Chapter 22 No More Quiet
TWENTY-TWO
NO MORE QUIET
DECLAN
The bag swung back toward me and I hit it again with bare knuckles.
The gym was empty. Two in the morning and I had the whole space to myself because sleep was impossible and sitting still felt like drowning.
My hands were already bleeding. I could feel the warm slickness on my knuckles and could see the red smears on the black leather every time the bag swung back into range.
I didn't care.
I hit it again with jab-cross-hook, the combination I'd drilled ten thousand times with muscle memory taking over while my brain spiraled.
I threw another combination. The bag barely moved under the assault. My knuckles split wider. Blood dripped onto the mat beneath my feet.
Rafael. The name kept looping in my head like a broken record. Rafael who had shown up at my gym years ago, who had invested in my business, who had fought beside me, who had been in my house, at my table, in my life for years.
Rafael who had tried to kill Troy.
Another combination came harder. My right hand screamed in protest. I could feel the wrongness in the knuckles, the deep ache of bone pushed past what it could take cleanly.
But the pain was distant and manageable, better than the helpless rage of knowing someone I trusted had been hunting the person I cared about most.
Better than the fury.
Because I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't hunt him down myself or confront him or fix this. Troy and Luka were handling it, planning operations I wasn't part of, making decisions I had no say in, moving in a world I didn't understand and couldn't enter.
And I was stuck here in my gym at two in the morning, bleeding onto a punching bag because it was the only thing I could control.
I hit the bag with everything I had and felt my knuckles tear open completely. Blood sprayed across the leather.
The betrayal burned. Rafael had sat across from me in diners and had trained beside me. He had asked about my life with what I thought was genuine interest. And the whole time he had been what? Gathering information? Looking for weaknesses? Waiting for the right moment to strike?
Had any of it been real? Or had I been a useful idiot from the very beginning?
I threw a spinning back elbow that made the bag swing wild on its chain. My elbow joint protested. I ignored it.
The worst part was knowing he had been right there in my space, close enough to hurt me or Troy at any time. And I had welcomed him in, had trusted him, had considered him a friend.
The gym door opened behind me. I heard it but didn't stop or turn around. I just kept hitting the bag because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant feeling how completely helpless I was in all of this.
Footsteps crossed the floor and moved toward me without rushing.
Troy.
I knew his walk and knew the particular rhythm of his boots on the gym floor.
He didn't say anything. He just moved behind the bag and caught it on the next swing, pressing both hands flat against the leather and anchoring it so I could keep hitting without the thing swinging wild.
The gesture broke through my rage for half a second and made my chest go tight with an emotion I didn't have room for right now.
Then I pushed it down and hit the bag again.
I let him hold it while I worked through combinations that were getting sloppier with exhaustion and pain.
My hands were a mess. I could feel the damage in my right knuckles, deep and structural, the kind of hurt that would make itself known tomorrow in ways I couldn't ignore.
Troy held the bag steady and watched me destroy myself without trying to stop it.
That lasted maybe another minute. Then he moved.
He came around the side of the bag while I was mid-combination and caught my wrist on the cross. His hand wrapped around my forearm firm enough to stop the momentum but gentle enough that it didn't make it worse.
“Declan.” His voice was quiet and steady, the tone he used when he was talking me down from bad decisions. “Stop.”
“I'm fine. Let go.”
“You're not fine. Look at your hands.”
I looked down. My knuckles were shredded with skin hanging in strips and blood everywhere. The right hand was already swelling in a way that meant real damage.
“I said I'm fine.” I tried to pull free. He held on.
“You're going to wreck your hand before the fight.”
“Maybe I want to wreck it.” The admission came out before I could stop it. “Maybe I deserve to.”
Troy's expression shifted. His grip on my wrist tightened fractionally. “That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard you say.”
“Is it?” I laughed, bitter and sharp. “Rafael was my friend, Troy. I brought him into this. I trusted him. I gave him access to everything and he used it to hunt you. So yeah, maybe I deserve to feel this.”
“Declan—”
“He could have killed you. Any of those attacks could have been the one that worked. You could be dead right now and it would be my fault for not seeing what he was.”
“That's not—”
“It is my fault.” I pulled my wrist free and stepped back, putting distance between us because being close made the guilt worse.
“You came back here and I should have protected you better. Should have seen the threat. Should have done something other than just let him walk around my life like he belonged there.”
Troy crossed his arms and watched me with those dark eyes that saw too much. “You couldn't have known.”
“I should have known. I pride myself on reading people and on understanding threats. And I missed the biggest one standing right in front of me for years.” I turned back to the bag and raised my ruined hands. “So don't tell me to stop. I need to—I need to—”
I didn't finish the sentence. I just went for the bag again.
Troy moved faster. He got behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides before I could land another punch.
I struggled, not hard but just enough to test his grip, to see if he'd let me go and finish what I'd started.
He didn't let go. He just held me there with his chest pressed against my back and his arms locked around me like a restraint that felt more like an anchor.
“Stop,” he said again, quieter this time. “Just stop, Declan. Please.”
The fight drained out of me all at once and left me standing there shaking while everything I'd been holding back came rushing up my throat in a wave I couldn't swallow down.
“I'm so fucking angry.” The words came out broken. “I'm angry at him, at Rafael, at the fact that he was right there and I didn't see it, at the fact that I let him in, at the fact that—”
I stopped and couldn't finish.
Troy's arms tightened around me. “At what?”
“At you.” The admission tasted like acid. “I'm angry at you too and I know that's not fair but I can't help it.”
He went very still behind me. “Okay.”
“None of this would have happened if you'd stayed gone.” The words were pouring out now and I couldn't stop them or control what came out or how it landed.
“If you'd just stayed away, Rafael wouldn't have had a reason to come after us.
My house wouldn't have bullet holes. My truck wouldn't be totaled.
I wouldn't be standing here with wrecked hands trying to figure out which parts of my life are real and which parts were just setup for his fucked up revenge plan.”
Troy didn't respond. He just kept holding me while I emptied out everything ugly I'd been carrying.
“You came back here and brought chaos with you. Brought danger and violence and men with guns who don't care who gets caught in the crossfire. And I let you stay because I'm an idiot who can't separate what I want from what's smart.”
My voice cracked. Tears were running down my face now and I couldn't stop them either.
“I should have made you leave. Should have told you to go the second I realized what I was starting to feel. Should have protected both of us by keeping distance instead of—” I broke off and choked on words that felt like confessing to crimes.
“Instead of this. Instead of letting it get complicated. Instead of falling for you when I know better.”
Troy's grip loosened slightly. His breath was warm against the back of my neck. “You done?”
“I don't know.” The tears were coming faster now. “Maybe. I don't fucking know anymore.”
“Okay.” His voice was steady and calm, like he was absorbing everything I'd thrown at him without throwing any of it back. “Then I'm going to ask you something and I need you to answer honestly.”
I nodded and couldn't speak.
“Do you want me to leave?” Troy asked. “Do you want me to pack my shit and go back to London and end this before it gets any messier?”
The question cut through everything else and made the world narrow down to just that single choice. Distance or closeness. Safety or risk. Protecting myself or choosing him.
I turned in his arms and faced him. I let him see my face covered in tears and sweat and blood that had transferred from my hands to his shirt.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” My voice came out rough and wrecked. “Are you actually asking me that?”
Troy's expression didn't change. “I'm asking.”
“No.” The word came out fierce and absolute.
“No, I don't want you to leave. That's the last thing I want.
That's the whole problem, Troy. I don't want you gone even though having you here scares the shit out of me, even though everything about this is complicated and dangerous and probably going to end badly.”
I grabbed his face and held him there while more tears ran down my cheeks and my split knuckles left blood on his jaw.
“I'm overwhelmed,” I said. “I'm fucking drowning in how much has changed and how fast and I don't know how to carry all of it at once. But losing you?” I shook my head. “That would destroy me worse than any of this. So no. Don't leave. Don't even think about leaving.”
Troy searched my face, looking for lies or doubts or anything that would give him permission to make the decision for me.