Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Noah
In the end, we’d decided to drive back to Vesper after the Gala.
The plan had been to stay at The Hargrove.
The rooms were already booked, and the debrief was scheduled for the morning.
But after seeing how comfortable Corvane felt to approach me in public like that, I casually said that I wished we were home.
Jackson had looked at me for a moment and then called Wolfe, and that had been that. Nobody made a thing of it. Wolfe rescheduled the debrief, Hawk drove the second vehicle back, and Jackson drove me to Vesper in the dark without asking me to explain why I needed it. He just drove.
I’d expected nightmares or, at the very least, not to be able to sleep, but instead, I’d curled up next to him and was out like a light.
I woke up to an empty bed, but my lamp was on. I was pretty sure it was off when we went to sleep, but Jackson knew I didn’t like to wake up to a dark room. I did my inventory.
Where am I?
Vesper. Apartment 917. Jackson had brought me home.
Am I safe?
The building had more security than most government facilities. So for the moment, yes. I was safe.
What’s true right now?
What was true was that last night I’d stood at a podium and said my name and told the truth about what happened to me.
Then a man who believed he owned me had dared to walk up to the table and smile at me like he knew something I didn’t.
So yeah, I was safe here with Jackson, but for how long?
Knowing that made it hard for my nervous system to accept the inventory I’d just run through.
I sighed, got up, and went to the kitchen where I’d expected to find Jackson, but it was empty.
I looked out the window at the early morning light and the empty sidewalks of Vesper down below.
I normally found that peaceful, but today there was no peace to be found.
I stood at the counter, pressed both hands flat against the cold surface, and breathed the way my therapist had taught me.
A four count in, hold for four, then empty for four.
It was supposed to tell my nervous system I was safe, but my body wasn’t standing down.
The front door opened then, and Jackson came in holding a cup of coffee. He saw me standing there like that, and he didn’t speak. He crossed to the electric kettle, poured hot water into a mug, and set it beside me. Then he leaned against the counter next to me and waited.
We stood like that for a while.
“He said he was patient,” I said finally.
“I know.”
“He said it to my face. In front of you. In front of everyone, even though he knew the guys were there.” I stared out the window. “He’s not afraid of any of it.”
“He should be,” Jackson said. “Chance has everything he said on record. The wife—”
“I know.” I took a step back and reached for the tin of tea bags I kept on the counter.
More to have something to do than anything.
I selected this morning’s tea, and then dropped my bag down in the hot water before looking up at him.
“I know all of that. Logically, I know it.” I paused.
“But right now it doesn’t feel like enough. ”
He didn’t try to fix it. He just stood beside me, drank his coffee, and let it be what it was, and that was what I needed most from him. I didn’t know how he knew that, but somehow, he did.
A knock at the door saved me from the spiral I felt starting at the edges of my thoughts.
Jackson set his coffee down. “I’ll get it.”
Julius came in first, with Mika behind him, carrying two stacked containers full of baked goods.
“We heard about last night,” Julius said, by way of greeting.
“Good morning to you, too,” I said with a wry chuckle.
“Good morning.” He rolled his eyes. “We heard about last night.” He pulled me into a hug and then sat down on the couch. “Now, tell us everything.”
“You probably know everything. You have Gator.”
“Gator tells me the tactical version. I want your version.”
Mika set everything on the counter and started unpacking them as if the food was the most important thing at that moment. Jackson was right, food was Mika’s love language, so to him, it probably was.
I sat down on the couch and told them about the evening. About how weird it was to be back in Houston. I told them about seeing Dr. Reyes and what she said. About the speech and what it felt like to stand at the podium and tell my truth.
Neither of them said anything until I told them about the wife and the way I’d known immediately.
“So do you think she was trafficked?” Mika asked.
“I don’t know. He’s a really powerful man, so I’m sure it wasn’t hard for him to find a wife without buying one.”
“Actually, I was just downstairs talking to Kat,” Jackson said. “She did a little research on the wife, and it doesn’t look like he bought her, at least not in that way, but it was an arranged marriage. A combining of two families thing.”
“So she probably had no say in it?” I took the tea bag out of my mug and took a long drink, hoping the hot liquid would warm my insides.
“That’s barbaric. Do these people know it’s 2026?” Julius asked, and then a brief flash of disgust crossed his face before he shrugged. “Of course my mother probably would’ve done it if she could’ve gotten away with it.”
“Poor thing, she probably feels trapped.” Mika set a plate covered in fresh scones and homemade jam down on the table in front of us and took a seat on the couch.
“She probably won’t use the card I gave her, but at least now she knows there’s someone she can call.”
Next, I told them about Corvane coming to our table. What he’d said and about the cold smile on his face when he said it.
“Men like him are the real problem. Without buyers, there would be no reason for human trafficking to exist. He deserves everything that’s coming to him,” Julius said, like he had no doubt Corvane would be dealt with. I just wished I had the same confidence he did.
“So now that it’s all done, how do you feel?” Mika asked.
I thought about it. “I felt really good right after the speech. Like I finally put down something I’d been carrying for a long time, and that felt great. But then it was like I immediately picked it right back up again when Corvane showed up at our table.”
“Asshole.” Julius shook his head. “Such an asshole.”
“He is,” I agreed. “He said he was patient, and he said it like he meant it. Like he’d done this before, and he knows how it ends.”
“He hasn’t done this before,” Jackson said. “He’s never gone up against the Three Bears.”
“Crowe’s right,” Mika said. “And I say that as someone with a certain amount of personal experience with what these guys can do when someone messes with their people.”
I knew Mika’s story, and for just a minute, I let myself think about that. About what it would be like if my story ended the same way his did. With Corvane dead, and honestly, I didn’t hate the idea. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but there it was.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” Julius said.
“But what you did last night took real courage. You went to that Gala even though you knew it was a risk, and you stood up and told your story to a room full of people.” He paused.
“None of that goes away because Corvane showed his ass on his way out.”
The room was quiet for a moment while we let the truth of that sink in, because he was right. I did do that, and we raised a lot of money last night to help people who were in situations similar to mine, and that mattered, no matter what Corvane said.
Julius reached over, took a scone off the plate, and carefully put some of the jam on it. Then he took a big bite.
“Wow, these are very good.”
“Of course they are,” Mika said. “I made them.”
We all laughed at that, because Mika rarely took credit for how good his stuff was, and that was just enough to shift the mood and make me relax a tiny bit.
They didn’t stay long after that. Mika left the containers and gave me a big hug on his way out. Julius paused in the doorway and looked at me. Most of the time, he was all about the drama and the sass, but not now.
“Call me if you need me.”
“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”
He held my gaze for a moment, and then he looked at Jackson. “Take care of him.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and it was just us.
Jackson picked up his coffee and came to sit beside me on the couch. Not across from me, beside me, close enough that his arm was warm against mine.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I looked at the plate of scones. At the window. At my hands. At anything but him.
“I thought last night would feel like something ending,” I said. “Like I would give the speech and it would feel resolved, somehow. Like a chapter closing.” I stopped. “Instead, I just feel like I’m still in it. Like I’m always going to be in it.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he took my hand.
“Listen, I’m not going to tell you it’s over,” he said.
“That Corvane is handled, and you can stop looking over your shoulder. I won’t lie to you.
” He held my gaze. “But what I can tell you is that you’re not in it alone.
No matter how long it takes, you’re not in it alone. ”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Last night,” I said. “When we were dancing, it felt like enough. Just that. Like all the rest of it was outside that ballroom and couldn’t get in.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I want more of that,” I said. “I know we can’t live in that space permanently. I know Corvane is still out there, and Chance is building a case, and the guys are making a plan. I know all of it.” I looked at him. “But I want more of those moments.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Yeah, baby boy,” he said. “So do I.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder. He didn’t move, just sat there solid and present; neither of us needed to say anything else.