Chapter Eleven #2
Hazel reaches me first, bone-crushing hug, Alisha slamming into us with an “oof!” and Richie wrapping both his long arms around all of us like a blanket. Somewhere in the mob is Juniper, swearing and laughing.
“That was a tight fit on the way here, damn.”
A new voice cuts through—deep, smooth, with a grin threaded in it. I turn.
A tall man drops down from the truck’s passenger side, rain glinting on the nearly blacked-out tattoos that sleeve his right arm from wrist to shoulder.
A dark mustache, darker eyes, and the kind of swagger that says he’s trouble wrapped in leather and good intentions. His gaze lands squarely on Hazel first.
“Please tell me someone saved me a seat near that one,” he says, flashing a grin that could melt steel. “Or maybe we toss a few folks in the back and give and give us a chance to get acquainted.”
Hazel’s cheeks go crimson, her smirk betraying the flutter behind it. “You wish,” she shoots back, playful despite herself.
He chuckles, unfazed, and then turns to me like the energy in his body just shifts direction.
“And you must be Surry,” he says, voice dropping a register. “The one everyone’s been talking about. Didn’t think the stories would do you justice—but damn, they undersold you.” He winks. HE WINKS!
That’s when Brenden’s jaw tightens beside me. His hand finds the small of my back in a move that’s calm on the surface but all claim underneath.
The stranger’s grin widens like he’s just found a live wire. “Easy, big guy,” he says, raising both hands in mock surrender. “I like breathing.”
The tension cracks just enough for laughter to spill out—mine included.
He steps forward, extending a hand. “Arnie,” he introduces himself. “Tech, logistics, and sometimes comic relief.” I take his hand. He bows slightly and plants a quick kiss on my knuckles before winking.
“Jesus,” Juniper mutters. “He’s flirting like it’s a contact sport.”
“Only the best kind,” Arnie fires back.
The truck’s driver climbs out next—broad, quiet, weathered. “Let’s get this circus back on the road,” he says, voice even as gravel. “Name’s Gunnar. These idiots are my family. If you’re important to them, you’re important to me.”
He offers a massive, steady hand; I take it, grounding instantly in that calm strength.
Tears sting before I can stop them. I nod, and Brenden’s hand finds my shoulder—steady, protective, no longer sharp. His smile looks like a bruise—dark with things he won’t say out loud. He pulls me in close.
“I told you, Siren,” he murmurs, low enough that only I hear. “Mine.”
We reshuffle. Josh, Juniper, and Alisha pile into our car with us—wet hair, big opinions, elbows everywhere. Arnie, Hazel, and Richie stuff into Corver’s. Gunnar rumbles along at the back like a patient bear.
The rain thins to gossamer mist as we turn off the concrete artery of the freeway and start climbing into a verdant cathedral of ancient pines.
Dexter materializes through curtains of fog, nestled in a hush of moss-draped trees and obsidian water that reflects the pewter sky.
The asphalt ribbon narrows, then narrows again, switchbacks tightening like a secret being whispered, until we're slipping into a pocket dimension that belongs only to us.
My stomach performs its familiar somersault, that weightless vertigo I've felt since childhood.
The gates emerge without warning from the emerald gloom of the surrounding trees, twenty feet of wrought-iron filigree twisted into patterns of thorns and vines, black as a midnight promise.
The brick wall on either side, the color of dried blood, runs off into primeval forest, its top crowned with gleaming anti-drone hardware disguised as ornate spikes and cameras nestled in stone falcons' eyes.
The brushed-steel keypad waits like a small altar, its blue glow the only artificial light for miles.
I punch in 0-6-2-0-#—my parents’ anniversary. The gates swing inward as if pulled by old magic.
“If you ever need speed,” I say, glancing at Brenden, “add a one before the code. It opens fast and slams shut faster. But it trips alarms. Don’t use it unless you actually need it.”
He nods once. I know he’s memorized it the way he memorizes exits and faces and the weight of a gun.
We file through, one by one, the gates washing us back into a life I haven’t touched in nine years.
The main drive curls under immortal trees, the ground slick with needles.
You can’t see the house until you’re almost kissing it; that’s by design.
We crest a last bend, and there it is—the courtyard opening like a stage, the manor rising out of rain and laurel.
Lamps glow along the portico. Staff line the steps, still as chess pieces.
“Holy shit, lady,” Josh says, craning around me. “You are like…a princess.”
“I used to think that too, when I was little.” Pretending to be a princess with Selene, Sam was our knight who came to save us from dragons, or other kingdoms. Little did we know, it was but a glimpse into what life would really look like so many years later.
“You are my Queen,” Brenden says quietly. I look up. Something unnameable moves across his face, not love—it can’t be love—but in the same constellation.
“Pull up front,” I say, voice gone thin. “We’ll unload. They’ll park in the underground. If Gunnar wants to babysit his gear, have him follow down.”
We stop. Before the engine even sighs off, I’m out—sprinting across stone into a pair of arms I’ve been missing since I was twenty-six.
“brIDGET!” My voice ricochets off the stone. Bridget Doherty catches me like she always has, wraps me up in cinnamon and starch and the kind of love that smells like fresh bread. She’s rounder now, softer around the edges, eyes just as sharp.
She pushes me back and squints up. “Me heavens, child,” she says in an accent heavy enough to bend light, “what’ve ye done to yer skin?”
I laugh, throat tight. “Decorated my temple.”
Her gaze warms, full and wet. “Aye, ye did.” She casts her eyes down the steps, clocking every unfamiliar face like she’s tallying the dead and the living. “Who’ve ye brought wi’ ye? We knew to expect company, but how many beds am I makin’?”
Brenden’s voice rolls smooth behind me. “Surry and I will be in a room together, so don’t worry about me. I’ll be wherever she’s at.”
I feel, rather than see, Bridget turn that gaze on him. It can peel paint. “Boyo,” she says, stepping closer, “don’t feck wit’ me. The IRA’s in me blood. D’ye think I’m standin’ here ‘cause I can make a stew?”
A couple of the lads cough-laugh and then stop when she flicks a look. Brenden doesn’t flinch.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, hands open. “I understand completely. I’ll sleep on the floor if I have to. But I won’t be leaving her side.” His eyes cut to mine, steady and unblinking. “Never again.”
I have a hundred questions about those two words. None of them are for right now.
“Right, so.” Bridget claps once, loud enough to make the line of staff jump. “Bring yer shite inside. We’ll sort rooms. There’s plenty o’ sheets in this house and more stew than sense.”
We cross the threshold. The black-and-white checkered floor is an old movie star of a room—grand ceiling, the chandelier I once hung Christmas ribbons from, the smell of lemon oil and history.
The twin curving staircases gleam, carved banisters smooth under my palm as I take the right-hand flight.
I don’t look back. I follow muscle memory down the gallery, past ancestral portraits and newer frames, to my door.
The handle is cool, familiar. I turn it. The room is a held breath.
Same wide bed, same bookshelf bowing under weight, same desk with a shallow scratch where Selene tried to cut a lime at fourteen and botched it.
It smells like dust and linen and the paper-dry perfume of my old notebooks.
For a second, I am twenty-one, broken, angry, being folded into this room like a wing being set, and I want to cry from relief and grief in the same breath.
Footsteps. I turn. Brenden fills the doorway like an eclipse.
I take two steps and fist his shirt and drag him down.
This kiss isn’t a spark. It’s a tide going out and then rushing in again, salt in my mouth, hands steady on his jaw. It’s steady and sure and slow enough to count the ways it could mean home. The room tilts; I don’t care. The panic in my ribs loosens like a knot relieved of duty.
I didn’t want a man. Didn’t want a relationship. Swore off marriage, kids, the whole storybook. I built a life with hard rules and good locks.
And I want to break at least one of those rules for him.
I’m his.
And—God help me—I think I want him to be mine.