sold. I don’t even know how I’m going to explain this to the client.”
“I should’ve handled this better from the beginning,” Hex says as he strokes a hand down his chin. His eyes sweep across the damage as though every wrecked piece is proof of his failure.
“Hex,” I breathe, voice trembling. “This was never your—”
His head turns, and his brows pull together just slightly, eyes narrowed with intent. His jaw tightens, but it’s not clenched in anger, but firm with conviction.
“It was always my problem,” he says. “The second she made you feel unsafe, it became mine.”
Demi, still crouched near a shattered drawer, throws a hand in the air. “Thank you! Now go full John Wick on this psycho. Fucking break this bitch’s neck.”
He ignores her. His attention is focused on me.
“I’m worried about you and your son’s safety,” he says, voice low but firm. “Close the shop for the day. Pick up Bash. Go home. Don’t bring him here. Don’t let him see this.”
I nod, trying to breathe through the knot forming in my throat. “I will. I’ll file a police report before I leave and call Andrew to explain what’s going on. Maybe start the process for a temporary protective order.”
Hex blows out a breath, the kind you release when the truth is on your tongue but better left unsaid. “You think a piece of paper is going to stop her?”
“It’s a step,” I say, sharper than I intend. “I have to try the legal way first. I’m not dragging Bash into something that could blow back harder because I skipped protocol.”
His jaw ticks as if he doesn’t agree, but he respects my wishes. “Andrew should file one too,” he says after a beat. “Keep her away from both of you, and more importantly Bash. But I don’t want you at your place tonight. Not alone.”
Hex glances up at the corner of the room, eyes narrowing. “You’ve got cameras. I’ll have JT pull the footage. If we’re lucky, we can get a clear shot of her and hand it to the cops. Confirm everything with evidence.”
Demi’s eyebrows lift. “Wait, he can just, like… jump into someone’s cameras? That’s scary.”
Hex expels something close to a laugh. “You have no idea how scary someone as smart as JT can be.”
I blink at him, still in shock by everything happening around me. The chaos claws through my brain.
“I’ll take the weekend away from the bar,” he continues, wrapping a warm hand over my white-knuckled fist gripping my phone. “Will and JT can handle things. Come to the Hill Country with me. Just you and me, and the quiet. Space to breathe while we figure out the next step.”
Demi steps up beside me, placing her hand on my back. “You should go,” she says softly, surprising me. “You need to go.”
I look at the wreckage around me. The shattered armoire. The ruined front.
And I nod.
I want peace. I want protection.
Andrew sits across from me at the kitchen table, a half-drunk soda between us. Bash is on the floor nearby, surrounded by colored pencils and a sketchpad, humming to himself while he draws some kind of superhero space battle.
The man I used to know intimately once told me he wanted to be a football coach.
Said it with that same far-off tone he uses when talking about businesses he’ll never start.
I doubt he ever tried. He’s a car sales manager now, which honestly tracks.
He’s always talked a big game. All vision.
Paints a pretty picture with words. But there is no follow-through.
Maybe that’s how he reeled in Ashley. He likely fed her promises he never meant to keep. Told her he’d give her the world. Maybe even promised he’d leave me.
Just words.
That’s the thing about Andrew. He’s good at sounding sincere. Good at giving just enough to be believed. But when it comes time to act, he always falls short.
I walk him through everything. My voice is quieter than usual, careful not to alarm Bash, even if the tightness in my chest still hasn’t let up since I saw the destruction in the back of the shop.
When I tell him about Ashley, about the photos—to which he gets all awkward and grimaces at the thought of me with another man—the texts, and what she did to the armoire, his face goes pale.
“I didn’t realize it got that bad,” he says, rubbing a hand over the hair along his jaw. “I mean… yeah, I knew she was intense, but I didn’t think she was capable of something of this caliber.”
I arch a brow. “She’s unstable, Andrew. She’s stalking me. And she’s been parked outside my shop day after day. Following me. She’s following you too for God’s sake.”
“I didn’t know,” he says again, shaking his head. “I swear—she and I—we only hooked up once. Before we split. I… I regret it, Sable. I was in a bad place. I know that’s no excuse.”
I let that hang in the air. I’ve already done all the yelling, the crying, the untangling. I’m past it. This isn’t about punishment. It’s about protection. For my entire family. Andrew included.
He glances toward Bash, then back at me, voice hush. “I’ll file the temporary restraining order. Whatever I need to do.”
“Thank you.”
Andrew blows out a long breath and scrubs his hands down his jeans. “I’ll take Bash out to my parents’ place for the weekend. Get him out of town, let things cool down.” He turns his attention toward our son. “Hey, buddy. Want to go see Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Dale at the lake house?”
Bash jumps up, his face brightening at the idea. “Can I bring my tackle box?”
“Of course,” Andrew says, ruffling his hair.
That small joy—the idea of my son casting a line off the dock, blissfully unaware of the storm circling the adults—is enough to soften the knot in my chest. A little.
Andrew stands, hesitating, like he wants to say something else but isn’t sure if he’s earned the right.
“For what it’s worth… I’m really sorry, Sable. About all of it.”
I nod. “I know.”
But that’s all it is. An apology. No solutions. No help. Regret wrapped in good intentions and not much else.
And maybe for once, I’m finally starting to see him clearly. Not just as the man who failed me, but the man who fooled both women.
He shifts his weight, one foot toward the door, the other still planted like he’s trying to root himself back in this house.
“I don’t know,” he says slowly, “maybe we can… figure something out. Down the line. You know. Be a family again.”
I stare at him.
Is he serious?
Now he wants to dangle hope? After his mistress has stalked me, after showing up empty-handed while I cleaned up his messes, raised his son, paid his bills, kept the whole damn operation afloat while running on nothing but caffeine and grit?
“You think this is salvageable?” I ask, not even trying to hide the disbelief in my voice.
He shrugs, eyes doing that thing where they soften just enough to pass for sincerity. “People change.”
I want to hold hope that’s true. That people can turn themselves inside out, choose better, be better.
But some don’t. Some just get better at hiding the same rot. They wear your patience like a borrowed coat and call it love. Never again.
“Clearly, I’m seeing someone,” I say.
That gets his attention. He blinks, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting it.
“Oh.”
“It’s turning into something serious,” I add, because I don’t need to explain what is going on between Hex and me. “He’s good for me.”
Andrew doesn’t speak, but the disapproval rolls off him in waves. His expression manifests into the same look that used to make me shrink, explain myself, try to smooth things over.
Not today.
Hex has a past, but he owns it. He doesn’t hide behind charm or delay responsibility until his woman’s already breaking.
He’s gray in a thousand ways, sure, but he’s green in all the ones that count.
Green in how he shows up.
Green in how he listens.
Green in the way he looks at me, like I may just be enough.
Andrew? Red.
Red in his absence.
Red in his promises.
Red in every emergency he created and left for me to clean up.
And for the first time, I don’t feel the need to explain that to him.
"Please let me know when you file the restraining order."