Chapter 23 Noah
NOAH
Rhett Jameson Rivers is the only thing keeping me from spiraling into the dark abyss and rotting there.
Now more than ever, I need him. His presence is going to be crucial to my survival.
That thought alone snaps tight in my chest, sharp enough to steal my breath.
My arms lock harder around him without permission, fingers digging into his shirt because if they loosen even a fraction, I’ll slide backward into something unsurvivable.
Please don’t let me go. Rhett’s body is warm, solid in a way the rest of the world isn’t anymore, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the only rhythm my breathing will follow.
Everything else feels loud and too close.
The room presses in from every angle. Even though I know in reality I’m safe now, my body doesn’t care.
It’s convinced that the only sanctuary left is right here, wrapped around Rhett, where I can anchor myself and keep the world from dropping out from beneath me entirely.
Footsteps draw closer, and I stiffen. I don’t lift my head. I don’t look. The idea of breaking this contact—even to acknowledge who else is in the room—sends a sharp flare of panic through me, and my arms tighten instinctively, body making the decision before my mind can interfere.
When my breath catches in my chest, it tightens until the air stutters on its way in. Rhett must sense the sudden shift because his grip adjusts automatically as if he feels the fracture before it reaches the surface. It keeps me from unraveling.
Reassuringly, his hand moves down my spine, the pressure even, unchanging, and never demanding more than I can give. “It’s okay, Starlet. Nobody is gonna hurt you again. I promise.”
The air shifts as someone moves closer, careful, cautious, the mattress dipping near my hip, and I know who it is before anything else registers. “Noah. It’s Sage.” Familiar. Quiet. Solid.
She doesn’t touch me, and I’m grateful for it in a way I can’t explain. Her being here without asking anything of me feels like mercy.
Another presence fills the room behind her. Without lifting my head, I know it’s Kade. He follows her like a protective shadow.
“What the hell happened?” The question Sage breathes out holds an angry weight, but her voice stays low, as if she understands that the wrong volume could splinter me.
Rhett shifts beneath my cheek. Not away, never that, but his demeanor hardens into something more complex and fury-contained.
The muscle under my face tightens, his chest expanding as if he’s bracing for impact while his arm stays locked around my back.
“I’m not sure,” he bites through gritted teeth.
“She’s barely uttered more than a groan since I found her.
The state of their suite and the bruises—old and new—tell me every fuckin’ thing I need to know. ”
There’s an undercurrent of restraint flattening his reply, and I know it’s for my benefit. Any other time, I’d be peeved that they’re speaking about me like I’m not even here, but not now. Today, I’m grateful. Please don’t make me tell you. Don’t make me relive it.
“Bradley is a fucking dead man walking. He awakened his reaper and numbered his days.” Rhett’s chest vibrates against my ear.
I catch enough to understand its shape, even if the details blur.
His voice is different now than it was when he was comforting me—rawer, stripped down to something brutal and unfiltered.
The promise in it lands heavy and dark, settling deep in my chest where it doesn’t move.
“I’ll bring that bastard to the brink of death, and when I do, he’s going to beg me to end him.
But I won’t, not until he’s suffered an unimaginable amount of pain and torture.
Not until I reclaim the fucking light he stole from her eyes.
Then and only fucking then, will I allow him to meet his maker. ”
Rhett’s threat doesn’t scare me. It steadies me. Something about the certainty of it quiets the frantic buzzing in my head, even as my body keeps shaking.
“Pick a plot. I’ll bring a shovel. I’m sure we can find a place next to the last squealing pig we dealt with.
” Kade’s retort forces my brows to furrow, but I haven’t got it in me to question what it means because everything beyond the press of Rhett’s arms and the sound of his breathing feels secondary right now, like background noise I don’t have the energy to process.
Beneath me, Rhett exhales hard. “We can’t be flippant with this, Kade.
We need a plan. Bradley is high-profile.
People notice when men like him go missing.
” Pieces of their conversation bleed in and out.
“This isn’t the ranch. Rich folk don’t just vanish into thin air with no questions asked. We need to be strategic.”
Nearby, Sage mentions something about her ex-boyfriend Toby.
Recognition flickers in the silence that follows, something shared and unspoken passing between them.
I wish I had the strength to dive deeper and question the insanity they’re spewing, but every ounce of energy I have is fighting to keep me from shattering completely.
Rhett’s hand spreads wider against my back.
“Noah.” The sorrow lingering in his tone tightens something profound in my chest. Not the way it did earlier, when it hurt to hear it, when it felt pitiful.
This time it lands sure, like a line he’s drawn and won’t let anything cross.
My body responds without consulting me, curling closer, my leg hitching over his thigh, contact stacking on contact because distance feels unbearable.
After all, I don’t trust the world beyond the circle of his arms.
Sage shifts again, closer now, the mattress dipping beneath her weight. “What do you need us to do?” Rhett goes quiet for a beat, the pause heavy with calculation, with decisions being locked into place somewhere just beyond me.
“Damage control.” Brushing the edge of my awareness, my focus stays locked on the reassuring drag of his hand and the way his thumb presses in at my spine when my breathing stutters. I cling to that rhythm, counting it, letting it override everything else.
I close my eyes and breathe in his scent.
Earth and dust accompanied by the rich masculinity of weathered woods and spices.
From there, I tune it all out, only picking up snippets.
Rental car. Leave first thing tomorrow. Grandma Jo.
Act as if you know nothing. Those fragments of a conversation brush past without settling, until one word drops heavy enough to sink.
Barbados.
I completely forgot about the fake honeymoon arranged for me and my … can’t even get the thought out.
Rhett’s voice rumbles beneath my ear. “When I came looking for Noah, I saw Bradley getting into the elevator with a redhead. He had a suitcase. I’m betting he’s halfway to the island with his sidepiece.”
“Fucking Annabel,” Sage grunts. “She’s Bradley’s assistant. She gave me bad vibes the day she ambushed Noah into choosing a wedding dress from a batch of over-the-top monstrosities. Not to mention the way she behaved at the rehearsal dinner.” Disgust warps her tone.
“Good riddance to both of them. Gives us more time to devise a solution to our Bradley problem,” Kade quips.
A flash of white light passes behind my eyes, and my fingers jerk, tightening instinctively until all I can feel is the press of Rhett’s arms. Suddenly, I'm overcome by the nauseating certainty that Bradley’s actions weren’t impulsive.
What he did to me was planned. Designed.
Built so no one would look for me until it was too late.
My stomach twists violently as a sour wave coats my tongue, and I press my face harder into Rhett’s chest, breathing him in, letting the familiar scent bring me back to a time before Bradley came into my life, before my own skin felt wrong, foreign.
For the next few minutes, I zone out, solely focused on syncing my breath with Rhett’s as he talks to Kade. His chin tips to my head, resting there as he whispers softly, “I need to go get your things from the room. Do you think you’ll be okay with Sage until I get back?”
I nod, but my body contradicts me, clinging to him tighter in hopes I can bottle the safe feeling his arms provide.
He grows quieter, speaking solely to me, lips brushing over the strands of my hair.
“I’ll be less than five minutes. I promise.
Then I’ll hold you forever.” His fingers tease my chin, drawing my gaze to pools of Belgian chocolate that hold so much pain and sorrow.
“Let me mend what he broke, Noah. And let me love you while I do.” His lips lower to my forehead, gently caressing my skin.
I grieve the shift in his weight as he rises to his feet before lowering me back onto the mattress and tugs the comforter up. “I’ll be right back.”
Panic flares, a sharp spike of fear tearing through my chest, and my head jerks without permission, a violent refusal ripping out of my body.
My fingers dig into his shirt, nails scraping fabric, like I might tear it if he tries to move.
The thought of him leaving—even for a minute—sends my heart slamming against my ribs, breath stuttering painfully on the way in.
He feels it immediately. “I won’t be long.”
The truth in his tone settles something frantic inside my chest, even as my throat burns with everything I can’t make myself say.
I don’t want to need him like this.
The thought flashes sharp and unwanted, followed immediately by a deeper, more terrifying one.
I already do.
Through the pounding in my ears, I hear Rhett murmur to Kade as he moves toward the door, his voice carrying across the room. “I’ll grab her suitcase. Then once you pick up the car, I’ll drive Noah back to the ranch. Think you and Sage can handle Grandma Jo?”
“Nobody handles that woman.” Kade chuckles, his laughter lightening the somber mood. “But yeah. We’ll fill her in on the flight home.”
Home, Black River … endless skies stretching wide overhead, cold air filling my lungs, space enough to breathe without anyone watching. Somewhere I don’t have to perform. Somewhere I don’t have to hide the tremor in my hands or the hollow ache sitting just beneath my ribs.
The idea of being looked at—examined, cataloged, turned into something people gossip about—turns my stomach. Nausea rolls through me, sharp enough that I curl inward instinctively, dragging the covers closer like if I hold on tight enough, I can keep the world from seeing me as something broken.
Before I can slide too far from reality, Sage’s hand settles at the nape of my neck, warm and steady, her thumb pressing slow circles into my skin. The simple contact anchors me. I cling to the reassurance, breathing shallow and uneven, letting the surge ebb just enough to keep me here.
More words drift past. Then movement. Footsteps retreat. The door opens and closes again, and the room quiets.
It’s just Sage and me now.
The space feels different without Rhett here—less stable, more fragile—but the air doesn’t collapse. I don’t collapse. I stay right where I am, wrapped in the echo of his arms, in the certainty he left behind with me.
“He’ll be back,” Sage reassures quietly, as if reading the tension in my body.
I nod once, holding onto that thought like a lifeline. “I know.” Rhett came for me. He didn’t hesitate. And he’ll come back.
The alternative isn’t an option. I’ve lived through life without Rhett once before, and I can safely say I learned my lesson. I need his arms exactly the way they were when he held me together after Bradley tore my world apart.
Insidious guilt creeps in, whispering that I’m taking too much, that I’m clinging too hard, that one day he’ll feel the weight of my shattered pieces, and it will be too much. The thought tightens my chest, fear tangling with the grief until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Right now, all I can do is stay here, breathe, wait, and let the promise of Rhett’s return steady me. Repeating my new mantra is the only way I’m going to survive his absence.
Rhett came for me when I needed him. And he’s coming back.