39. Keira
KEIRA
S ilence isn’t silent in a house this old. It’s a living, breathing thing—wooden bones settling, water whispering through copper veins, distant wind lifting the gutters like a giant exhaling. Tonight, the quiet feels especially full-bodied, swollen with secrets too heavy to float.
I slip out of bed, still wearing Jayson’s black T-shirt, hem brushing the tops of my thighs. My legs wobble—equal parts afterglow and exhaustion—but a prickle at the base of my skull drags me forward. Down the hallway, the study door hangs half-open, light knifing across the Persian runner.
Jayson’s voice slices through the hush, low and venomous.
“I don’t give a damn if he’s bleeding out in the street. Nobody gets five minutes with her. You hear me, Lucky? Not the Cavalhos, not Maddox— no one .”
The name detonates in my chest. Maddox.
My fingers curl around the cool plaster of the wall as the room tilts, reorienting around that single, terrible orbit. I inch closer, pulse thrumming in my ears.
“Yeah,” he snarls, “tell your shiny-shoed friend to crawl back into his shadow. If he wants her, he’ll have to dig through me—bury me—then keep digging.”
A scrape of glass, the thunk of crystal on wood. He’s pacing now; I can imagine the hard lines of his shoulders, muscles bunching beneath tattooed skin. The same arms that held me safe less than two hours ago are coiled, ready to maim.
The world tilts.
Not like a dizzy spell or a stumble—but like the axis of my life just jerked sideways and left me dangling. Gravity goes soft. Air thins. My ears fill with static, except for him—his voice in the room, deep and low and quiet enough to feel like a betrayal.
“No, I stand my ground…”
Each word slices through the silence like a whisper.
“I know you will…”
My throat constricts. I want to move. I want to run. But my feet feel nailed to the floor, the plush rug beneath me suddenly suffocating instead of soft. I can’t stop listening. Can’t look away from the fracture forming right down the center of what I thought was safety.
“Make him forget her name…”
That one rips straight through my chest.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, like that will stop the scream that wants out. Or the sob. Maybe I’m not sure which one I’m holding in anymore.
There’s a pause. A breath. Rough. Like he’s angry. Or maybe afraid.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s not going anywhere.”
The call ends.
And the silence that follows isn’t peaceful—it’s crushing. It’s the kind of silence that feels personal. Like an accusation. Like the walls themselves know I’m standing here, too close to the fire, too far gone to save .
My stomach lurches, twisting in a way that has nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with dread. My body doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s light. Detached. I’m floating backward without meaning to, like my soul is backing away before I do something irreversible.
The hallway stretches out in front of me like some kind of cruel metaphor. Long. Elegant. Endless. The kind of hallway built for women who belong here—not fugitives running from the past and the secrets that come with it.
He doesn’t need this. Me. He doesn’t need the mess that follows me, the ghosts, the threats. The blood. Walking away would be the smart thing. The kind thing. The right thing.
But the thought of leaving him? It cuts deep.
And the cut is not quick and clean. No—it’s worse.
It’s a blade that’s been soaking in ice water, pressing slow and merciless beneath my ribs.
It’s pain with clarity. A truth I don’t want to swallow: I’m bringing chaos to his door.
I’m the storm. And he’s already weathered enough.
I duck into the nearest guest room and shut the door behind me like it’s going to hold the feelings out. It doesn’t. They follow me in, sticky and relentless.
I sit on the edge of the bed, fists balled in the soft sheets, trying to remember how to breathe like a person not about to shatter.
I replay the conversation over and over like it’s a puzzle I can solve if I just find the right corner piece. But all I keep coming back to is the way he said those words—She’s not going anywhere.
Was that a promise?
And why—why, when I’ve survived things that should’ve killed me—does this ache worse than all of them?
Why does the idea of leaving him hurt more than anything anyone’s ever done to me?
Why do his words—vague, measured, guarded—feel like claws tearing through the fragile thing I didn’t even know I’d started to build?
Something that looked a little too much like hope.
The pages blur.
I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the words I just wrote—names, colors, phrases that loop in my head like a song I can’t turn off. Each one bites, then slips away again before I can catch it. It’s like trying to hold water with open hands.
Blue door.
Red couch.
Riley.
“She’s a problem.”
Maddox.
That one. That one doesn’t blur. That one burns.
The pen trembles between my fingers, even though I’m not writing anymore. My journal is open in my lap, the ink still wet from where I pressed too hard. I keep thinking if I just look at the words long enough, they’ll make sense. They’ll slot in. But all I get are flashes. Sounds. Smells. Panic.
I know that name—Maddox—but I don’t know how. I don’t have a face. No context. Just that sick, oily sensation that slithers through my gut when I whisper it out loud.
Maddox.
It feels like saying the name of something that used to own me.
A monster I don’t remember, but my bones haven’t forgotten.
I wrap my arms tighter around my knees, the journal pressed to my chest like a shield. My throat aches from trying not to scream out loud .
And then I hear him.
“Keira…”
His voice makes my whole body go still.
God. He sounds like he’s been looking for me. Like he’s afraid. Like I’m something precious that slipped out of his hands.
He steps inside.
I don’t look up. I can’t. Because if I look at him, I’ll break. And if I break, I’m scared I won’t come back this time.
“I heard you,” I say, barely louder than a whisper. “Talking on the phone.”
Silence.
Then the soft sound of the door closing behind him. A breath caught between us.
“I wasn’t hiding anything from you,” he says.
I laugh. It’s not funny, but it bubbles up anyway—sharp and bitter. “Does that mean you’re going to tell me what that call was about?”
He’s moving toward me now. I can feel it in the air. The heat of him. The pull.
“You said I’m not going anywhere. Does that mean I’m still your prisoner?” I whisper. “Is that what I am to you?”
“No,” he says, rough, full of heat and pain. “Fuck, Keira, no.”
“Then why does it feel like I don’t belong here?” My fingers tighten around the journal. “Why does it feel like I’m a ghost haunting someone else’s life?”
He sinks to his knees in front of me. That breaks something inside me. Because Jayson doesn’t bow to anyone. But he does it now, and he brings forth his plea. Here he is, hands on my thighs, looking up at me like I’m the only goddamn truth he’s ever known.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he says, his voice low and fierce. “ You’re a war I’d fight every day. You’re the only thing that makes sense to me anymore.”
Tears sting my eyes, hot and fast.
“But I don’t even know who I am,” I whisper. “I don’t remember that day. I don’t know why I don’t remember Riley leaving. I know I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know who Maddox is or what he did to me—or what I might’ve done to survive it.”
I gasp. Because the truth of it hurts.
“What if I was awful?” I choke out. “What if I was cruel? What if I let something happen—someone die—because I was too afraid to stop it?”
He reaches up and cups my face, his thumb brushing away a tear even as more follow.
“You survived,” he says. “The best way you could. That’s not weakness. That’s goddamn power.”
“But the memories… they’re coming back in pieces and they don’t make sense. It’s like someone rewrote my life with red ink and every page is bloodstained.”
He rests his forehead against mine, his breath warm and steady.
“I’m here,” he murmurs. “You’re not alone in this. Whatever comes back—whatever you remember—we’ll face it together.”
A sob slips from me. I let it. I don’t have the strength to hold it in anymore.
“I’m scared, Jayson,” I whisper. “What if remembering breaks me?”
His grip tightens, grounding me.
“Then let it break you,” he says. “Let it fucking destroy you. Then let me help you pick up every fucking shattered piece and make you whole again.”
I close my eyes, his words wrapping around me like a promise .
Not a soft one. A violent one. Because that’s what this is—violent devotion. Messy love. A man who would burn down the world to keep me breathing, even if I’m too shattered to stand.
I don’t know who I was before. I don’t know what Maddox did. But I know this—right now, in this room, I’m not alone.
And maybe that’s enough… until the memories come back screaming.