Chapter 48
Myles
I fucking hate how far away she is.
It’s not even that far—twenty feet down the hall, on the couch wrapped in a blanket—but it feels like a canyon.
My stitches came out yesterday. I’m ready for the headhunt. Hell, I was ready two weeks ago. But instead, we’re stuck here. Everyone’s too busy playing house to remember we’re still in the middle of a fucking war.
Every morning now, she’s out there, gardening with Zane like it’s her lifeline. At first, it made my skin crawl.
I know Phoenix hates it too. Watching her kneel in the dirt, so focused on green shoots pushing out of broken soil, unaware of her surroundings.
Until one morning I watched her, hair falling across her face, lost in her own little world, and I caught myself smiling.
Now I wake up early just to watch. Phoenix even removed the boards from one window so he could watch like a peeping tom.
Sometimes I sit with her out there while Zane cooks breakfast. Ivy rambles with little facts about gardening. I don’t give a fuck about plants, but the way her voice softens when she speaks… it does something to me. I could listen to her talk about anything.
She’s just come inside to eat, Zane is with her, perched at the edge of the couch like a guard dog.
He pulls the blanket higher when it slips down her shoulder.
Ivy tilts her head when he says something low, and I see it—that soft flicker in her eyes.
As if he’s gravity and she can’t help but lean toward him.
It makes my chest fucking burn.
“She’s safe, Myles,” Phoenix’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
I jerk, turning. Phoenix is leaning against the hallway wall like he’s been there the whole damn time. Arms folded, eyes steady, like a soldier at ease.
“You can breathe,” he adds.
“Don’t start that shit with me,” I mutter, grinding my jaw as I look back toward Ivy.
“I’m not starting anything,” he says, voice easy. “Just saying what I see.”
I swing back to him, jaw twitching. “And what’s that?”
Phoenix shrugs like the whole conversation means nothing. “I wasn’t comfortable at first either. But she doesn’t want to explore the town. She just wants to garden.”
“They’re still out there,” I bite out.
His eyes flicker — a flash of steel behind control. “I know. But it’s been two weeks. No one’s tried again. She’s not worth the blood to them.”
I want to believe that. God, I do. But the part of me that wakes up in a cold sweat when she’s not beside me? The part that watches every expression on her face like it’s gonna be the last. That part doesn’t know how to stop.
Phoenix pushes off the wall. “We’re thinking of leaving. Taking her somewhere safer.”
I scowl at him. “What? And leave a whole group like that alive to keep buying and breaking women?”
“We’ll come back once she’s settled,” he says, jaw tight. “But she needs somewhere secure. Remote. Somewhere she won’t be alone.”
It clicks. My breath snags. “The Ranch?”
Phoenix nods. The Ranch. Paradise tucked away in ruin. Ivy would love it.
“Is this why you’ve stalled the cult hunt?” I growl.
He doesn’t answer. Simply stares past me, down the hall to the couch. Won’t meet my eyes.
“You’ve already started working on the truck, haven’t you?” My voice rises, bitter. “Didn’t even tell me. Just going ahead without me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Feels like it,” I scoff.
He sighs, running a hand over the back of his neck. “We weren’t hiding it. Just wanted to be ready. Trying to figure out if it’s the right call.”
My jaw flexes so tight my teeth ache. “And Ivy? When were you planning on telling her?”
“Soon.”
“That’s it? Just soon?!” My voice rises. Glancing back to Ivy, I find Zane looking up at us. The need to tear him away from her and lock her in my room bubbles up like boiling water about to spill over.
Phoenix lowers his voice. “We want her with us… obviously. We’re doing it for her.” He shrugs. “But she needs to make the decision herself. To choose.”
I shake my head at him like he’s lost his mind.
For a second I think I misheard. Then my stomach drops.
“She doesn’t need to choose! What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap, voice cracking. “She’s ours. We protect her. We’ve done everything—”
“I know,” Phoenix cuts in, growling low. “But we did it because we care about her. That doesn’t give us ownership. If we care about her, we let her decide.”
The words sounds foreign coming out of his mouth. And he seems to be surprised it even slipped out so easily. But he’s right, we care about her… in our own damaged ways.
Still, the idea makes my skin crawl. “That’s insane. What if she says no? What if she wants to find her friend instead?”
Phoenix’s face doesn’t shift. “Then we stay and help Ivy find her. If we mean what we say about caring about her… we have to mean all of it. Even the part where she doesn’t choose us back.”
It’s a kick to the ribs. My fists clench until my knuckles crack. I want to argue. We know what’s best for her. She doesn’t need to choose. That she wants to be with me. With us.
But the truth is… I don’t know. We’ve never actually said the words.
“She was a prisoner before we met her, Myles,” Phoenix says, softer now. “She never tried to run from us but that doesn’t mean she chose to be here. She needs to know she can leave.”
Silence chews at me. Because part of me knows he’s right. And the other part — the broken, terrified part — is screaming.
A scrape pulls my gaze. Zane. He’s looking up at us, hands shoved in his pockets as he straightens and walks toward us. His broad shoulders shroud the hallway in shadow as he blocks the doorway and my view of Ivy.
“Myles…” he starts, voice low and steady, “we can’t risk becoming the same as the men we hate. She has to choose us, or it doesn’t mean anything.” His eyes flick to Ivy, then back to me. “I don’t like it either. But the alternative?” He shakes his head once. “Not happening.”
My chest twists. They’re both against me.
“You’re out of your fucking minds. She’s ours. She doesn’t need to choose!” I shout.
Ivy’s gentle voice cuts the air. “What do you mean choose?”
I freeze, heart pounding.
Zane steps aside revealing Ivy, standing in the doorway, shoulders pulled in as she rubs her arm nervously. Eyes wide, caught between worry and curiosity.
My stomach drops. Fuck.
Phoenix doesn’t say a word. Zane keeps his eyes on the floor. It’s all on me. Fury slams into me. Not at her—for overhearing—but at him. Phoenix. For saying it out loud. For dragging me into this now, raw, bleeding, unprepared.
“You weren’t supposed to—” My throat locks up. I swing my glare back to Phoenix, but Ivy steps forward.
“What are you talking about?” she asks again, more urgent this time. There’s a fear creeping into her doe-like eyes that I’ve grown to hate.
It’s cracking my chest open.
Any words I can think of catch in my throat like shards of glass. I can’t look at her. Not when every part of me is screaming to just grab her and hold on.
But then I do, my eyes scanning her face. The soft crease in her brow, eyes flicking back and forth between us.
Zane stays annoyingly calm. “We’ve been talking about leaving. Going somewhere safer.”
Her breath hitches. “Leaving?”
“There’s a ranch,” Phoenix adds. “My family’s place. Remote. Secure. Food. Water. A real home. We want to go there.”
Her brows pinch. And I see it—the shock, the hope, then hesitation. That hesitancy guts me.
“But it’s your choice if you want to come,” Zane offers.
Her chin dimples as her bottom lip trembles. “My choice? What do you mean ‘my choice’? You said I was yours! I thought you wanted me!” Her voice rises to a trembling shrill.
Something snaps in me. “No. No, it’s not your choice! You’re staying with us. We’re keeping you safe. You don’t need to—”
“Myles,” Phoenix warns, low.
But I can’t stop. Words pour out, ragged and ugly. “We’re not asking you to choose! You’re staying with us. That’s the end of it.”
Ivy steps back, startled, tears sliding down her cheeks.
My lungs squeeze tight. It feels like the foster system all over again. Bags packed overnight, tearing me away from homes. No one ever wanting me. Always waiting for the axe to fall.
I don’t want Ivy to feel that. I don’t want to feel that.
Now Phoenix wants to hand her the blade to cut us both.
She turns to me, voice breaking. “Myles… don’t let them do this,” she pleads. “Please. I’ll let you cut your name into me.”
“What? No, Ivy—” I choke. How could she say that?
“Do it. I won’t fight you,” Ivy implores. “Or I’ll do it. I’ll prove myself. I’m yours. You said I’m yours. You can’t take that back! You can’t leave me! Why are you guys doing this?”
Her question guts me.
Because I don’t want to do this.
But she might have a better option than us. And I know she deserves better.
I look at her, jaw aching from clenching too hard.
“You don’t need to prove yourself to us.
We’re not leaving you, but you have to know…
you can leave. And if you do, I—” The words scrape raw, like hauling barbed wire from my chest. I drag a hand over my face, furious at myself for unravelling in front of her again. “I can’t take it if you walk away.”
I stop myself before I spit it all out. The nights locked in unfamiliar rooms, the social workers, the endless rejections.
Nobody ever chose me. Not once.
Phoenix’s voice cuts through. Steady. Firm. “That’s why she has to choose, Myles. Otherwise, we’re just making her a prisoner again.”
My fists curl tight, nails biting into my palms. “She’s not a prisoner,” I bite out.
“Then let her prove it.”
The hallway goes silent. Ivy’s eyes flick between us, the same heartbreak that I feel, pouring from them in rivulets. She looks at me the longest. My chest feels like it’s collapsing.
I’m cornered by them all. Trapped in the hallway.
The wind whistles around the building, floorboards creaking under her shifting weight. My fists twitch uselessly at my sides.
I want to grab her. Beg her. Please don’t leave me!
Finally, she moves, closing the distance with quiet, cautious steps, until she’s right in front of me.
My lungs seize, terrified of what she’ll say.
Her hands ball my shirt as she looks up at me through her wet eyelashes. “Please. I want to come. Let me come. Wherever you go.”
The pressure in my chest shatters. Relief crashes through me so hard my throat closes. I blink hard, vision stinging, nose burning, and wrap my arms around the little woman that could crush me with one word.
“Yeah?” My voice cracks like I’m thirteen again.
She nods, smiling through tears as she presses her body tighter against mine. “Yes! There isn’t anywhere I’d rather be than with you.” Her eyes flick to Phoenix, then Zane. “All of you.”
Behind me, Zane exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours. Phoenix finally moves, shifting against the wall, shoulders lowering.
She chose us.
She chose me.
And for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m waiting to be abandoned.
It feels like we’re finally moving toward something that isn’t only survival.
Something that might actually be living.