Chapter Ten
Berkley
They all stop and turn toward me like I’m the last page in a book they’ve been dying to read.
I’ve spilled everything—the plans, the holes in the stories, the men’s faces, the shipments, the little lies that stitched the big ones together.
I lay it out so plainly they can’t possibly miss it.
But my head is a bruise. The last few weeks have gnawed at me until the edges of me are raw and frayed, and I am so close to breaking that I can taste it on the back of my tongue.
I don’t know which way I’ll crack. Maybe I will unleash a fury that chews through everything in sight.
Maybe I will dissolve into sobs so ugly and loud they’ll have to hold me upright.
The not-knowing makes my stomach a tight fist.
My lower lip trembles, and I press my tongue to it because the motion steadies me in the smallest, most animal way.
The room narrows to my pulse and the sound of their voices as they make promises one by one.
Emerson’s voice is steady as he pledges, Rowan’s words tremble with apology and purpose, and Ronan’s vow is rough and simple.
I feel each promise like a weight settling onto my ribs.
It’s heavy, and it’s real. Deep down, I trust them with my life.
They love me the way I love them. We were all robbed by the same monsters, not by each other.
That truth lands like an anchor and, impossibly, I feel something like belonging take root again. Right here. Right now. With them.
Ronan watches me wrestling with whatever’s inside and does that thing he always does when he can’t stand the fracture in someone he loves.
He stretches, long and languid, like a cat that’s finally found a patch of sun.
Then his grin shifts, half relief and half that dangerous mischief that makes my pulse stutter.
“It’s been a long night,” he says, and the words are almost teasing.
He leans forward, voice softened to something private and sharp, “So what do you think, baby girl, you ready for bed?”
I nod because the simplicity of the answer feels safer than thinking. He grunts like that’s approval and then he watches me take a step toward my hole in the wall like it’s some small private kingdom I’m about to retreat to.
The warmth in his eyes curdles into something possessive, and his words come low and certain.
“Don’t think so, love. From today, you’re sleeping in one of our beds.
No more running. No more hiding. You’re mine, ours, and we’re yours.
” His voice is the kind that stakes a claim and stitches it into the air.
He says the practical things too, the part he knows I’ll need to hear.
“We’ve all got shit to sort out. We will.
But you won’t be alone again. Not while the world’s burning. ”
I open my mouth to argue, having them ready, rehearsed and sharp. I could tell him I’ll manage, that solitude keeps me safe. But his glare cleaves the words from my throat before they form.
“No arguments, Pix,” he says, and the softness at the end of the nickname is almost unbearable.
“For me. Please.” It’s not a demand—it’s a plea knotted with danger and love.
It melts me quicker than any logic ever could, and before I know it my head dips and I’m nodding.
My resistance, whatever little thread of it remained, snaps.
He doesn’t bother making it pretty for anyone.
He spins around and cocks a crooked grin that says keep your hands off and good luck.
“Sucks to be you fuckers,” he tells Rowan and Emerson and twiddles his fingers at them like a showman shepherding his lover to bed.
His hand lands on my hip, firm and familiar, and he steers me down the hall.
The pat he gives my ass is gentle but possessive, and it sends a ridiculous heat through me that twists my insides into something soft and dangerous all at once.
I move because I want to, because the safety sliding along his side is something I’ve starved for, and also because part of me still wants to hide.
Behind us, Emerson and Rowan trade a look that is fuller than apology and quieter than a vow.
It says we’ll make this right. The kitchen clock ticks down, the food cooling in its pot, the ordinary domestic noise a ridiculous counterpoint to the day’s violence and the plan we’re building. It comforts me more than it should.
The door clicks shut behind us, and the sound feels final, like the world’s cut off on the other side.
Before my thoughts can catch up, Ronan’s on me, his hands grasping with a reverence that makes my chest ache.
His touch isn’t greedy, isn’t rushed—it’s careful, like he’s afraid if he presses too hard, I’ll vanish into smoke.
His palm glides over the curve of my ribs, fingers brushing the hem of my shirt, and I swear I can feel his breath tremble when he whispers my name.
Soft. Personal. It’s not just a word—it’s a claim, one he’s been holding onto for years.
My throat closes around the hundred things I want to say—promises, apologies, confessions—but none of them leave me.
Instead, I let him strip me of the fabric that clings to me like armor.
He does it slowly, deliberately, each piece peeled away as though it’s part of some ritual neither of us wants to end too soon.
I mirror him, tugging at his shirt, sliding my fingers over hard lines and warm skin, grounding myself in the reality of him.
There’s no clumsy rush, no awkwardness, only a quiet intimacy that wraps around us until my body unclenches for the first time in what feels like forever.
When we’re bare, there’s no grand reveal, no shock.
Just silence that settles over us like a blanket, heavy but comforting.
He guides me to one side of the bed, tucking me in before slipping in next to me, close enough that our bodies align without effort.
My leg hooks between his, and my head finds its place at the crook of his neck like it’s always belonged there.
He exhales, deep and steady, and then breathes me in, his nose buried in my hair, as if memorizing the way I smell, as if it’s the one tether he has left.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, his voice caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
The sound cracks open, raw and jagged, like it costs him something to force the words out.
“Don’t go anywhere. Please.” The plea is so quiet, so fragile, it slices straight through me, sharp as sunlight cutting through a wall of smoke.
“I’m not running again,” I whisper back, the vow catching in my throat because it feels truer than anything I’ve ever said.
“Promise.” My hand lifts on instinct, finding his cheek.
His stubble scrapes against my palm, rough and grounding, and the simple touch makes my chest ache.
For one suspended heartbeat, the world outside this room dissolves, as though it belongs to some other lifetime entirely—one we’ve already survived and left behind.
I swallow hard, the words scraping up my throat like glass, but I force them out anyway.
“I didn’t want to leave you guys the first time.
” My voice fractures on the confession, the truth fighting me even as it spills free.
“Jay saved me. After they… after they finished, they dumped me in the kitchen, right next to my dad’s body.
He was already gone. And then they set the house on fire.
” The memory burns as I speak, as vivid now as the night it happened.
“I was so out of it, I didn’t even realize my arm was on fire until Jay smothered the flames and carried me out.
Even if I wanted to reach you, I couldn’t.
Our doctors kept me under, sedated for weeks, waiting for the skin to knit back together.
When I woke…” My chest tightens, my voice breaking down into something thinner, weaker.
“All that was waiting was pain. Physical, emotional, mental—it was everywhere. Inescapable. The kind that eats you alive until you can’t tell where it ends and you begin.
” I drag in a shaky breath, my gaze fixed on him, daring him to look away.
“It took me a long time to put myself back together after that.” The admission feels like peeling open old wounds, laying my heart raw and vulnerable in his hands, praying he won’t drop it.
His forehead presses to mine, his breath warm and uneven, and then the words come, rough and unflinching.
“I love you.” It isn’t soft, not really—it’s a confession, and a command tangled together, a vow he dares me to break.
My chest cracks wide with it, something in me unsealing that I thought had been welded shut forever.
For a second I can only stare at him, eyes burning, throat tight. Then I whisper back, steady even though my whole body trembles. “I love you, too.” The words slip out like truth finally finding its voice, and the air shifts around us. The room feels smaller, heavier, charged with something real.
His eyes search mine, desperate and vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen. “Say it again,” he murmurs, voice raw. “Please, Berk. I need to hear it. I need to know it’s real.”
My fingers cup his jaw, thumb brushing over the stubble like I’m memorizing the feel of him.
“I love you, Ronan,” I repeat, firmer this time, each syllable deliberate, like I’m carving it into him so he can’t ever forget.
“I always have. Even when I hated you, even when I thought I couldn’t come back from it—I loved you. ”
His throat works, his jaw clenching like he’s trying not to shatter.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear that.
” His hand tightens in my hair, not rough, but grounding, holding me like I’ll vanish if he lets go.
“And you’ll hear it from me every day until you believe it.
I love you, Berkley. With every fucked-up part of me, I love you. ”
The sound of it, the rhythm of both our voices wrapped around those words, shifts something permanent. It isn’t a balm or forgiveness. It’s a beginning, messy and jagged, but it’s ours.
I bury my face against his chest, letting the heat of him seep into me, his heartbeat thudding steadily beneath my ear.
The words are still raw in the air between us, but I don’t want them to fade.
I don’t want him to think for even a second that I don’t mean them.
My voice comes out muffled against his skin, thick with emotion.
“I love you, Ronan. More than I can explain. More than I can ever undo. You drive me insane, but you’re the piece I always come back to. You’re mine.”
He exhales sharply, arms banding tighter around me, like he’s holding the words inside himself, so they don’t spill away.
I shift just enough to look up at him, needing him to see the truth in my eyes.
“And I love them too,” I whisper, the admission dragging out of me like blood from a wound.
“Rowan. Emerson. They’re both on my shit list, don’t get me wrong.
They’ve got a long climb out of the hole they dug.
But there isn’t a world where I don’t love them.
I can’t turn that off. It’ll take time to bridge what’s between us, but the love—it’s still there. ”
Ronan nods slowly, his gaze steady and unflinching, as if he already knew but needed me to say it aloud.
His thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching a tear I didn’t realize slipped free.
“Then let time do its work,” he murmurs, voice low and certain.
“Let them fight for you the way they should have all along. For now, you’re here. With me. With us. That’s enough.”
I want to argue, to promise more or less, but the weight of the night finally presses down.
His arms lock me in, his chest warm against my cheek, his breath threading through my hair.
The steady rise and fall of his body lulls me, unwinding a tension I didn’t know I was still holding.
For the first time in what feels like forever, sleep comes easy.
No nightmares. No fire. Just the cocoon of Ronan’s arms around me and the certainty of his love holding me upright even as I drift under.
Peace. A fragile, foreign thing. But for once, it’s mine.