Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
I looked down at my phone and smiled.
Chloe had texted me when she got back to her apartment to let me know she was safe. Not just safe, either—she’d sent me a string of emojis that made me snort out loud. Smiley faces. Hearts. And at least two eggplants that I was ninety percent sure were supposed to mean penises.
God, I love this woman.
I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes for a second, letting the warmth of that simple fact settle into me. I wanted her back here. In our house. In our bed. Every night. I wanted to wake up with her hair in my face and fall asleep with her heartbeat under my palm.
We were close. So damn close.
And now we were going to do the stupidest thing in the world.
Fuck! I hate this.
I stood up and walked down the hall toward our bedroom, but my feet slowed when I reached the nursery door. I hadn’t planned on going in there. I didn’t usually. But tonight, something tugged at me—quiet, steady, insistent.
I pushed the door open.
The room was exactly the way we’d left it.
Soft yellow walls. Light green accents. Late afternoon sun shone through the blinds, casting a gentle glow across the space.
The rocking chair sat where Chloe had placed it, angled just right for morning light.
Right now it was in shadow. Draped over the back was the lemon-colored blanket she’d picked out months before we knew anything.
Before we knew she was a girl.
Chloe had bought everything neutral back then. Yellow and green and soft white. She’d said that way the colors would work for either a boy or a girl. Practical. Hopeful. Refusing to jinx it.
I walked over and brushed my fingers across the blanket.
The fabric was worn softer than it should’ve been, like Chloe had done exactly what I was doing now and had rubbed it between her hands a hundred times without realizing it. My fingers curled, and before I knew it, I was gripping it hard, knuckles white, chest tight.
I turned and looked at the empty crib.
“Daddy loves you, Kristen,” I whispered.
Somehow the words didn’t shatter me.
They didn’t drag me under.
Instead, something warm spread through my chest—slow and steady, like sunlight pushing through cloud cover. I shut my eyes and let go of the blanket, my hand relaxing as my breath evened out.
I stayed like that for a long moment.
And then I realized I was smiling.
Not the brittle kind. Not the forced kind.
A real one.
Huh.
I was standing in an empty nursery, smiling. Who would’ve guessed?
I frowned, chastising myself. This wasn’t a joke. It was…real. I could feel her. Not in a way that hurt. In a way that grounded me. Like her light hadn’t vanished—it had just changed shape.
I took the deepest, fullest breath that I had in ten months.
By the time I left the nursery, dusk had settled into the house. I was still smiling as I walked back to the bedroom.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled my phone out of my back pocket.
“Showtime,” I murmured.
I dialed Maurice.
The phone rang four times before it kicked to voicemail.
Perfect.
“Maurice, this is Post,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I wanted to talk to you about getting in the ring again. I wanted to see if you have anything available soon.”
I let the word soon land heavy. With just enough edge, just enough need.
I hung up and set the phone face down on my nightstand.
Tomorrow I wasn’t on until noon with Fletcher. I frowned, trying to recall, and remembered Michael had the day off and planned to go hiking with his wife. I wanted to catch him before he disappeared into the woods.
I needed sleep if I was going to catch him that early.
I doubted sleep would come, but I lay back anyway and stared at the ceiling. I thought about Chloe’s emojis and Kristen’s steady light.
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like I was running away from something. I was running toward something.
I was already halfway through my coffee when Michael leaned back against his truck outside Java Jolt and squinted at me.
“So,” he said, lifting his cup, “you gonna tell me why you got up at the ass-crack of dawn?”
I smirked. “You say that like I don’t do this all the time.”
“You don’t,” he shot back. “You’re a barely-functional human before nine. Something’s up.”
I took another sip and nodded. “I want to run a couple things by you.”
His brow lifted. “This one of those ‘I don’t need you to do anything’ conversations that absolutely requires me to do something?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But mostly I just need a fresh pair of eyes. Metaphorically speaking.”
He studied me for a beat, then sighed. “Does this have anything to do with you being such a dumbass lately? Is it going to be my turn to beat the shit out of you?”
I laughed, short and honest. “No beat-down required. It actually has a lot to do with me pulling my head out of my ass and taking stock of my life. Of getting back on track.”
That got his attention.
He grinned and tipped his cup toward me. “Then count me in. Lay it on me.”
So, I did.
I started at the beginning—Cappy watching my fight with JJ Baumgartner and telling me I needed to be benched. Maurice approaching me. The feeder fights. Tyler. The next night at the distillery. The wreck. Conversations with Chloe. Onyx. The Broker.
I didn’t sugarcoat it.
Then I started talking slower as I mentioned the plan we had come up with. Having me go in… Using Chloe as leverage.
When I finished, Michael exhaled slowly and scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
“So,” he said at last, “you and Chloe are back together. Like…together-together.”
I blinked. “I tell you all of that, and you focus on my marital relations?”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “Because without Chloe as your anchor, I wasn’t sure you could pull yourself out of the hole you dug. I was real close to staging an intervention that involved duct tape.”
I snorted. Then I sobered. “Yeah. You’re not wrong.”
He nodded once. “Okay. Now let’s talk about the part I don’t like.”
“Which part?” I asked dryly.
“The part where you let someone who might—or might not—be an actual murderer get close enough to take pictures of your wife,” he said. “That sounds risky as hell.”
I leaned both elbows against the hood of his truck, my head between my forearms. “It does.”
Michael shrugged. “If you’re really that worried, have Zoe stay with her.”
I frowned. “Zoe?”
“That girl can shoot a tick off a dog’s ass from fifty yards,” he said. “I’ve seen it. Also, she’s mean when she needs to be.”
A thought sparked.
“Hell,” he went on, “why not have Zoe take Chloe’s place entirely until after the fight?”
I stared at him.
Then thought about it.
“That,” I said slowly, “is not a bad idea.”
Michael smiled back. “That’s why you called me.”
Yeah.
It was.
For the first time since they talked about using Chloe as bait, I wasn’t feeling like I was going to throw up.
Chloe was the center of my world, and I know that years ago, when pressed against the wall, she’d been able to kill someone.
But Zoe was a little harder. She had that edge.
Had abilities that Chloe didn’t. She’d go on the offense if necessary.
I finished my coffee and tossed the cup into the trash.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he replied. “You still gotta walk into the fire.”
I nodded.
But this time, I wasn’t walking in alone, and I was doing it for all the right reasons.