Chapter 72
LEX
Our Apartment - frozen in fucking place
She’s breathing. Fucking breathing. And I still can’t move. Not because Rez, Khoza, or even Nate are holding me back—they let go the second she headbutted Laing in the face. No. I’m frozen because I’m scared if I take one step, I’ll shatter whatever the hell this is.
She’s on the couch now, chest rising like she just clawed her way back from the grave. Sabine tucks her hair behind her ear, calm as if she didn’t just watch Bella drag herself out of the dark with blood on her knuckles.
Knox steps in front of her slowly. Drops to a crouch, level with where she’s curled on the couch. “Welcome back, B,” he says gently. “You know what we have to do.”
In an instant, the fire in her eyes dies out. Fear rushes in, sharp enough to cut and real enough to gut me. Her lips part, head tilting like she wants to say something, but the words get trapped somewhere between her chest and throat.
Her gaze finds his. Then mine. Shakes her head once… twice… slow, trembling. A single tear carves down her cheek, and it feels like it burns right through me.
“I don’t want to,” she whispers. Her voice is so small it makes me want to tear the world apart. “Please… don’t make me.”
Knox doesn’t back down. “Bella, it’s time.”
She shakes harder. Her knees start to draw in.
Knox’s voice stays low, but firm. “We have to face it. You know the drill. It’s the only way forward. Just like last time.”
She’s folding into herself. Sabine moves first, quiet and calm.
She crosses the room with a soft gray blanket I didn’t even see her grab.
She kneels beside Bella like she’s approaching a wounded animal and drapes it over her shoulders.
She pulls the ends tighter and rests a hand against Bella’s cheek.
“Even the fiercest spirits gotta be held sometimes, bébé,” she murmurs, voice low and hushed but heavy with that bayou rhythm. “Let it break. Then rise up meaner.”
Bella curls tighter into herself, knees to chest beneath the blanket, hands gripping the fabric like armor. “I can’t,” she chokes out. “Please, Knox. I can’t. I can’t do this.”
“It’s the only way.”
I twitch. My jaw flexes. My breath sharpens. Say the word. Just fucking say the word and I’ll carry her out of here myself.
Knox must sense it because he looks up at me and shakes his head once. Not yet.
He turns back to her. “You have to face it, Bella. We all do.”
She’s slipping. And all I can do is watch.
“Bella,” he says softly, “what happened? Tell me what happened.”
She shakes her head fast. “I can’t. I can’t—” Her voice cracks as the tears finally come.
“Just breathe, Bella.”
“I can’t,” she sobs. “Please. I need them, Knox. I need…” she’s breathing so fast, I’m afraid she’s going to hyperventilate. “…need him.”
I move toward her. One step, two, but Rez is already reaching for me.
“She needs me. She fucking needs me, Rez.”
He grabs my arm tight enough to bruise.
“Motherfucker, let me go,” I snarl, ready to tear through him.
“No,” he grits. “Let him work.”
Knox presses forward, his tone firmer now. “Bella, I’ll give you what you want. I’m not keeping him from you. But you have to face it first. That’s the only price. Face it, let it in and it’ll all be over.” His hand rests gently on her knee.
“Quick and easy,” he says.
But nothing about this feels easy.
“I can’t,” she cries. “I c-c-can’t.”
“Why not, Bella?” Knox’s voice is velvet and steel. “Why not?”
“Because it’s my fault!” she screams, her voice echoing off the walls. “It’s my fault Daddy is dead!”
The words crack the whole room in half. My stomach drops. Cade makes a sound next to me—quiet and broken.
“I didn’t listen, I didn’t believe him. Knox he warned me, and I kept. I kept.”
“Kept what?” Knox asks softly. “Kept what, Bella?”
“I kept disobeying him,” she sobs, voice small and trembling, almost like a child’s. “I stayed with them.” Her breath hitches, sharp and uneven. “I chose to love them.”
Another sob. “And he, he killed my daddy, Knox.”
Her voice cracks on daddy. “He killed my daddy because… Because I didn’t listen.”
She shakes her head, tears streaking down her face. “He told me to stop, and I—” Her breath shudders out. “—and I didn’t stop.”
She folds forward, words dissolving into gasps. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks completely. “Daddy… I’m sorry.”
My chest feels like it’s being peeled open. Every word slices deeper. Every sob burns straight through my bones, through my fucking soul.
Knox flinches, just once. Then he surges forward, hands framing her face. “No,” he says, loud and clear. “Bella, no.”
She’s falling apart.
“You listen to me right now,” Knox says. “Luca is a monster. And yeah—we’re going to find him. Lex will find him. Lex will kill him. I promise you that. But you don’t get to do this to yourself. Not today. Not ever. None of this is on you.”
She’s shaking so hard it looks like she’s trying to vibrate herself out of existence.
“Do you hear me?” he goes on, voice ragged. “You chose love. That’s not weakness. That’s the bravest thing anyone can do. You fought to feel joy, Bella. And he, he couldn’t stand it. So, he tried to kill it. But that’s on him. Not you. Never on you, babe.”
Her lips are trembling. Her hands curl tighter. Knox touches her cheek.
“Let it out. Grieve. Scream. Fall apart if you have to. But don’t you dare carry this alone. Don’t you dare fucking blame yourself for what happened.”
She lets out a sound that destroys me, half scream, half sob. Knox finally nods at us.
That’s all I need. I tear out of Rez’s grip and drop to my knees in front of her.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m fucking here, malyshka.”
She collapses into me. Arms clinging. Fists pounding weakly at my chest until they ball in my shirt and stay there. Cade drops beside us, fast but quiet. One hand wraps around her waist. The other grips my shoulder.
“We’ve got you,” he whispers to her. “We’ve got you, sweetheart.”
She cries. God, she cries. Like she’s trying to empty every scream she’s swallowed since that red-wrapped box hit the floor.
“I’ve got you, malyshka,” I whisper again. “We’re not letting you go.”
Cade pulls us tighter. Her body trembles between us. And for the first time since that fucking poem… she’s here. Not the ghost. Not the weapon. Not the survivor. Just Bella. Just our girl.
Broken, but alive.
???
Fayetteville, Arkansas
7 Days Since Henry’s Death
It’s cold as fuck. Sky’s the color of ash. Trees stripped bare like bones. And the wind? It doesn’t just cut, it carves. Right through my coat, my skin, my goddamn soul. Like it knows I don’t deserve the warmth today. Like it’s punishing me for even stepping outside.
The air’s too still. Too quiet. The kind of silence that feels wrong. Like the world’s bracing for something. Or mourning something it already lost. Either way, it matches the weight sitting on my chest.
Bella hasn’t moved in ten minutes. She’s just sitting here, one hand in mine, the other in Cade’s, her eyes locked on the polished casket in front of her like she might shatter if she blinks.
Her black coat is buttoned tight to her chin, her hood is pulled up around her hair, but her cheeks are still raw from the wind. Red and soft.
She’s crying. Silent tears. The kind that sneaks down without warning and leaves tracks on her skin. Not wailing. Not breaking. Just mourning.
The pastor’s voice is steady behind the pulpit, something about comfort and peace and eternal life and all that shit. About how Henry Harrington was a good man. A brave man. A family man. A man who loved his daughter more than life.
Bella flinches at that part. I squeeze her hand. Cade does too.
Everyone and their brother is here. Jack’s sitting next to Cade. Ellie and Haley sit one row behind us with Knox seated at their center. Javi and Rico stand with their hands clasped in front of them, heads bowed.
There are about twenty or so bundled-up strangers in uniform, Fayetteville Fire Department standing proud in their dress blues.
The entire Wexley football team showed up, lined shoulder to shoulder behind the Legacy girls. And behind them, a wave of old Razorbacks, former teammates of her dad’s, big and broad and broken-eyed as they watch their fallen brother’s casket being lowered into the earth.
The Whitmores came, somber and elegant. Tex is next to them in black with his arms crossed. Nate, sharp in a coat and scarf, jaw locked like he might kill someone just for breathing too loud.
Briggs, O’Malley, Khoza, Laing, and Sabine all made the trip.
Even my parents came down.
Roman didn’t come. Cade and I told him not to. Told him that she just lost her father and didn’t need to deal with another one at his funeral. He agreed. For once, he fucking listened.
She sniffles beside me. Still staring. Her fingers squeeze mine back.
God, I fucking love her. And I hate that she has to wear black today.
Hate that this is how her story with him ends—in a cemetery full of despair and solemn words, with no chance to say goodbye.
No chance to scream. Just a casket, a cold wind, and a pain so sharp I can feel it in my spine.
I look down at her.
At her lashes soaked with tears.
At the tiny wrinkle in her brow that hasn’t faded since the night of the masquerade.
At her breath fogging in the cold.
She’s here. She’s alive. But she’s a long way from okay. And we’re not going anywhere. Cade and I will walk every mile of this grief with her, carry the rage if she can’t. We’ll wait for her when the world doesn’t, and never let go.
And Luca. Luca is going to die. By my fucking hands. Because I’ve seen her break before, but never like this. Not gutted. Not hollow. Not lost to the point where even her fire went dark.
Once was too many. This? This was unforgivable.