Chapter 13 Parker
PARKER
The car disappears down the drive, its taillights bleeding into the horizon like the last traces of a wound closing, and with it goes the laughter, the rice, the champagne-soaked promises that I'll never have to witness them keep or break.
The ocean wind whips my hair across my face, carrying the ghost of Sienna's perfume — jasmine and joy and something I'll never quite be.
I stand at the edge of the hotel's circular drive, my wrap clutched around my shoulders like armor that's too thin, too late, while the world continues its relentless spin without asking permission.
It's over — the wedding that felt like a beautiful funeral for the girl I used to be, the one who belonged here before she learned what it cost.
Two days of my mother's surgical smiles cutting through conversations like scalpels, her voice dripping honey laced with arsenic while she asked about my "little job" and when I planned to "come home and settle down properly.
" Two days of my father's new wife trying to make small talk while everyone pretended not to notice the twenty-five-year age gap or the way she kept touching her stomach like she had news she wasn't ready to share.
Two days of dodging questions about why I'm twenty-eight and single, why I work for a "magazine" they'd be horrified to know the details of, why I can't just be normal, just be what they expected, just be less of a disappointment wrapped in designer silk.
And worse — two days of feeling them everywhere, even when they weren't in the room.
The thing is, I've always been attracted to them.
Even when I was seventeen and they were just my brother's annoying friends who wouldn't let me breathe, some part of me noticed the way Jace's jaw would clench when he was concentrating, how Cal's fingers moved across a keyboard like he was playing piano, how Silas's laugh could fill a room and make everyone else want to be in on the joke.
They were beautiful then in that dangerous way that boys become when they're turning into men — all sharp edges and barely controlled energy.
Now they're devastating.
But I'd buried that attraction under layers of resentment, told myself that every party where Jace carried me out was about control, not care.
That every boy Cal scared away was about maintaining their authority, not protecting something precious.
That every time Silas called me 'firefly' it was condescension, not affection.
I'd rewritten history to make them the villains because it was easier than admitting I'd wanted them to see me as more than Charlie's little sister, easier than acknowledging that maybe they already did.
You wouldn't have to choose. Not with us. Not if it's you.
The words have been circling my brain like vultures for forty-eight hours, and now, standing here in the salt-thick air, I finally let myself examine what they're feeding on — the corpse of my carefully constructed narrative where I was the victim, and they were just another set of men trying to control me.
But what if I was wrong? What if every intervention, every interference, every moment of overwhelming protection was their broken way of saying what they couldn't?
God, I've been so stupid. Or maybe just so scared.
The elevator doors whisper open, and my reflection in the polished brass looks like a ghost wearing my face — shadows under my eyes that concealer couldn't quite hide, lipstick worn away except at the edges, hair escaping the elaborate style that took two hours to create and two minutes to start destroying.
I press the button for my floor and lean against the cool metal wall, letting my eyes close as the gentle hum fills the silence.
Then it stops.
The sound dies like something being strangled, and my eyes snap open. The lights flicker once, twice, then steady into something dimmer. My floor button goes dark.
"No, no, no..." I press it again, but nothing responds. The elevator isn't moving. The air suddenly feels thinner, the walls closer. My chest tightens as I slam my palm against the button panel. "Come on!"
The penthouse button suddenly glows red like a fresh wound.
The elevator lurches upward without warning, and I stumble, my hand shooting out to grip the rail.
This hotel is still under renovation — Cal mentioned something about electrical work being behind schedule.
This could be a malfunction, a short circuit, anything.
The space feels smaller with each floor we pass, the air growing thicker, harder to breathe.
My heart hammers against my ribs as the numbers climb past my floor, past safety, past any illusion of control I thought I had.
I've never been good with enclosed spaces. Not since I was eight and Charlie locked me in the pool house storage room as a joke and forgot about me for three hours. The walls feel like they're closing in, the brass reflecting my panic back at me from every angle.
When the doors finally slide open, I practically throw myself out, gasping for air that doesn't taste like metal and fear. It takes me a moment to realize where I am — the penthouse, bathed in dying light and shadows that seem to breathe.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" The words rip out of me before I even fully register that they're all here — Silas by the window, Jace on the couch, Cal behind it. "You could have killed me! The elevator just— it stopped and then — what if it had fallen? What if—"
"Hey, hey." Silas moves toward me, his hands raised like he's approaching a spooked animal. "Firefly, breathe. You're okay."
"Don't!" I stumble back when he reaches for me, my whole body shaking from adrenaline and leftover panic. "Don't touch me. I need — I need a second."
I press my palms against my thighs, trying to stop the trembling, trying to catch my breath. The fabric of my dress is damp with nervous sweat, and I can feel my pulse everywhere — throat, wrists, behind my eyes.
"Parker." Jace's voice cuts through the panic, steady and sure. "Look at me."
I do, finding his dark eyes across the room, and something in them — concern, maybe, or recognition — makes my breathing slow just a fraction.
"We didn't mean to scare you," Cal says softly. "The electrical system's been glitching all week. We've been trying to override it remotely, but—"
"You've been avoiding us," Silas finishes, still watching me like I might bolt. Which I might.
"You three ambushed me with impossible declarations and expected what, exactly?" My voice sounds thin, threadbare, but steadier. "Was I supposed to just accept that you all supposedly want me and, oh, by the way, I wouldn't have to choose? What does that even mean?"
"It means," Silas says, moving closer but stopping when I tense, "that we've already chosen. All three of us. We chose you six years ago, twelve years ago, maybe longer. The only question is whether you choose us back."
Before I can run, before I can think, his arm snakes around my waist, pulling me back against his chest in one smooth motion.
He's solid heat and controlled strength, his body a wall I can't push through, won't push through, because somewhere beneath the panic is a traitor voice whispering that this is what I've wanted since I was seventeen and first realized that looking at them made me ache.
"Let me go," I whisper, but my body betrays me, melting into his warmth like wax near flame.
"No." His voice rumbles through his chest into my spine, and when his free hand slides into my hair, gripping just enough to tilt my head back, I stop breathing entirely. "We let you go once. Watched you disappear for six years. Not happening again."
Jace approaches with that measured stride that makes everything feel inevitable, and when he stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell his cologne — something expensive and dark that makes me think of shadows and sins — my knees threaten to give out.
His hand rises, fingers ghosting along my jaw before sliding down to rest against my throat, not squeezing, just..
. holding. His thumb finds my pulse, rabitting against his skin, and something dark and satisfied flashes in his eyes.
"Tell me, Parker," his voice drops to that dangerous register that makes heat pool low in my belly, makes my thighs clench involuntarily. "Do you want to stay a princess locked in her tower, safe and untouched and alone?"
His thumb strokes over my pulse point, and I can feel my heart trying to escape through my skin, each beat a confession he can read like braille.
Cal moves into my peripheral vision, his hand sliding over my hip, and suddenly I'm surrounded — Silas behind me, Jace in front, Cal at my side, and nowhere to run even if my traitorous body would let me.
"Or," Jace leans closer, his breath fanning across my lips, making them part without permission, "do you want to be our princess?"
The words sink into me like hooks, pulling at every carefully constructed wall.
My body trembles, but not from fear anymore — from want so acute it feels like dying, from need so desperate I can taste it like copper on my tongue.
Every nerve ending is alive and screaming, the ache between my thighs so intense I have to lock my knees to stay standing.
My breath comes in shallow pants that fog the air between us, and I know they can see it — the flush spreading down my chest, the way my pupils must be blown wide, the way I'm shaking apart in their hands like I've been waiting my whole life for this moment.
Do I want this? God, yes. I want it so badly I can't breathe around it, can't think past it, can't remember why I ever thought running was the answer when every cell in my body is screaming to stay, to let them keep me, to finally stop pretending I don't dream about this, about them, about what it would feel like to stop fighting what feels as inevitable as gravity.
The word 'yes' sits on my tongue like a lit match, ready to burn everything down, and they wait — three men who could take whatever they want holding themselves back, letting me choose, letting me decide if I'm brave enough to admit what we all already know.
That I'm theirs.
That I always have been.