Chapter 25 #2
Her face has gone white under the flush of heat. Her breathing is shallow now, anger and fear and the first real grip of her heat tangling together until I can hardly tell which one is hitting her harder. Probably none. Probably all three.
“Why?” she asks, and now her voice rises, shaking. “Why would you let me stay in your house?” She chokes on it, curls forward again, then drags herself back up with sheer rage. “God, I told you things. I trusted you.”
Every word strikes me in the chest.
I can barely breathe around her scent and her pain, and none of that matters next to the look on her face.
“You should be angry,” I say. “You should hate that we let you find it before we told you. You should be furious with us for the timing, for the silence, for all of it. But terrified?” I shake my head once. “No. Not of me or us.”
Her laugh is bitter. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“No,” I say. “But I can give you the truth you need to decide for yourself.”
She’s breathing hard. So am I.
“The photograph,” I say, “was taken the night we moved Rebecca Hana out.”
Adelaide freezes. Clio does too, so I keep going.
“She wasn’t our target but the reason we took the contract…
” My pulse pounds in my throat. “Her employer, a corrupt politician, wanted her gone quietly, said she’d stolen from him and insisted she was unstable.
The story smelled wrong from the second it touched us, so we researched deeper.
We found enough to know she was about to be buried for what she knew about his dealings. ”
Adelaide’s lips part. “What did she know?”
“That he was trafficking girls through shell businesses and private events.” The words come out flat because if I let myself feel them properly, I’ll tear the room apart.
“Rebecca found records. Names. Dates. Enough to get herself killed for knowing them. She tried to go to the police, but her boss already had people in the department being paid off, and one of them tipped him off before she could get protection.”
Clio gasps.
Adelaide just stares at me, eyes too wide, pillow crushed against her chest.
“Rebecca Hana was our last job,” I say. “Only it wasn’t really a job. Not the way the others were. The chief, leader of The Breakers gang, came to us directly. Said he needed one favor before we walked away from them for good.”
Her breathing stutters.
“Rebecca is his cousin. Her politician boss was a man tied too deep into the island to move against without starting a war if one his men were caught taking him out. The chief couldn’t protect her openly without lighting the whole place on fire and having it all come back to him and his men.
So he came to us. Off the books. No contract. No trace.”
Adelaide’s mouth parts.
“He wanted her out, still alive, and gone so completely that no one could tie it back to him.” My jaw tightens. “That meant we couldn’t openly rescue her. We had to make it look like a hit.”
The room goes very still.
“We wore the masks because, by then, the Gravesend Brothers had become a story people already believed. We needed witnesses to see exactly what they expected to see. Three masked men, a violent grab. Something that pointed the police and her boss toward mercenaries who worked on their own.” I lean forward.
“We staged her disappearance, planted enough evidence for law enforcement to write it up as a murder they’ll never solve.
We moved her out of the islands, and now she has a new name, new life, and no trail back. ”
Adelaide’s whole face lights up slightly. “She’s alive?” she asks.
“Yeah, and very happy. And because I’m breaking every agreement we made to keep that hidden, you and Clio need to take it to the grave with you. The chief doesn’t know where she ended up. None of The Breakers do. We tell no one, because the less anyone knows, the safer she stays.”
“Where is she now?” Adelaide whispers.
I glance once at Ace, and he’s already standing. Luca clears his throat, and when I stare his way, he nods.
“Whispering Grove,” I answer.
She freezes. “My—” Her voice catches hard. “My hometown?”
“Yes.”
Ace steps in closer. “She goes by Mia now, and I was coming back from checking on her when I met you in Seattle. I told you I was on a layover from New York because I didn’t want questions.”
Adelaide pinches her lips to the side. For a second, I think she’s going to stop breathing altogether. Then she glances up, eyes huge and wrecked and shining. “Can I ask my brother back in Whispering Grove to confirm that?”
All three of us go still.
“He’s a bounty hunter,” she says, words tumbling now, urgent and shaking. “He knows how to be discreet. I just… I need to know that she’s really there and that this is real.”
“Of course,” I reply immediately.
Clio is already pulling her phone out. “Let me call him. I know it’s late there, but he’ll answer.” Her mouth wobbles once. “Been ages since I bugged him, honestly.”
“Please,” Adelaide whispers.
Ace is already moving, thumbing through his phone. “I’ve got the address.” He crosses to Clio and lowers his voice, giving it to her piece by piece. Clio nods. “Got it. I’ll do it now.”
She squeezes Adelaide’s shoulder, then slips out of the room with the phone already to her ear, the door shutting softly behind her.
And then it’s just us. Adelaide on the bed, trying not to fall apart from her heat, from everything she just learned. Ace, Luca, and I stand there with every buried thing finally dragged into the light and nowhere left to hide.
Adelaide lifts her chin, though her whole body is shaking now, heat and heartbreak and exhaustion all tearing through her at once.
“No more keeping things from me. Not the small stuff, not the big stuff. If there’s another secret door in your house, I want to know which photograph opens it.
If there’s an alarm code, I want to know what it does.
If there’s a boat, I want its name, its history, and where you keep the key. I hate secrets. Clear?”
“Crystal,” Ace says.
“Completely,” Luca adds.
“Yes,” I say. “No secrets, we give you our word.”
She swallows, wipes roughly at her face, her pillow falling aside, then presses both hands to her stomach.
A soft, involuntary moan breaks out of her, and her scent rolls through the room all over again, sweeter now, sharper, hot enough to make my jaw lock.
My cock hardens just at the smell. Ace drags in a breath as if it hurts, while Luca braces one hand against the wall and bows his head for a second.
“And you should have told me,” she says, voice trembling. “Before I had to find out like that.”
“We fucked up,” I say immediately.
She stares at all three of us, tears bright in her eyes. “I get why you didn’t. I do. I understand it better now than I want to. The fear that someone hears the worst thing about you and walks, I get it.” Her mouth twists, and another tear slips free. “But it still hurt like hell.”
That burns me. Ace is already moving. Luca, too, approaching her.
All three of us go to our knees in front of her bed at the same time.
Her breath catches.
I hold her gaze. “Then hear this part clearly. We’re so sorry, Adelaide. Not in some quick, neat way that asks you to move on. I’m sorry in the way that keeps you awake. In the way that sits in your chest and doesn’t let you breathe right.”
Luca nods once, hard. “I’ll apologize for as long as you need me to. A week, a month, an eternity. However long it takes to make you believe I mean it.”
Ace bows his head slightly. “We should’ve trusted you with the truth sooner and let you decide with all the facts instead of half of them. That’s on us, and I’m going to spend every damn second making it up to you.”
I drag a breath into my lungs and hold her gaze.
“We can’t change what we were. I’m not going to stand here and dress it up into something cleaner just because I want this to hurt you less.
It happened. We did those things, and they belong to us.
” My voice roughens despite everything I do to keep it steady.
“But that isn’t who we are now, and never with you.
Ask me anything, Adelaide. Ask all of it.
The ugly parts, the pieces we left out, the things you think might break this wider open.
I’ll reveal it all to you.” I swallow once.
“And when I’m done, I just… I hope you can still see the men who are in front of you now and let that matter too. ”
Her face crumples, and the sight rips straight through me. “I do see you,” she whispers. “That’s the problem. I see you, I believe you, and I hate that it still hurts this much anyway.”
Ace nods. “You don’t have to process it all tonight. There’s no rush.”
She lets out a shaky breath, then presses both hands harder to her stomach as another wave rolls through her. Her whole body folds with it, a small, broken sound leaving her before she can stop it.
She takes a shaky breath, like she means to say more, but it catches on the way out. Her hands press harder to her stomach, her shoulders pulling tight. I watch the effort it takes for her to stay upright through whatever fresh wave just hit her, and it kills me to sit back.
Then she glances at us again, eyes wet, mouth trembling. “You have no idea how much it hurts to be away from you.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
She lets out a breath that almost turns into a laugh and doesn’t make it. “And I don’t even understand it. None of you have marked me, so it shouldn’t feel this intense.” Her hand presses harder against her stomach. “But the craving has been unbearable.”
The room tightens with the carnal hunger strangling my balls.
I rise first, slowly, then Ace and Luca with me, and we move onto the bed around her by instinct, by need. We come close but do not touch until she’s ready, so we leave the last inch to her.
“Thank you,” she says, and her voice is so wrecked it nearly breaks me.
“For telling me all of it. There is so much to unpack, and I’m still confused, not ready to fully forgive and accept your pasts…
” She closes her eyes for one second, opens them again.
“But in my heart, I don’t think you’re those men anymore. ”
Relief hits so hard it makes me dizzy.
“I do believe you,” she whispers. “And fully accepting it might just take some time.”
“Does that mean you’re not kicking us away?” Luca asks.
She laughs. “Nope.”
Luca leans in slightly, dark eyes fixed on her face. “That means everything.”
Ace’s hand hovers near her knee, not touching. “I can breathe again. If I lost you…”
I grin, holding her attention, when there’s a knock at the door.
It’s Adelaide who gets up and goes to open the door.
Clio steps inside, phone in hand. She does a sweep of the room, at the three of us gathered near the bed, and lifts her brows.
“Got hold of Chris,” he says. “And he’s going to do the world’s smallest spying job in the morning and report back.
He knows it’s got to be super discreet.” Her mouth pinches at the side.
“And I may have mentioned you met three Alphas.”
Adelaide exhales, and color rises to her cheeks. “Well, I’m sure he’ll have a billion questions. But in truth, I had mentioned it to him in passing.”
“So, how’s it going in here?” Clio asks, taking a wide glance of the room once more.
Adelaide stares back at us, and I’m watching every small change in her expression, every flicker of hesitation.
It says so much. Then she’s facing Clio once more.
“We spoke, and I believe what they told me. I get that they’re not the men they once were.
Not that it excuses their past, but right now, I do trust them. ”
Clio studies her. “Babe, are you sure?”
Adelaide presses a hand to her stomach, still wrapped in her robe. “There’s still so much I need to come to terms with, but deep down, I believe what we have is real.” Clio’s hand grips Adelaide’s.
Hearing her say those words touches me, reassures me that she hasn’t given up on us, which means the whole fucking world to me.
“So, you want me to stay?” Clio asks.
Adelaide’s shaking her head. “You can head home. I’m safe. I promise.”
“I mean, I can stay close, hang out in the reception area.”
Adelaide shakes her head. “I love you, and I think I’m okay. Go home and rest, but if anything happens, I’ll call you. I give you my word.”
Clio nods. “Okay, but if you change your mind, you call me. I don’t care what’s happening in here, who’s naked. I’ll break down that door.”
Luca snorts softly, while Ace drags a hand over his mouth as if he’s concealing a smile.
Then she glances at us three with that narrowing gaze that promises retribution if we hurt her friend. I grin and nod at accepting her threat.
Adelaide actually laughs, and the rest of us stay quiet because it’s not about us convincing her or forcing our thoughts on Clio. Adelaide knows we would never harm her, and I appreciate that more than she’ll ever know.
Clio gives her a bear hug, holding her for a long pause, then pulls back. “Okay, love you, babe. Don’t have too much fun.” Then she turns and leaves, pulling the door softly shut behind her. And just like that, the room belongs to us four again.
Adelaide turns to us with a sly grin. “Best friends, hey?”
I laugh. “It’s great she’s so protective of you.”
She strolls over to us by the bed and suddenly curls slightly forward with the force of her heat. Her scent floods the space between us, rich and desperate and impossible to ignore.
Adelaide glances up at us, tightness clinging to her expression, and says, almost angrily, “You need to stop making me feel this agony.”
And before any of us can answer, she reaches for me. Her hand fists in my shirt, then hauls me down, and her mouth clashes with mine, both of us back on the bed.
The kiss is hot and immediate and full of everything she hasn’t had words for.
Hurt. Need. Relief. The desperate edge of finally being done with distance.
I growl against her mouth, one hand planting beside her so I don’t crush her, the other finding her waist and holding there, trembling with the effort not to do too much too fast.
Her other hand reaches blindly, urgently, finding Ace, then Luca, dragging them closer too.
That’s the ending of the distance, and the beginning of everything else.
And in this pink room, under painted reef fish and soft light, with every lie finally stripped away, the four of us close the distance for good and let the rest of the world burn outside, for all we care.