Chapter 51 Chris
Chris
The Pacific is trying to tear itself apart beyond the windows.
I watch it from the kitchen. Gray sky, gray water, whitecaps rolling in and thundering against the beach.
The wind keeps throwing itself against the glass like it’s personally offended by the architecture.
Somewhere out there, past the cliff edge, the ocean is doing what oceans do in storms: reminding everything smaller that it doesn’t give a shit about their problems.
Fair enough. Neither do I, right now.
The safe house is one of those sleek modern boxes that looks like it was designed by someone who’s never had to worry about defensible positions.
All glass and clean angles, exposed sight lines everywhere.
A sniper’s wet dream. But it’s Agency property, which hopefully means the glass is bulletproof.
At least the security system is better than anything I could rig myself, so I’m trying not to let the tactical assessment ruin what’s supposed to be safety.
My face hurts. My knuckles are still scabbed from wherever I was for those four days I don’t want to remember, and the bruise around my eye is a deep purple that’s gone almost black at the edges. I look like what I am: a man who got the shit kicked out of him and hasn’t had time to recover.
Wyatt’s at the counter, slicing vegetables. The knife moves steady. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Peppers into strips. Onions into crescents. He glances up when I come in, and his expression eases. Not all the way, but enough.
We’re not awkward. Hard to be, after what we just shared.
Both of us inside her at the same time, her body stretched around us, the three of us so tangled together I couldn’t tell where I ended and they began.
Maybe the most intimate thing I’ve ever done.
Better than I imagined, and I’d imagined it plenty.
Nina’s perched on a barstool across the island, legs tucked under her, humming something off-key as she flips through a magazine she found somewhere.
Coffee in hand. She looks drunk on it. Sated and loose and completely unbothered by the fact that she just took both of us at once. I could watch her like this for hours.
But there’s still something between Wyatt and me that needs saying. Something the sex didn’t cover.
His knife pauses mid-stroke. He doesn’t look up, but I can tell he’s feeling it too.
I move close enough that he has to acknowledge me and lean against the counter.
“Hey.”
He sets the knife down. Meets my eyes.
“We good?” I ask.
He exhales. “Better than I thought I’d be.” His gaze flicks to the bruise around my eye, then back. “You?”
“Still figuring that out.” Honest. More than I’d usually give anyone. “But I want to be.”
I reach out, grip the back of his neck, and hold his gaze for a beat. My eyes drift down to the fading bruises still adorning his throat, my thumb brushing lightly over one of them. He swallows and moves closer, his hand coming up to my wrist and holding on.
We stay like that for a moment. Not saying anything. There isn’t much more to say than what we already said earlier. From here on out, what we both need is action more than words. Touch more than talk. Proof that we’re here. That we’re staying, that when I said I loved him, I meant it.
He nods, once. Pulls back. His eyes are wet but he doesn’t wipe them away.
I glance at Nina, still flipping through her magazine, but a secret smile curves her lips.
“I know you want more than what I can give you right now,” I say. “And I’m sorry I’m—” I almost say broken but that isn’t fair to myself. I’m not broken. I’m just... bent. “I still have some work to do to get there. But I’m trying.”
“Chris, after everything we helped Nina go through, do you think I don’t know what that looks like?” He shakes his head. “I’m not entitled to your body any more than we were entitled to hers, whether it’s for sex or reproduction or anything else. You’ll get there when you get there. I can wait.”
“Nina helps,” I say, and the admission surprises me even as it comes out.
“When she’s here—when I can see her, touch her—I don’t slip as easily.
She keeps me present somehow. I don’t know why.
” I take a breath. “I’m hoping, with time, you’ll be able to do the same thing for me.
I’m hoping we can figure this out together. ”
Behind me, Nina makes a soft sound. I don’t turn around, but I feel her presence like a warm spot at my back.
Wyatt’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is different. Lower. Almost reluctant.
“It was kind of hot.”
I go still. “What?”
“At first.” He’s not looking at me now, his gaze fixed somewhere around my collarbone.
“Before you—before it went wrong. I didn’t hate being choked.
Not when it was controlled. Not when it was intentional.
” He swallows. “But not if you’re going to lose yourself in it.
Not if I’m just a stand-in for whoever you’re really seeing. ”
His confession sparks a complicated tangle of feelings in my chest. Heat and shame wound together so tight I can’t tell them apart.
“Maybe we work up to that,” I say carefully. “When I’ve got my head on straight.”
His eyes come back to mine, and the corner of his mouth twitches.
“Deal,” he says.
The kitchen fills with the smell of browning chicken and sautéed peppers while Wyatt and I work side by side.
Nothing fancy. The kitchen’s stocked with basics, and neither of us has the bandwidth for anything complicated. Wyatt finishes the vegetables while I handle the stove, and we move around each other easier now. Closer to okay than we were two hours ago.
It reminds me of last week in Nina’s kitchen, before everything went sideways. The way Wyatt and I fell into a rhythm without discussing it. Him on prep, me on heat, both of us orbiting the same unspoken goal: feed her something real.
Left to her own devices, Nina would survive on Thai takeout and protein bars.
Even back when we were kids and she’d come over after school, I’d make grilled cheese for her and Callie while they sprawled across the living room with their homework.
She’d look at me like I’d performed some kind of miracle. You made this? From ingredients?
Wyatt passes me the cutting board without being asked, vegetables sliced thin the way I need them for the pan.
He’s watching the heat under my skillet, ready to adjust it if I get distracted.
We’ve never cooked together before last week, but somehow we already knew how to share a kitchen. How to share her.
Nina’s changed into an oversized sweater that swallows her frame and leggings that cling to curves I’m trying not to think about right now.
Her hair’s still damp from the shower, curling at the ends.
The apple scent of her body wash keeps wafting across the kitchen, making me want to vault across it to bury myself in her again.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Wyatt glances over at my face while I flip the chicken. “Please tell me the other guy looks worse.”
“Other guys,” I correct. “Plural. And yeah, they’re not pretty right now either.” I find myself smiling, which pulls at the bruise. “Lucia said I looked like I went ten rounds with a cement mixer. She wasn’t that far off.”
“What does that mean?”
“The main guy I fought. Serbian. Part of whatever crew is running ops for the people who want Vicente and Arturo dead.” I shrug. “His name was Betoni?. It basically means ‘son of concrete.’ Everyone called him Mje?alica.”
Nina looks up from her magazine. “Which means?”
“The Mixer.” I gesture at my face. “So technically, I literally went ten rounds with a cement mixer.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Wyatt makes a sound that’s almost a laugh—surprised, reluctant, like it escaped before he could catch it.
“That’s terrible,” Nina says, but she’s smiling.
“The joke or the fight?”
“Both.”
I let myself smile back. It hurts, but I don’t care.
We eat at the kitchen island, the three of us close enough to touch. The food is simple but good, and for a few minutes we’re just people having dinner together. Not operatives. Not assets. Not whatever mess of trauma and history we’ve become.
Just this.
Wyatt’s phone buzzes. He checks it, and his shoulders drop a fraction—relief.
“What?” I ask.
“Lucia. She got Nikita.” He sets the phone down. “She’s at their place next door. Apparently she’s already claimed Darius’s favorite chair.”
I snort. “Of course she has.”
The storm keeps throwing itself at the windows, and I keep not caring.
Wyatt’s phone chirps again—a different tone than the text. He silences it and starts to stand.
“I got it.” I push back from the island. “You did the last one.”
“You sure?”
“Two-hour intervals don’t care about my feelings.” I grab my jacket from the back of the chair. The rain’s going to be miserable, but the routine matters. Discipline matters.
The sweep takes eight minutes. Everything’s locked down, sensors green, no movement except the storm trying to rip the landscaping apart.
I pause at the back of the house, rain streaming down my face, and look up at the clerestory windows running along the rear roofline.
They’re the one design feature that’s been nagging at me since we arrived—high enough that you can’t see in from ground level, but from the roof they’d offer a clear sight line down into the main living area.
I flag it mentally, then dismiss it. The pitch of that roof in this weather would be suicide. No one’s climbing up there tonight.
I come back dripping and slightly less wound-up than when I left.