Chapter Twenty-Three
Evan
Molly sleeps like she’s survived a war — my war, our war, the kind that ends in the sheets and leaves the battleground smelling of sweat and sex.
She’s draped across me like a net, a wild tangle of red hair fanned across my chest and neck, one leg hooked over my thigh as if to pin me down.
Even in sleep she’s staked her claim, dug her flag deep.
She owns this moment, owns me, and if I let myself, I might almost believe it’s a good thing.
That I could be the man who wakes up with a woman like her and builds something; maybe not forever, but at least something real.
I count her freckles. I watch the daylight spill across her face in thin, horizontal slices, the blinds cutting up the sun into something less harsh than usual.
The room is warm and quiet, except for her slow, heavy breathing.
For a minute, I let my brain go empty. I focus on the fact that I’m in a bed, with her, and the only hand holding me down in this moment is Molly’s, possessive and alive, her pulse ticking against my ribs.
She shifts in her sleep, her grip tightening, her breath hot against my chest. When I try to slide an arm out from under her, she clamps down, muttering something half-formed and angry into my skin.
I stifle a laugh, and then she does it again, this time intelligibly: “Don’t you fucking dare move.
” It’s muffled, cartoonish, and I can’t help but think that in another life, one where I’m not a goddamn walking disaster, this would be my morning every day.
My ol’ lady; our bed; our house; our lives.
I smile before I can stop myself. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes crack open, green and sharp even half asleep. “You think you’re funny?”
“I know I’m funny.”
She snorts and buries her face in my chest again. For one breath, for two, the world stays quiet. Just us. Just this peace in bed where the only things that exist are her and me and this warm feeling in my chest.
Then it hits.
June.
Midnight.
The leash tightens around my throat.
My body doesn’t go cold, it goes tight. As if it remembers what it’s built for — protecting my last remaining family, carrying the burden of whatever it takes to keep my sister alive, the duty I’ve held for all the years since our parents died.
The duty that’s cost me so much with every reckless decision June’s made.
This warmth in my chest is real. That's the problem. Real things break real people
Molly shifts, sliding her palm over my stomach, absent and gentle. She’s awake now, but still soft in that dangerous way — like she trusts the bed to hold her, like she trusts me to hold her.
She doesn’t just love me. She trusts me.
That’s my opening. And I hate that I see it. I hate that I know how to use it.
She lifts her head, eyes tracking my face.
“Everything okay?” she says, voice rough with sleep.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I say too quickly.
Her brow lifts. “Fine? That’s not an answer. Even I know that.”
“It is. It’s just not the one you want.”
She rolls her eyes and starts to sit up, sheet dragging down her shoulder. I catch it and tug it back up over her like I’m being decent, like I’m not about to do something rotten.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice light. “Come here.”
Molly pauses, suspicious. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
She narrows her eyes like she’s deciding whether to stab me with a spoon, then scoots closer anyway, shoulder bumping mine. She pretends she’s annoyed, but she’s not fooling anyone.
“What?” she demands.
I stare at the ceiling for a second, gathering the lie into something that sounds like truth.
The contractor story isn’t even hard — I can fix things.
I have fixed things, just not the things that matter — June’s life, my life.
But that I know how to work with my hands is what makes it clean. That’s what makes it dangerous.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” I say, and the words taste like gun oil and regret the moment they’re out.
Molly goes perfectly still, the stillness that belongs to prey more than predator, which is funny because she’s never anyone’s victim.
Her palm rests on my chest, right over my heart, and her thumb arcs a lazy circle, but it’s a pressure point disguised as affection.
She can feel the spike in my heart rate and, for a second, her whole face changes—softening at the edges, her eyes going gentle.
That simple touch almost makes me stop, almost makes me roll over and let this morning be what she wants it to be.
But I’m not built for that; there’s a hole in my soul where normal should be.
She reads my face for a long moment, slow and careful, and I can practically hear her sorting through all the possible scripts she expects from a man in her bed.
“If this is you trying to do a feelings conversation, I swear to god, Evan, I’m going to jump out the window,” she says, and her voice is so perfectly dry it could sand wood.
“Not a feelings talk.” I let my eyes skim her face — her wild hair and the sharp, skeptical angle of her cheekbone. “Promise.”
“Good.” She relaxes by half a degree. “What is it?”
“Work’s been slow,” I admit, and I say it like a confession because that’s how people do it when they want you to believe them. I let it hang there, let it settle over us and become something we both have to breathe.
She tilts her head, skeptical. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who sits around.”
“I don’t,” and this time it’s a little too sharp, so I dial it back. “But I’ve had some gaps lately. Fewer calls. Some of the jobs are further out than I’d like. And…” I pause, just long enough to let it look raw. “I have my sister to look out for.”
At the mention of June, I can actually feel the temperature in the room drop a degree.
Molly’s poker face is better than mine, but I know how to read the twitch in her left eyebrow, the way her lips go from neutral to a straight line.
She says nothing. She just thinks, and you can see it.
That’s the thing about Molly—she processes out loud, even when she doesn’t use words.
Finally, she speaks. “Is she okay?”
There’s an edge to it, but not cold; more like she’s testing the air for poison.
I let my gaze drop. I let the weight fall into my voice without naming the real reason for it.
“June needs me. She’s not in a good place right now.”
Molly’s expression shifts — just a flicker, but I see it: the softness, the hook. She likes caretakers. She likes strength that’s aimed at protecting someone smaller. It makes my stomach churn.
I keep going.
“June’s in trouble?”
I could tell her the truth, but I don’t. I make the lie softer. “She got tangled up with someone a while back. It went south. She’s trying to get her feet under her again.” That’s all true, in its way, just not the parts that matter.
Molly’s thumb finds her lip, and she chews it, thinking. “What does she need?”
Support. Money. Protection. A new identity. A place to be safe that’s not under the boot of the Sons.
“She needs a fresh start. She needs someone to believe in her for once. She needs me… but I’m having a hard time of it right now.”
Molly makes this noise, a little huff, as if she’s fighting herself. “So, what are you telling me, Evan?”
She’s not giving me an inch, not letting me steer. It’s why I like her, why I keep coming back even though I know it’s a bad idea. “I need work,” I say, plain. “Anything. Doesn’t matter what it is.”
Molly’s gaze sharpens, looking for the catch, the angle. She wants to believe me — but only so far as it doesn’t cost her anything. I respect that. She’s practical like that. “You want me to give you a job? I work at a bar, that’s it.”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I’m asking. I just… if you hear of anything. A job that pays cash, no questions asked. A roof repair, a fence, whatever. I can handle the rest.”
She looks at me for a long second, the way you look at a dog brought in off the street: half expecting it to bite, half wanting to save it anyway. She sighs, and it’s almost a laugh, except it isn’t.
“You’re making it really hard to keep you at arm’s length, you know that?” she says.
I grin, and it actually hurts, because I know exactly what I’m doing. “That’s my specialty.”
Molly snorts, then drags herself upright, the sheet trailing after her, armoring her body. She stands at the side of the bed, eyes on me, weighing the options like she’s calculating the odds of me leaving fingerprints on her soul.
I don’t move. I just watch her.
She paces, just a quick lap around the end of the bed, as if the movement could burn off the frustration.
“You know what happens if I ask around?” she says finally, voice sharp as cut glass.
“People will want to know why. They’ll want to know who I’m putting my name on.
” She stops, turns on her heel, fixes me with a stare that could light a cigarette at ten paces.
“And I don’t do that, Evan. I don’t put my name on anyone.
Not since —” She stops herself, jaw going tight.
“You don’t have to put your name anywhere,” I say gently. “Just… if something comes your way, let me know. That’s all.”
Molly stares at me for a beat, then snorts like she’s disgusted with herself.
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters.
“What is?”
“Me even considering this,” she snaps, but it’s not really aimed at me. It’s aimed at her own instinct to care. Her own weakness for a man with a “family first” story.
I sit up, watching her, keeping my face steady. No pushing. No rushing.
She paces two steps, then turns back.
“You’re asking me for work,” she says.
I nod once. “Yeah.”
Molly’s eyes flashed. “After sex.”
I wince. “It wasn’t because of —”
“It was,” she cuts in. “Don’t insult me.”
I hold her gaze. “I’m not. I’m telling you I didn’t plan it. I don’t want to do this. But June needs me.”
That part is true, at least.
She exhales hard through her nose, then looks at the floor like she’s arguing with herself.
“I don’t do favors,” she says.
“I’m not asking for a favor.”
“That’s exactly what you’re asking for.”
“I’m asking for a chance. I’m asking for help so that I can help someone that I love.”
Molly’s throat bobs. For a second her expression softens, and it’s almost unbearable — because it looks like trust trying to grow.
She swallows it down.
Then she gives me a look so stern it could cut steel.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she says, clipped. “I’m not promising anything.” Molly points at me with two fingers like she’s issuing a warning. “And if you tell anyone I helped you, I will ruin your life.”
I let out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyes narrow again. “Stop saying that.”
“Can’t,” I say. “It’s funny.”
She makes a sound like she’s trying not to smile. It almost works. Then she turns away, adjusting the sheet around her body, posture tightening back into control.
“Get dressed,” she says. “I have studying to do and I can’t focus with you hanging around all naked and fucking distracting.”
I slide out of bed and reach for my jeans, the floor cool beneath my feet. As I move, Molly glances back over her shoulder.
“You really are taking care of your sister?” she asks, quieter now.
The question lands like a hook in my ribs, the barbs sinking deep into my heart and twisting in the most agonizing way.
“Yes. Always. Ever since our parents died, I’ve been all she’s got. She doesn’t even have herself sometimes, with the kinds of choices she makes.”
“I’ll find you something, Evan.”
The words settle between us like a promise, and something cracks open in my chest — not breaking, but splitting, like a fault line that's been holding too long.
She'll find me something. She'll put her name on me, even if she won't admit it. She'll open a door into her world because I asked, because I played the sister card, because I let her see the version of me that's not entirely a lie.
And when she does, I'll walk through that door and burn everything to ashes.