Chapter 34 – Ben
Chapter
Thirty-Four
BEN
Pain was the first thing I knew. Not the clean burn of a blade or the white-hot spike of bone shattering on impact. This was the after. The deep, throbbing sort of pain that pulsed in time with my heartbeat and reminded me I’d survived when maybe I shouldn’t have.
Stitches tugged when I breathed. The world smelled like rubbing alcohol, old wood, and Henry’s cheap coffee.
“Lucia?”
My voice came out rough, scraped raw from shouting and pure rage.
Henry stepped out of the guest room at the end of the narrow hallway, pulling the door almost closed behind him. He looked exhausted, his gray hair rumpled, dark circles bruised under his eyes. There was dried blood on his forearms that wasn’t his.
“She’ll be all right,” he said quietly. “She’s sleeping now. Sedative finally kicked in.”
My eyes flicked to the door of the guest room in Henry’s modest little house.
Don’t get me wrong — Henry’s place wasn’t rundown or shabby, far from it.
It was the kind of modest a man chooses when he could afford flash but doesn’t see the point.
A nice brick ranch on a quiet street, trimmed hedges out front, porch light that always worked.
Inside, everything was clean, organized, and comfortably worn, like a place someone respected but didn’t linger in.
Nice, but it didn’t have that lived-in warmth.
This was a place he kept ready for emergencies…
a bolt-hole he almost never used. Until tonight.
He spent most of his life in staff quarters wherever I was living, and it showed.
The house felt more like a well-maintained safe harbor than a home.
Sturdy furniture. Fresh linens. Kitchen smelling faintly of coffee grounds and gun oil.
Pictures were sparse but carefully placed: his old military unit framed on the mantel, a photo of my father shaking his hand at some long-ago event, a faded polaroid of Lucia from years back — smiling in Ashgrove’s old kitchen, shoving a plate of manicotti at the camera like she was scolding whoever held it.
That photo hit harder tonight. Henry had kept it all these years, tucked away like a secret.
The way he’d looked charging into that room earlier — fury carved into every line of his face when the knife was at her throat — told me more than words ever could.
He’d loved her quietly for decades, and tonight he’d finally acted on it without hesitation.
“Her husband?” I asked, voice low.
The bastard had kicked me square in my stitched-up side when Henry and I cornered him. It had hurt so goddamn bad I’d nearly blacked out, vision tunneling to pinpricks while Henry finished what needed finishing.
Henry’s mouth tightened into a hard line.
“That man is… not a problem anymore.”
I let my head sink back against the worn couch cushion, vision flickering at the edges. My side flared again, the freshly re-stitched knife wound along my ribs screaming its protest.
“Not a problem,” I echoed. “You sure?”
Henry gave me that look — the one I’d seen a hundred times when I’d been reckless and stupid, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong.
“You really want details right now, kid?”
No. I didn’t. Because the images were already burned in: Lucia’s soon-to-be-ex pounding on her sister’s door, drunk and raging.
Lucia flinching when the son of a bitch pressed a knife to her throat after Henry kicked the door in.
Her quiet, broken sobs as we closed in, trying to talk him down before everything went sideways — before his boot connected with my ribs, busting stitches open in a hot bloom of blood.
Before I dropped, lights out, leaving Henry to handle the rest alone.
The room had smelled like fear and cheap whiskey.
Lucia’s sister huddled in the corner, phone in hand but too terrified to dial.
I’d lunged to distract him, taking the kick that reopened the stab wound Brett gave me — fire exploding along my side as old scars pulled and fresh blood soaked through.
Black spots danced in my vision and the whole world went hazy and far away, but I heard the struggle: grunts, a choked gasp, the dull thud that ended it.
When I came to, Henry was already cleaning up, face grim, hands steady.
He’d done what needed doing — for her. Always for the people he considered family.
And I’d been useless on the floor, just like the night of my accident, helpless while the world burned around me.
I swallowed hard, tasting copper.
“She knows she’s staying here? Safe?”
“She knows she’s not going back to him,” Henry said, voice steady but edged with something raw. “And I won’t let him — or anyone — get anywhere near her ever again. That’s what matters tonight.”
Tonight. Like time meant anything anymore.
I dragged my good hand down my face, felt the rasp of stubble, the rough trail of scars pulling tight across my cheek.
“I’m not exactly inconspicuous these days,” I muttered. “You sure it was smart bringing me into that mess?”
“You followed my lead,” Henry said. “Kept it contained. No spectacle. That’s what mattered.” He crossed the living room and handed me a glass of water, his gaze sweeping over me in that efficient, assessing way. “How’re the stitches now?”
“Like somebody shoved a dull spoon under my ribs and twisted,” I said. “Better than when that motherfucker reopened them, but I’m fine.”
One corner of his mouth quirked — the closest he ever got to a smile these days.
“Your definition of fine has always been suspect.”
“You still stitched me up. Twice in a week.”
“Somebody had to.” He sat on the scarred coffee table across from me, joints cracking like old timber. “You took a hit that should’ve dropped you harder. Adrenaline’s a hell of a thing.”
I thought of Chrissy’s face in the barn that day — wide brown eyes filled with terror and fury. Her scream cutting through the storm, dragging me out there like a puppet on strings.
Adrenaline was a hell of a drug. Love was worse.
It had kept me upright in that barn too, shovel in hand, rage blinding me as I ended the threats to her.
But love had also twisted me into the man who watched her for years, built the Game around her, lied with every breath as Jacob.
The same love that made me let her go, thinking distance would heal what I’d shattered.
Now it just left this void, aching worse than any wound.
“I’ve had worse,” I said quietly.
Henry’s eyes softened, just a flicker.
“You’ve had enough.”
We sat in silence for a beat, the house creaking around us like it was settling into the night. Somewhere in the guest room, Lucia shifted in her sleep, murmuring something indistinct.
“I owe her better than this,” I said finally, the words scraping out. “All of them. You. Lucia. The staff. I dragged every one of you into my mess — the Game, the lies, the blood.”
Henry snorted.
“Vivian dragged you into hers first, kid. Poisoning your father. Fleeing the country. Leaving that damn clause like a landmine. You just got… creative about surviving it.”
“Creative,” I repeated dryly.
Rigging a twisted wife-hunt in an isolated lodge. Luring the woman I’d been obsessed with for four years into it. Splitting myself in two — Ben the domineering monster, and Jacob the scarred but kind groundskeeper — like that made any of it less fucked up.
I could still see her in that hardware store, red beanie askew, kneeling to bandage my bleeding hand without a flicker of disgust at my scars.
That moment had hooked me deeper than anything else ever could have.
Four years of files, shadows, excuses… all just to keep her in my orbit without risking rejection.
And when I finally had her close, I poisoned it with lies.
No wonder she’d looked at me like I was a stranger who’d stolen something precious.
“Lucia’s safe tonight because of you,” Henry said. “You gave her somewhere to land when she finally walked away from that bastard for good. That matters more than the semantics.”
I stared at my hand on my thigh, the faint tremor betraying how badly my body craved real rest.
“Chrissy walked too.”
Henry’s gaze sharpened.
“I know.”
“I let her,” I said, the confession tasting like rust. “Told her to go. Handed her the prize money like it could erase everything. Blew my own game to hell just to get her clear of the blast radius.”
“And now?”
“Now…” I laughed once, hollow and bitter.
“Now there’s nothing standing between Vivian and the entire Stonewood empire except a ticking clock, a reclusive scar-faced heir who’s too goddamn lovesick to marry anyone else, and zero clue if the woman who hates my guts even went back to the lodge to read the letter I poured my soul into. ”
Henry watched me for a long moment, steady as ever.
“You don’t know that she hates you.”
“I know the way she looked at me when she realized Jacob and Ben were the same man,” I rasped. “People only look at you like that when you’ve broken something they trusted you not to.”
His jaw flexed.
“You didn’t break her, Ben. You hurt her — badly. But Chrissy Jones is stronger than that. She’s the kind who bandages strangers’ hands without flinching. Give her time.”
The shadows in the room deepened. My chest tightened — not the wound, but something deeper clawing for a do-over the universe wasn’t likely to grant.
Three days until Christmas Eve. Three days until Vivian swept in, smiling that venomous smile, claiming everything my father had built because his reckless son couldn’t grow up in time.
I’d pictured marrying Chrissy a thousand ways in my head — honest ones, after confessions and forgiveness.
Now it all felt like a pipe dream, slipping away with every hour I spent bleeding on Henry’s couch instead of fighting for her, but I was exhausted and hurting too badly to go anywhere or do anything else tonight.
“So what’s the plan?” Henry asked, dragging me back to practical like always. “Hole up at the lodge and wait for Vivian to waltz in on Christmas Eve?”
I shook my head.
After everything — the rogue actors, the bloody massacre in the barn, Chrissy dragging me inside while cursing my name — it wasn’t sanctuary anymore. It was a graveyard of mistakes.
He nodded, like he’d expected it.
“Where, then?”
“Ashgrove House,” I said. The words tasted like childhood ghosts and ashes. “Whether Chrissy comes with me or not.”
“About damn time,” Henry muttered. “Crews have been in and out for weeks, getting it ready since you haven’t set foot there since the coma. Vivian’s people probably think it’s prep for her triumphant return.”
“What if I can’t get Chrissy back?” I asked, voice low. “What if Vivian takes everything on Christmas Eve?”
“Then you’ll get a job and crash here until you’re on your feet,” Henry said flatly. “You’re resilient. I’ve seen you survive worse.”
I huffed a breath, rolling my eyes despite the pain.
“You’re a real comfort.”
“It’s all part of my charm.” He pushed up from the coffee table, his knees popping.
“Get some rest, then go home, kid. Go find Chrissy and do your best to fix shit with her while there’s still time.
I’ll stay with Lucia until I’m sure she can sleep without jumping at every noise and having panic attacks. ”
I looked again toward the guest room door.
The idea of leaving anyone else behind while I still had breath in my lungs scraped against every protective instinct I had.
But this was Henry. The man who’d pulled me out of my wrecked car.
The man who’d stood between Vivian and my ventilator.
The man who’d taught me to shoot and drive and read people and survive.
If there was anyone I could trust with my family, it was him.
“Once I do go home, promise me you’ll call me if that asshole has friends who come sniffing around,” I said. “I’ll find a way to make sure they conveniently disappear.”
Henry’s eyes crinkled.
“It’s sweet that you want to help, really, but I’ve got this, kid. I’m not going to let anything happen to Lucia ever again, that much I can promise you. Now sleep, and go get your girl when you wake up.”