37. Caroline
CAROLINE
“Are they safe?” Declan asks, his finger still pinned to the blueprint, the sheen of the paper reflecting the ceiling light in soft, rhythmic pulses like a dying heartbeat.
I peel myself off Kellan and lower into a chair at the counter, where the waffles are already cooling.
My stomach growls so hard it feels like something inside me is gnawing through bone just to survive.
I nod, mouth already full, the sweetness of syrup blooming across my tongue like a drug.
It tastes like relief. Like something almost normal.
Still, I can’t help but think how happy waffles with syrup would have made the boys.
“Gone,” I say around the bite, swallowing hard. “With Alaina and James.”
Declan’s jaw clenches. His eyes flick upward, but he doesn’t say anything right away. He doesn’t have to. The silence says it all: if something goes wrong, that choice might be the only thing that saves them.
“They’ll make good parents if this all goes sideways,” I add, half laughing, but the words hang in the air like something dead.
No one laughs. Not even Kellan, who usually cracks a smirk at the worst times.
The truth in the words cuts too deep. I stab a strawberry and the juice bleeds onto the plate.
I force my voice to steady. “So…what’s the plan? ”
Rian straightens, stepping in like a scalpel, clean and deliberate. “It’s simple, really. We’ll invite him for dinner. Your presence will throw him off—he won’t be expecting it. You give a code, and I’ll move in.”
“So what?” I ask. “We just…shoot him in the middle of a toast?”
“No,” Declan says flatly, shaking his head.
“After the toast,” Kellan adds with a lopsided grin. He’s leaning against the fridge, arms crossed, trying too hard to look casual. I shoot him a glance, and the corner of my mouth lifts. It’s absurd. Horrifying. And we’re still making jokes. That’s how far gone we are.
Declan, predictably, doesn’t find it funny. He looks annoyed with us, bothered by our flippancy. Levity’s a betrayal to him. He leans in across the counter, voice low and tight. “We don’t just kill him. We take everything. His contacts. His leverage. His men.”
“We end the Crowley dynasty,” Rian murmurs. “We burn it from the root.” The room goes quiet. It’s the first time anyone’s said it out loud. He breaks the silence with a wry chuckle, “And yes, we essentially shoot him in the middle of a toast.”
I try laughing too, but it comes out scratchy. I swallow. “And what happens to us if we fail?”
Rian doesn’t answer right away. He just steps forward, quiet in his movements, like he’s approaching something delicate.
His hands reach for my coat, his fingertips brushing my shoulder, and I lift my arms so he can slide it off.
I shift my fork from one hand to the other, feeling the fabric pull away, the kitchen light grazing my bare arms. “If we fail,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to the top of my head, “then we die together.”
I close my eyes for half a breath, letting the waffles turn to mush in my cheek. The words settle like dust over everything. Final. Absolute. They don’t scare me the way I thought they would.
“But we won’t fail,” Declan says. His voice is sure.
Too sure. He leans across the counter and reaches for my hands, but they’re full—of food, of tension, of everything—so he settles for my forearms, grounding me with those steady hands of his.
He holds me with his hands and he holds me with his storm-gray eyes.
I have a flashback of the first night we met, when he tied me up and held me with that same eye contact, telling me to let go, to come for him.
His eyes have always put me right back in the moment, brought me down to earth.
It hits me how wild it is that the first person to control me also became the first person to ground me.
That I’ve come to trust these hands, even when they shake.
That the first person to choke me is who helps me breathe.
A shiver runs through me now. I wonder if he ever looks at me and sees all the versions of me that he’s had—bound, sobbing, begging, laughing, surviving.
“Caroline,” he says, voice calm but forceful, “this is your last chance. You can still back out. The boys need a mother. If you wanted to take them and run, we’d understand. We’d help you. We meant it. We’re not keeping you here.”
I stare at him, then at Rian, who nods solemnly. Even Kellan, now leaning against the counter with arms crossed, gives a faint incline of his head. They’d let me go. They really would. I’ve known it for a while. Declan let me go all the way to Washington alone.
I think about it for the first time now, not just in passing, but for real.
I imagine disappearing. New names. New town.
I imagine teaching the boys how to skate, how to ride bikes, and how to forget.
I imagine never hearing Kellan’s dry one-liners again.
Never waking up to Declan’s arms wrapped around me like a vow.
Never feeling Rian’s lips press to my temple with the kind of reverence people usually save for church.
I came back because I don’t want to look over my shoulder anymore, because I’m done surviving, because I want to live.
And because, somewhere along the way, these men became my family.
I drop my fork with a loud clatter, take Declan’s hand, and thread my fingers through his. “I’m in,” I say. “Let’s finish this.”
He exhales, like he’s been holding that breath for hours.
I pick my fork back up and glance at Kellan. “Fuck,” I say, stabbing another bite. “These are good waffles.”
He grins and blows me a kiss, like we’re not planning a murder over breakfast for dinner. Like we’re just any other family.
Maybe we are. Maybe there’s no such thing as normal.
Probably more normal than this, though.