Chapter 5 Lottie
Lottie
The room is suffocating. Too late apologies and things that can never be taken back linger between us all, and I’m bone tired.
I can feel the ache in my feet, my back, and the oncoming migraine from everything that’s happened.
Paired with the feeling of Roman’s blood under my fingernails, I’m ready to scrub myself raw in a hot shower and try to forget any of this happened.
The blood… the fact that Lorenzo now knows I’m alive, and the whispered promises I made to Roman if he survived.
I don’t want to hear any more of their apologies or demands. I’ve carried the silence, their betrayal, for so long that it’s embedded in my bones, and I refuse to carry it anymore.
I turn to Archer. His fingers are still wrapped gently around mine, grounding me when everything else feels like it’s shifting under my feet. His eyes meet mine, steady and sure, and that’s all I need.
Then I look at Oscar. He’s quiet, watching me from the corner of his eye like he always does. He must recognise the look in my eye, because he nods once, barely a movement, but I see the question in his eyes.
“I want to go home,” I whisper into the silent room, no longer able to handle the secrets that keep being revealed.
Archer doesn’t let go of my hand, already turning towards the door, Oscar’s hand on my lower back grounding me.
Behind me, the silence cracks like glass. Roman, Elijah, Crew… they don’t stop me. Maybe because they know they can’t. Or perhaps they’ve finally realized this isn’t something they can fix.
Nothing can fix this.
I don’t look back as we walk out the door.
I won’t.
They made their choices. Choose to break me, and now I’m making mine.
We walk out into the corridor, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, too bright and sterile. But it feels like the air is clearer out here, easier to breathe, like I’ve stepped out of a nightmare and back into something real.
I squeeze Archer’s hand, needing the contact to ground me in reality and not the nightmares of my past. Oscar stays closer, my silent protector, ready to be a shield between me and whatever comes next.
They’re not perfect, but they’ve stayed. They saw and protected me when no one else ever has. That matters more than a thousand apologies from people who only started listening after it was too late.
The silence in the hallway seems to wrap around me like a threadbare blanket. Worn but comforting.
I don’t have to talk. I know they won’t make me… won’t make me justify the thousand fractures in my soul.
Out here, there’s no one demanding explanations or pretending they didn’t notice when the cracks started to appear again.
I thought I was better…
Archer squeezes my hand like he knows where my thoughts just went, just once, enough to say I’m here. No pressure or pity. There never is with him. Just him being my one constant when I feel like I’m fracturing in a world I’m forced to pretend to be whole in.
Oscar brushes against my side, and I let him. His closeness is steady and familiar. I glance up at him and see the storm settling in his eyes—grief for what I never told him, and the guilt continues to gnaw away at my insides for keeping it from him for so long.
But it’s hard. Oscar is the only one who has ever seen me as normal. He knew there was a reason for my silence, why I preferred to talk to people with my hands rather than my voice, but I never told him what they did to me, or why I tried to end my life.
Oscar’s shoulders are rigid. I think he’s still angry—not at me, but for me.
We step into the elevator. Archer presses the button for the ground floor, and the soft whir of the doors closing feels like the final click of a lock turning.
I dislodge my hand from Archer’s and turn to Oscar.
“I should never have waited to tell you,” I sign.
“But fear got the best of me. You were the only person in this new life who didn’t know everything, and I liked how that made me feel.
You made me feel more like Lottie, and not Scarlett, who’s pretending to be someone else out of survival. ”
He shakes his head slowly, a soft smile on his face. “You deserved peace, and if I was that for you, then I’m happy.”
The words hit deeper than I expect, and I have to look away from him as tears gather in my eyes. The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. I pull Archer’s hoodie tighter around myself as we step outside.
The world is still turning. People are still living their lives, oblivious to the turmoil that I can feel sinking into my gut.
Archer opens the passenger door to his car without a word. I slide in and buckle up, the leather cool beneath my fingers. Oscar settles in the back seat, still watching me.
The drive is silent, but it’s a good kind of silence. The kind that doesn’t need to be filled with empty words or useless conversation.
My mind drifts to the night I jumped into the water. The feeling of the ocean dragging me under, wrapping around me like a weighted promise—to rid me of everything that’s ever happened to me. The bitter cold.
The quiet…
And then Archer’s arms around me. The taste of salt and regret in my throat as he forced air back into my lungs.
The way he hasn’t let go of me since. Not once.
Archer and Oscar became my rocks.
“Thank you,” I say, signing the words too, my voice cracking.
Archer glances over at me, eyes still on the road. “For what?”
“Saving me. Staying.”
Neither of them says you’re welcome. No poetic answer. They just nod, jaws tight, and place their hands on my knee and shoulder.
That’s the thing about my men… I still can’t believe my luck in being able to say this, but neither do I need to say anything for me to understand them. That they will always be my silent protectors if I need them to be.
We pull into the driveway. Oscar’s already out of the car before we come to a full stop, ready to open my door and guide me inside. Archer isn’t far behind him, eyes scanning the street like the soldier he is, on high alert.
I’m grateful for it, especially knowing that Lorenzo knows I’m alive.
Oscar takes my hand in his, leading me into the house as Archer leads the way, always scanning for danger.
Inside, the house is still. Claire and Will are nowhere to be seen.
The lights are low, casting long shadows.
I step inside, and for the first time in two years since I changed my name, I feel like I’m walking into a trap.
Archer locks the door behind us, and Oscar pulls the curtain shut. It’s only then that I exhale all the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
Safe.
I kick off my shoes with a sigh and turn to both men. “I just need a minute,” I sign, before I spin, beelining towards the bathroom.
The light in the bathroom feels too bright, too harsh against my already pounding migraine. I flick it off, turning on the warmer light above the mirror. I stand in the muted glow, staring at myself. My eyes are red-rimmed, my skin pale. There's a line of blood in my hairline that I hadn’t noticed.
Roman’s blood.
I scrub at it with trembling hands until it’s gone, the dried blood flaking around me.
But the memory stays… they always seem to. Ready to haunt me when my mind gets too quiet.
I shower, the water as hot as I can stand, and lose myself in the way the water swirls at my feet. The water beats down on my back, scalding, relentless—like if I stay under it long enough, I can wash away not just Roman’s blood, but the weight of everything that’s come crashing down on me tonight.
Lorenzo Valen knows I’m alive.
The thought spins over and over again in my head like a record stuck on the worst track.
He knows.
His name still tastes like rust and smoke in my mouth. A curse and a scar and a shadow that’s never left me since that night, even when I changed mine to escape it.
I press my forehead to the cool tile, eyes closed as the water slips down my spine.
It was never supposed to be like this.
The plan was supposed to be simple… disappear. Die. Be forgotten. Be Lottie instead of Scarlett. They were never supposed to find out I was still alive. They weren’t supposed to care. And Lorenzo was never supposed to find out.
I can still hear the way he whispered in my ear. Little Bird. Not my name. Never my name. It was always the one they called me, as if I were theirs to own.
Like I was an asset. A possession.
Not a person.
I wrap my arms around myself beneath the spray. He’ll come for me now. He always finishes what he starts. And I—God, I don’t know if I can survive him again.
Not alone… but I’m not alone anymore, am I?
I think of Archer, his steadiness, the way his fingers trembled when he touched my face. He’s already pulled me back from the brink once, and now? Now he’s watching me like it might be the last time he’ll see me.
Oscar, his silence, grief, and the way his hands shook when he finally learned the truth. How he held my hand like he was trying to memorize the shape of my heartbeat, just in case it stopped again.
I’m not alone, but it’s not just about surviving anymore.
I can’t go back to running. Can’t keep living like the past isn’t chasing me, wearing a mask with Lorenzo’s smile. This time, if he comes for me, I can’t freeze. Can’t lose my voice like a silent puppet.
This time, I have to fight.
The idea of that terrifies me more than the thought of dying because I know what it costs to stand against monsters like him. I’ve done it once before, and I let it destroy me, but not this time.
Roman almost died today. Because of me. Because of him.
Elijah’s hands are stained red from killing his father for me.
Crew’s guilt is swallowing him whole.
And I’m here, barely able to stand under the weight of everything.
But I am here because Archer pulled me from the waves. Because Oscar stayed and let me find myself on the pole after everything had been stolen from me by two men who wanted something that was never theirs to take.
And if I let them… they’ll fight for me.
But I don’t want them to fight for me.
I want to fight with them.
I draw in a shaky breath and push away from the wall, turning off the water. The silence is louder now, the thoughts in my head threatening to drown me.
But I’m not afraid of silence anymore.
I dry off quickly, wrap myself in a blue towel, and stand in front of the fogged mirror.
My reflection stares back at me—pale, yes. Shaken… but not broken. Not anymore.
I’m still here, and I won’t let Lorenzo Valen take that from me.
Not again.