Chapter 33 – Chrissy
Chapter
Thirty-Three
CHRISSY
I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but… Granny Irene had made some points yesterday that I couldn’t argue with, no matter how badly I wanted to.
The key sat heavy in my coat pocket the whole drive, like it was burning a hole straight through the fabric and into my skin. Every mile closer to the hunting lodge twisted the knot in my stomach tighter.
What if Ben was there?
What if he opened the door himself, hood up, scars shadowed, those piercing blue eyes locking onto me like they had the night he told me everything?
Would he try to talk things out? Would he demand his mother’s ring back from me, since I told him I never wanted to see him again?
Would he just… stare, silent and unreadable, until I broke first?
Or worse… what if he wasn’t there at all? What if I got there and only came face to face with Henry or some other staffer, and they very calmly demanded the ring back and dismissed me?
The roads were clear today, the freak ice storm already melting into slush along the shoulders.
Sunlight filtered through the pines, dappling the gravel drive as I turned onto the private road leading to the lodge.
My tires crunched over small fallen branches, the only sound besides my heartbeat thundering in my ears.
When the lodge finally came into view, I slowed to a crawl.
It looked… wrong.
No smoke curling from the chimneys. No vehicles in the drive except faint, muddied tire tracks that could have been days old. Windows dark, one on the ground floor cracked open like it had been forced. The front door hung slightly ajar, not latched properly.
My breath fogged the windshield as I parked near the front steps. I sat there for a long moment, hands gripping the wheel, staring at the massive wooden doors like they might swing open on their own.
They didn’t.
I climbed out slowly, the cold air slapping my cheeks. Gravel shifted under my boots as I approached. There were no sounds, no distant voices, no clatter from the kitchen, no Henry barking orders. There was just wind rustling through the trees and the faint drip of melting ice from the eaves.
The front door was unlocked, and worse, it looked like it had been jimmied, with faint scratches around the lock.
That sent a chill down my spine unrelated to the weather.
“Hello?” My voice echoed as I pushed it open wider, stepping inside. “Henry? Anyone?”
Nothing.
The air was stale, colder than outside. Lights off. The grand chandelier hung dark overhead. But it wasn’t just empty… it was chaos.
The foyer rug was flipped over, one corner torn. Mantle decorations scattered across the floor in a visual cacophony of shattered vases, overturned frames. Drawers in the side tables yanked out, contents dumped: old keys, notepads, a broken pen leaking ink onto the hardwood.
My stomach twisted.
“Ben?” I called, voice cracking. I cleared my throat. “Henry?”
Shadows and silence greeted me.
I moved deeper into the house, pulse racing, stepping over debris.
Room after room: trashed. The dining hall chairs upended, tablecloth ripped off and balled in a corner.
Kitchen cabinets flung open, pots and pans spilled across the counters, pantry shelves swept clean — cans dented on the floor, a jar of basil shattered into green-flecked glass.
What the hell happened here? A break-in?
Vandalism? Something tied to Vivian — or worse, remnants of the rogue actors from the Game?
My mind spun worst-case scenarios: Ben firing everyone in a rage, sending them away, then holing up alone while his wounds festered.
Or someone coming for him — attacking while he was vulnerable.
The place looked like it had been tossed by someone searching for something. Or someone.
By the time I reached the east wing, worry had twisted into outright fear. The hallway was a mess with its pictures knocked crooked and a side table overturned. The study door was ajar, scratches on the frame like it had been pried.
I pushed it open slowly, heart hammering. Dust motes danced in the weak light filtering through the blinds. The room smelled faintly of leather and old books — and him. But the desk drawers were yanked out, papers scattered across the floor. Books pulled from shelves, spines cracked.
No.
I dropped to my knees, sifting through the mess, panic rising. Henry’s note had said top drawer, right side. If whatever was left for me was gone—
There. Amid the chaos, two envelopes peeked from under a pile of crumpled documents in the open drawer. Untouched, like the intruder hadn’t bothered with them or hadn’t found them worth taking.
My name was typed on the front of the slim one. The thicker one was handwritten in Ben’s sharp, slanted script: Chrissy.
I started with the typed one. Henry’s.
Miss Jones,
If you’re reading this, you came back. That means more than you know.
I’ve served the Stonewood family for over thirty years.
I watched Ben grow from a reckless boy into the man he is today — flawed, fiercely loyal, and carrying wounds deeper than the ones on his skin.
I stayed silent during the Game because I believed in his reasons, even if his methods were wrong. I regret that now.
The lodge is empty because threats are closing in. Lucia’s situation demanded immediate action, and we couldn’t risk leaving the place vulnerable — or the staff exposed. Ben didn’t fire anyone. He protected them. The way he’s always tried to protect what matters to him.
He’s not the monster the town whispers about. And he’s not the flawless hero he pretended to be as ‘Jacob’. He’s just a man who fell hard for the first person who saw past his scars and treated him like he was worth something.
The other letter is his truth. Read it if you’re ready. Leave it if you’re not. Either way, know that he’s trying to become someone worthy of forgiveness, even if he never earns yours.
Respectfully,
H
I folded the note carefully, throat tight. Henry — steady, unflinching Henry — defending him. Believing in him. And Lucia… what situation? Threats closing in? That explained the abandonment, but not the ransacking. Had someone come after them?
Then I opened Ben’s.
Eight pages, front and back, in his handwriting. Dense, raw, no margins spared. I sank against the desk, ignoring the mess around me, hands shaking as I started reading.
The first page was an apology — straightforward, no excuses.
I’m sorry, Chrissy. For every lie. For the surveillance.
For building a cage around you disguised as a lifeline.
I told myself it was to protect you, to test if you could handle my world, but the truth is simpler and uglier: I was terrified.
Terrified you’d look at the real me — the scarred, broken version — and walk away.
So I controlled the narrative instead of trusting you with it.
I hate that I hurt you. I hate that I made you doubt every moment we shared. You deserved honesty from the start, and I robbed you of that.
My eyes burned. I remembered the hardware store — how he’d called himself Jacob on impulse. The seed of it all.
I turned the page.
You need to know about the accident. It wasn’t just a deer.
The brakes failed. Someone had tampered with them — Vivian, we think, though we can’t prove it.
I was in a coma for three years. Woke up to find my father dead (overdosed on manipulated meds, which we also couldn’t prove) and her gone.
The clause was written before all of that, when I was a spoiled nineteen-year-old burning through life like it owed me something.
Dad wanted me to grow up. He never imagined I’d wake up ruined.
The first time anyone touched me without flinching after the accident was you. In that hardware store. You bandaged my hand like I was just a guy who needed help. Not a freak. Not a tragedy. You looked at me like I was whole. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.
He wrote about watching me — not creepily detailed, but enough to twist my gut.
How he’d justified paying off my exes: (They weren’t worthy of you.
Weak men who’d run at the first sign of trouble.
I know that makes me a hypocrite.). How Granny Irene’s care had eaten at him, watching me carry it alone.
Then came the parts that hit hardest:
I built the Game because I wanted you more than anything I’ve ever wanted.
But I built it wrong. Blindfolds and tests and disguises because facing you as myself felt impossible.
‘Jacob’ was the version I wished I could be — scarred, but uncomplicated.
The real me was the one who scared you in those sessions, possessive and dark.
You fell for both, and that undid me. Because it meant maybe — just maybe — you could want all of me.
When you walked out, you took the last piece of hope I had left. But you were right: I should have fought for you honestly from the start. I didn’t. I let you go because I thought that’s what you needed. Because hurting you again felt worse than losing you.
The last two pages were quieter. Vulnerable.
I love you, Chrissy Jones. Not the obsessive way I showed it.
The real way — the steady, put-you-first way I want to prove if you’ll ever let me near again.
I love your strength, your fire, the way you choose love even when it costs you everything.
I love how you bandaged a stranger’s hand without hesitation.
How you fight for the people you care about.
I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But I’m trying to become someone who might someday. No more games. No more lies. Just me — scars, flaws, and all — working to be the man you saw glimpses of.
If you never want to see me again, I’ll respect that. I’ll make sure Vivian never touches you or Granny Irene. But if there’s even a sliver of a chance… I’ll be waiting. Not hiding. Not manipulating. Just waiting.
Yours, even if you’re not mine,
Ben
I sat there long after I finished, letter clutched in my lap, tears streaming unchecked. Anger still simmered — hot and justified — but underneath it was something softer. Ache. Understanding. The raw honesty I’d begged for.
He hadn’t begged me to come back. Hadn’t demanded anything. Just laid himself bare and let me choose.
The ring on my finger felt heavier now. His mother’s ring. A promise he’d made when he thought he was losing me forever.
I folded the letters carefully, tucked them into my pocket.
The lodge was still ransacked around me — drawers gutted, papers strewn — but it didn’t feel as terrifying anymore. Ben was out there somewhere, fighting his own battles. Protecting his people, like Henry said. Dealing with Lucia’s threats.
And for the first time since I’d stormed out, I wondered if maybe — just maybe — there was room for one more chance.
But the thought evaporated almost as soon as it formed, replaced by a colder, sharper realization.
I had no way to reach them.
Not Ben. Not Henry. Not even Lucia.
I didn’t have Ben’s phone number. He’d never given it to me, not once in all the days of the Game, not even when he was bleeding out in my arms. Henry’s number had only ever come through on official retreat correspondence, and I’d deleted those emails in a fit of rage the day I got home.
Lucia… sweet, fierce Lucia who’d slipped me extra desserts and called me ‘cara’ when no one was listening… I didn’t have hers either.
They were gone. Completely off the grid. And in a town like Stonewood, where the rich disappeared behind gates and NDAs, that meant something.
I stood slowly, the ring on my finger catching the dim light as I flexed my hand. My chest tightened with a new kind of worry — not just for whatever mess I’d left Ben in, but for all of them.
What kind of threat made them clear out an entire estate overnight? What had happened to Lucia that required immediate action? Was she hurt? Hiding? Worse?
And Ben — still healing from stitches, still carrying the weight of Vivian’s looming deadline — was he safe? Was Henry with him, watching his back like always? Or had whatever drove them away caught up to them?
The ransacking suddenly felt less like random vandalism and more like a warning. Someone had been here. Someone angry. Someone looking.
I pulled out my phone anyway, muscle memory making me scroll through contacts I knew wouldn’t be there. Nothing. I even opened the retreat app I’d deleted days ago, but it was gone, only returning an error now. No emergency contact. No way to ping Henry through whatever secure system he used.
I was cut off. Completely.
The silence of the lodge pressed in, heavier now.
I couldn’t just leave. Not without doing something.
I rummaged through the scattered papers on the desk until I found a blank sheet and a pen that still worked. My hand shook as I wrote, the words coming out messier than I wanted.
Ben, Henry—
I came back. I found the letters. I read them. All of them.
I don’t know where you are or what’s happening with Lucia, but I’m worried. About her. About both of you. Please be safe.
I’m not ready to forgive everything yet. I don’t know if I ever will be. But I needed you to know I heard you… really heard you.
If you get this, please find a way to let me know you’re okay.
—Chrissy
I folded the note once, then again, and set it on the desk blotter, weighing it down with the same heavy brass paperweight that had survived the chaos. Right in the center, where no one could miss it.
I stared at it for a long moment, throat tight.
It felt pathetic, like a message in a bottle tossed into an empty house.
But it was all I had.
I took one last look around the wrecked study, the ring on my finger glinting like it was trying to remind me of something. Then I walked out, pulling the front door closed behind me as best I could with its damaged latch.
The cold air hit me hard as I stepped onto the porch. I didn’t look back as I crunched across the gravel to my car.
All I could do now was wait and hope someone came home to discover my note.