Chapter 28
Gideon
I woke before dawn with Belle curled against me.
Her head rested on my chest, rising and falling with each breath I took.
Her hand lay splayed over my ribs—light enough that I barely felt the pressure, heavy enough that I knew instantly if she moved.
Her breath warmed my skin in steady, even intervals.
Peaceful. Unguarded. Trusting in a way that made my throat tight.
My broken fingers throbbed—a deep, pulsing ache that radiated up my forearm and settled into my bones. The swelling had worsened overnight. Purple bruises bloomed across my knuckles like dark flowers, and the unnatural angles of two fingers reminded me exactly what I'd sacrificed.
I didn't care.
Not when she was here. Not when the alternative had been losing her to men who would've destroyed something precious and irreplaceable.
I pulled her closer without thinking. Without permission. Just instinct guiding my good hand to curve around her waist, to gather her more firmly against my side, to eliminate the last few inches of space between us.
Because she fit. Her body molded to mine like we'd been designed for this—for quiet mornings and shared warmth and the kind of intimacy I'd never wanted before her.
Because she was soft where I was hard, gentle where I was brutal, whole where I'd been broken so long I'd forgotten what healing felt like.
Because the aftermath of violence always left my chest hollow—scraped raw and echoing with adrenaline that had nowhere left to go—and she filled it without trying. Without knowing. Without asking for permission or offering explanations.
She just filled the emptiness by existing beside me.
I drifted in and out of sleep, holding her like she was the only thing anchoring me to the earth.
Like without her weight pressing me down into the mattress, I'd float away into the same darkness that had swallowed every other good thing I'd ever touched.
My breathing synced to hers. My heartbeat slowed.
The rage that normally hummed beneath my skin went quiet.
For the first time in my life, I felt something I didn't recognize at first.
Peace.
Safety.
The certainty that nothing bad could touch me here.
Then her phone rang.
Shrill. Insistent. Shattering the fragile quiet like glass exploding across tile.
Belle jerked awake with a gasp.
And everything I'd been holding onto slipped through my broken fingers.
Belle fumbled for her phone on the nightstand, nearly knocking over the lamp. Her movements were jerky, panicked, still half-caught in sleep.
I sat up slowly, every muscle going tense. Something in the quality of her breathing shifted—from sleep-soft to razor-sharp awareness that set off alarms in my chest. My broken hand throbbed with the sudden movement, but I barely registered it.
She swiped the screen with shaking fingers.
"Yes? This is Belle Reiss…"
The hospital. It had to be.
The thought landed like concrete in my gut.
I watched her face drain of color. Watched her lips part on a breath that wouldn't come. Watched her entire body go rigid like she'd been struck.
"What do you mean he took a turn?"
Her voice pitched higher, desperate, breaking on the edges.
"Is he—"
She stopped. Swallowed. Tried again.
"No. No, I'll be there."
The last word cracked down the middle.
She hung up.
Her hands shook so violently the phone nearly slipped from her grip. Her eyes swam with tears she refused to let fall—still fighting, still trying to hold herself together when everything inside her was clearly shattering.
I felt something inside me twist.
Tight.
Cold.
Violent.
Her father was dying.
And she was trapped here with me.
Because of me.
Because I'd forced her into this house, this bed, this contract that bound her to my side while the man who raised her slipped away in a hospital room she couldn't reach without my permission.
Because I'd taken everything from her—her freedom, her choices, her ability to be where she needed to be when it mattered most.
The realization cut deeper than any broken bone.
I'd saved her from loan sharks last night. I'd broken my hand defending her. I'd pulled her close and held her while she slept and told myself that meant something. That protection equaled care. That possession could be mistaken for love.
But right now?
Right now I was the cage keeping her from the only family she had left.
And the look on her face—
That look destroyed me.
I sat there on the edge of the bed, breath shuddering through my ribs like something was breaking loose inside me.
Belle stared at me with those wide, shocked eyes—brown and gold and drowning in confusion. In hope she shouldn't feel. In trust I didn't deserve.
I let the silence stretch. Let it pull taut between us like wire about to snap. Then I forced the words out. Quiet. Rough. Each syllable scraping my throat raw.
"You should go to him."
Her head snapped up so fast I heard her neck crack. "W-what?"
I swallowed hard against the tightness crushing my windpipe. Against every instinct screaming at me to take it back. To pull her into my lap and never let go. To lock the doors and throw away the keys and keep her here where I could protect her from everything except myself.
"I'll fulfill my end of the deal, Belle." The words tasted like blood. "Your father will be taken care of."
Relief flooded her face—stark and immediate and so beautiful it hurt to witness. Then shock. Then fear flickering underneath like a candle flame in the wind. Her lips parted on a breath that wouldn't come.
"Gideon… what are you saying?"
I forced the next words out before I could stop them. Before survival instinct could claw them back down my throat. "Go. Be with him."
Her eyes filled. Not with anger. Not with triumph. With something worse. Something that looked like grief.
She whispered, "I'll come back."
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. My broken hand throbbed in time with my pulse, sending sharp jolts of pain up my arm that I barely registered. I shook my head once. Slow. Final. Irrevocable.
"No."
Belle flinched like I'd struck her. Like I'd wrapped my good hand around her throat and squeezed.
"Don't come back," I said quietly, staring at the wall because I couldn't look at her face anymore. Couldn't watch her break and know I was the one holding the hammer. "Stay away from me."
Her breath hitched—small and wounded and so fragile it carved something out of my chest. "Gideon—"
I looked away. Turned my head toward the window where dawn light filtered through expensive blinds I'd bought to make this place feel less empty.
Because if I looked at her another second, I'd take it all back.
I'd command her to stay. I'd drag her back to bed and hold her until neither of us could breathe without the other.
And she'd die here.
Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week.
But eventually, being near me would destroy her the way it destroyed everything I touched.
"If you stay…" I swallowed against razor blades. "You'll get hurt. And I can't—I won't let that happen."
The mattress shifted as she stood. I felt the loss of her weight like losing a limb.
Heard fabric rustle as she grabbed clothes from the chair.
Sensed her hovering there—torn between running and staying—and I prayed to a God I didn't believe in that she'd choose herself this time.
Choose freedom. Choose life. Choose anything except me.
"I don't want to leave like this."
Her voice cracked down the middle.
I closed my eyes. Pressed my good hand against my thigh hard enough that pain bloomed beneath my palm—something sharp and grounding that kept me from reaching for her.
"There's no other way."
Silence stretched.
Endless.
Suffocating.
Then footsteps. Slow. Reluctant. Moving toward the door that would take her away from me forever.
She paused at the threshold. "Gideon?"
I couldn't answer. Didn't trust my voice. Didn't trust anything except the certainty that if I spoke, I'd beg her to stay.
The door clicked shut.
Soft.
Final.
Devastating.
And I finally breathed—
—except the sound came out closer to a sob than air.
The moment her footsteps faded down the stairs, something inside me detonated.
I stood. Chest heaving. Broken hand screaming. Vision narrowing to a pinpoint of pure, crystallized rage that had nowhere to go except outward.
I grabbed the kitchen chair—solid oak, expensive, meaningless—and hurled it across the room.
It exploded against the wall. Wood splintered. The backrest shattered into jagged pieces that scattered across tile like shrapnel. The sound was catastrophic. Final. Exactly what the howling emptiness in my chest demanded.
Not enough.
Never enough.
I crossed to the dining table in three strides. Wrapped my good hand around the edge. The broken fingers dangled useless, screaming protest I didn't register. Didn't care about. Pain was nothing compared to the hole tearing through my ribs.
I flipped the table.
The crash was immense—plates shattering, cutlery clattering, glass exploding in crystalline fragments that caught the morning light and turned it vicious.
Coffee mugs I'd bought for mornings we'd never share.
Wine glasses for dinners that would never happen.
All of it destroyed in one violent motion that still wasn't violent enough.
My broken hand throbbed—each heartbeat sending fresh agony radiating up my arm. Purple swelling pulsed beneath skin stretched too tight. The unnatural angles of my fingers screamed warnings my brain refused to process.
I punched the wall with the broken hand because some part of me needed the pain to match what was happening inside. Needed something physical and real and undeniable to anchor the formless destruction shredding through my chest.