Chapter 28
Knox
I have to leave the pop-up clinic before I put my hands on Alice Brighton. That's the only reason I'm not standing guard while Sloane finishes her shift. The only reason I'm home, pacing the living room, instead of making sure no one else gets close enough to speak her maiden name.
Because if I'd stayed one more minute, watched that predator circle my wife, heard one more word in that soft, poisonous voice, I would've dragged her out of that tent by her perfectly styled hair and demanded answers she'd never give. And Sloane would've watched me do it. So I left.
Told Sloane I needed to cool off. Rode hard through back roads until my hands stopped shaking on the handlebars. Gave her space to finish, to process, to choose whether she wants to come home to me or run again.
The truck's not in the driveway. She's not home. I drag both hands through my hair and turn from the window. The living room feels wrong without her. Too big. Too quiet. The lamp throws weak light across the couch, barely enough to push back the shadows gathering in the hallway.
I haven't changed the bulb the way she asked. Twice. The small failures feel bigger tonight.
I check my phone. 11:45 p.m. No messages. She should've been home hours ago. The clinic could still be getting walk-ins from the blast. Or she's at the clubhouse, hovering over patients who don't need her anymore because standing still is worse. Either way, she's not here.
My jaw aches. I force it to unclench and head down the hallway.
Our bedroom door is open. Bed still made from this morning, corners squared tight, pillows stacked, blanket pulled smooth the way the Corps drilled into me.
I'd done it so I wouldn't have to look at the shape of a night she didn't spend here.
Now it just looks empty. The guest room door is closed, and there's no light underneath.
Twice in the last week, she's slept somewhere I wasn't. The first was girls' night at the clubhouse.
Ruby dragged everyone into chaos, Sloane laughed surrounded by women who'd become her family.
I didn't mind that one. She needed it. The second was last night.
After the fight. She'd grabbed a pillow and the spare blanket, and the guest room door had closed behind her, soft and final. That one I minded.
I force myself to breathe. Measured and controlled. The way they taught us when panic tried to crawl up your throat and choke you. In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth. It doesn't help.
I drop into the leather chair in the corner. My gaze catches on the frames along the wall. They're filled with pictures Sloane insisted we put up. Everyone smiling, caught in moments that felt easy when they happened.
There's one of us. Someone at the clubhouse yelled our names. Sloane turned her face up to me mid-eye roll, and I was already looking down. The camera caught the exact second we both forgot we were supposed to be posing. Her mouth tipped up at the corner. My hand slid a little lower on her hip.
Electricity trapped on glossy paper. She framed it. Put it in our hallway as if it belongs there.
Alice Brighton's voice threads through the silence. Tell Harrison I'll be in touch.
I replay the moment. Sloane in full armor. Hair pulled back, scrub top stained, gloves on. Professional. Detached. Just enough warmth to keep people from panicking. In control.
Until the click of expensive heels cut through the noise. Alice had walked in as though she owned the oxygen. Found Sloane in about three seconds. I couldn't hear what she said at first. Just saw Sloane's spine go rigid, her hand freeze mid-movement.
Then the tone. Familiar. Easy. Alice talked to Sloane the way you talk to someone you've worked with. Warm. Proprietary. Catching up with an old employee she'd been fond of.
You still check pulses the same way. Two fingers, not three. Sloane went white so fast I thought she might pass out. Her clipboard slipped. Alice smiled. Tell Harrison I'll be in touch.
I kept my hands on Sloane instead of on Alice. Stepped between them. Blocked Alice's line of sight. You're done here. Leave.
Alice had looked at me the way she'd look at furniture. Turned on her heel. Her exit was brisk, heels clicking faster. The tent swallowed her up.
Sloane stayed silent the whole time. When I touched her shoulder. When I said I needed to leave before I did something stupid. She'd just nodded, hollow-eyed, and turned back to the next patient as if nothing had happened.
Leaning back, I close my eyes. The stove clock ticks in the kitchen. The heater kicks on. Somewhere outside, tires hiss on damp asphalt. In here there's just silence and questions.
I know who Alice Brighton is. Candace's mother. The woman who ran the auctions. The one Malachi's been building a case against for months. I know what Sloane's father did. She told me in that car two years ago, shaking so hard the door rattled. He sold girls. He was going to sell her. She ran.
What I don't know is why Alice Brighton walked into that clinic and talked to my wife as though they used to work together.
Alice talked to Sloane the way a boss talks to a favorite employee.
Warm. Proprietary. You still check pulses the same way.
That's something you say to someone who was in the room with you.
An hour crawls by. Then another. By the time a car door sounds outside, every muscle in my body is locked tight. The lock turns. The front door angles open. She steps inside and stops dead. We stare at each other across the room.
I see bloodless crescents under her eyes, bruises that haven't fully bloomed.
Clean scrubs, she must've changed before she left, but a stiffness to the way she holds herself that screams exhaustion.
Crooked braid. A smear of someone else's pen ink along her hand.
One foot angled toward the door she just came through.
"You're… still up," she says, voice so thin it barely carries.
I push to my feet. "Couldn't sleep." A couple of steps toward her. I force myself to stop.
"How long have you been home?"
"Couple hours."
Her gaze darts to the hallway and guest room door, then back. Guilt flickers before she smooths it. "I should've called."
"Yeah." Quieter than I mean to. "Would've been nice."
She flinches. I inhale and let it out. Getting loud only makes her smaller. I swallow it down.
"I wasn't sure you were safe," I admit. "After Alice. After the way you looked when she left. I thought…" I trail off, because finishing means admitting I thought she might not come back at all.
Her face crumbles for half a second before she pulls it back. "I live here," she says, but uncertain. As if she's reminding herself more than telling me.
"Yeah. You do."
Her fingers twist in her hem. "The clinic needed people. Walk-ins from the blast. Smoke inhalation, burns, panic attacks. I lost track of time."
I believe her. I can see the exhaustion shaking her edges.
"I thought you'd come home after Alice. I figured if you needed space, you'd take it here. With me."
Her shoulders curve inward. "I wasn't trying to stay away," she whispers. "I just… couldn't make myself walk back in and face you yet." Her eyes glisten with unshed tears. She's holding herself together with thread that's one tug from snapping.
I've seen men on battlefields with that same look. The quiet, shaking edge right before they break.
I step closer, voice low. "Sloane. You don't have to give me everything tonight." Her lips press together, trembling. "But I need to know why Alice Brighton talked to you the way she did."
She flinches.
"What way?"
"The way you talk to someone who worked for you."
The sound she makes is small and awful. "That's what's been eating you," she whispers.
"Yeah." My voice cracks. "Because I watched Candace's mother walk into that tent and greet my wife the way you'd greet an old colleague. And you looked back at her as if you'd been caught."
She slides down the wall until she's sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest. She's still here. Even this way. Still here.
I wish to drop beside her and pull her into my chest until she stops shaking. I don't. Not yet. I sit too, a few feet away, back to the opposite wall. Separate sides of something bigger than this room.
She buries her face in her arms. A ragged sound slips out. "You're going to leave," she whispers into her knees.
"No." Immediate. Fierce. "Don't decide that for me."
"You don't understand."
"Then help me." The words come out cracked, raw. "Help me understand."
She doesn't look up. Doesn't move. Sloane's curled around herself as though she's trying to disappear. I wait, even though every instinct screams to cross this space and make it easier. Finally, she takes a shaking breath.
"I told you what my father did," she says. "In the car. That night. I told you he sold girls. That he was going to sell me. That I ran."
"Yeah."
"I didn't tell you everything."
I stay where I am with my back against the wall. Hands on my knees.
"Before the auction," she whispers. "Before he tried to sell me. He'd already been using me."
My pulse kicks. "Using you how?"
Her hands curl into fists against her shins. When she speaks, her voice is so quiet I lean forward to hear it.
"I was in nursing school. Home on breaks.
He started bringing me into the private wing of the hospital he'd funded.
Girls would come through. Young. Scared.
He told me they were patients in a discreet care program.
Wealthy families who wanted privacy." She swallows.
"He had me do vitals. Check charts. Sign medical clearance forms."
The floor shifts under me.