CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The silence in the room clings like smoke—thick, suffocating, and laced with everything we’d burned down just to get here.
I don’t need their permission to leave.
So I don’t ask for it.
I step out of the office, boots striking the hallway tile with more certainty than I feel. The moment the door shuts behind me, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding—one full of fire and salt and ghosts.
Upstairs, I lock the bedroom door behind me—not out of fear, but to stake the boundary neither of them seem to understand.
I am not theirs.
Not anymore.
That afternoon, I can’t journal or read. I sit at the edge of the bed, staring out the window at the garden where everything has started to blur—between lies and truth, between love and manipulation, between the hands that used me and the ones that tried to save me.
There is a knock.
Not commanding.
Just…present.
I don’t respond. But a second later, Montgomery’s voice filters through.
“Starling. My rose. I’m not here to argue.”
My hand hovers on the doorknob.
“I just…I need to see you. Please.”
The part of me that should say no—the smart part—goes quiet. And the rest of me?
Opens the door.
He stands there, lean and unarmed, but no less dangerous than when he wore that mask and whispered filth in the dark. Only now, the danger isn’t to my body.
It is to my heart.
He steps in. I close the door.
“I’m not going to touch you unless you ask me to,” he says. “But I need you to know something.”
I cross my arms. “This better not be another confession.”
“It’s not,” he says. “It’s a reminder.”
I tilt my head. “Of what?”
He steps closer.
“That you're not just strong. You’re terrifying,” he says. “You walked into hell to light the match. That scares Shoomaker. He sees you no longer as the girl he pulled out of the compound but as this fierce warrior. That’s why he tries to own you.”
“And you?” I ask, my voice quiet.
His jaw tightens, like he’s holding something back that’s already bleeding through.
“I never wanted to own you,” he says quietly. “I just… wanted to be the one you came back to when everything else fell apart. When the fire was done burning and there was nothing left but ash.”
The air shifts—like something inside both of us finally gives.
“You were dead,” I say, voice breaking at the edges now. “I watched them take you. Right in front of me. There was no version of this where I came to you after. No ending where I get to run to you. Just that moment. And it never stopped happening in my head.”
The next breath I take comes out as a sob, and I hate him for it, and I love him for it, and I pull him to me like I need him to remind me why I’m not made of dust yet.
His mouth finds mine—not greedy or punishing like the Warden’s, but tender. Like I am something precious. His hands move up my ribs, gentle and patient.
I pull back from the kiss first, breathless, my forehead still resting against his. My hands tremble where they clutch his shirt.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” I whisper against his lips.
“I know,” he murmurs, voice low and rough.
“It doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
My fingers tighten in the fabric, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer. Tears sting my eyes.
“It doesn’t mean I’ll choose you when this is all over.”
For a moment, Montgomery says nothing. His hand slides up to cradle the back of my neck, thumb stroking my skin with aching tenderness. Then he leans in, lips brushing mine again, not quite a kiss but something deeper.
His voice drops to a raw, desperate whisper.
“I know. I’d still go to war for the chance.”
I let my eyes flutter shut, breathing in the moment—the warmth of his chest against mine, the scratch of his stubble as he kissed my neck, the soft rasp of his voice saying my name like a prayer.
And then I feel it.
That shift in the air.
The feeling of being watched.
I freeze, breath catching in my throat. Montgomery feels it too—I can tell by the way his hand pauses mid-stroke on my spine.
The knock comes a second later.
Not aggressive.
Just...intrusive.
Montgomery lets go of me reluctantly, and I step back, straightening my blouse, brushing a hand down my hair even though it doesn’t matter.
“Starling,” Shoomaker’s voice cuts through the door, calm and crisp like nothing is out of place. “We need to talk. Now.”
Montgomery’s face darkens. “Of course you do,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair, jaw clenched.
I stare at the door. I can feel the heat behind it. Not just jealousy. Something more volatile. More dangerous.
“Ignore him,” Montgomery says under his breath. “He can wait.”
But I am already moving.
Because Shoomaker doesn’t wait.
He stalks.
Before I can take another step, his arm snakes around my waist from behind and pulls me back against his chest — firm, undeniable. His other hand comes up to cradle my jaw, turning my face away from the door and toward him.
“Stay,” he murmurs against my ear, the word both a command and a plea. His lips brush the side of my neck as he tightens his hold. “Don’t go to him right now.”
He presses a slow, heated kiss just below my ear, then another lower on my throat, deliberately coaxing my attention back to him.
“I’m not asking you to choose,” he whispers, voice deep and intimate. “I’m asking you to stay right here… with me. Let me show you just how much I can save you and take you away from all of this.”
For a moment I melt into the warmth of his body, but then reality crashes back in. I place my hands over his arm and gently but decisively pull myself free from his grasp.
“No,” I whisper.
I step forward, away from the safety and temptation of his arms, and walk straight toward the door. My hand closes around the handle. I don’t look back.
Montgomery’s voice drops, strained. “My rose, please…this time I am the one begging you—”
But I open the door—and there he is.
Shoomaker. Captain. Warden. All of them pressed into a single man whose eyes don’t flick to Montgomery once.
They lock on me.
On the rumpled edge of my blouse. On the pink flush still crawling up my neck. On my parted lips, and Montgomery’s proximity.
His jaw twitches.
“Come with me,” he says, flat and unreadable.
I don’t move.
“I’m not done here,” Montgomery says from behind me.
Shoomaker’s gaze snaps to him like a sniper sight. “No. But she is.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not standing right here,” I say sharply, stepping fully into the hallway. “Whatever war you two are fighting, leave me out of it.”
“You made that impossible,” Shoomaker says quietly. “The moment you cried out his name.”
Montgomery surges forward. “Watch your mouth—”
“Or what?” Shoomaker doesn’t even flinch. “You’ll break rank? Blow the op? Start a fight in the hallway like a jealous fucking teenager?”
“Enough!” I snap, voice fierce and unyielding, slicing through the tension like a whip. “Both of you. You both fucked me. You both owned my body. I cried out both your names—as the Warden and as yourselves. You both had me.”
Their eyes lock on me, the silence thick and electric.
Shoomaker doesn’t flinch. Instead, he takes a step forward, closing the space with quiet authority that demands attention. Montgomery stiffens, but doesn’t step back—yet.
“I’m not some prize to be won,” I say, voice steady, burning with defiance. “Not a mission token you toss between yourselves like some game. I walked into this knowing I’d be used. But I didn’t sign up to be your damn battlefield.”
Shoomaker’s gaze never leaves mine. His voice drops low and sharp, only for me to hear.
“You can fuck whoever you want, little survivor,” he says, cold and commanding, “but when the buyer shows up, he’s not looking for your heart. He’s looking to see how well you play the Warden’s property.”
My body stiffens at the edge in his tone, a warning wrapped in ice.
“And they always challenge the Warden,” he continues, voice dark and deliberate. “They always try.”
I meet his eyes, unblinking. “Then let him try. I’m not the same girl who walked into that compound. And you? You’re the Warden. The alpha. You won’t let anyone touch what’s yours.”
I lean in to speak, lips barely brushing the place where his words landed like fire, but before I can say anything, he lifts a hand between us—stopping me gently, but firmly.
“Unless that person is Montgomery, right?” Shoomaker’s jaw tightens, and for a moment, his eyes flicker—just briefly—with something like grudging acknowledgement. But then he steps forward, closing the gap between us, his presence overwhelming.
“Montgomery’s hand on you is nothing but a shadow,” Shoomaker says, his voice low, commanding in a way that settles beneath my skin.
“I hold the light. I hold the claim. He never came for you when you were trapped in the devil’s den—had every chance to pull you out, and still left you there.
” His gaze hardens behind the mask. “He failed you once, Starling. He will fail you again.”
He reaches out, fingers closing around my waist in a firm grip that leaves no room for resistance.
Montgomery doesn’t move, but the air shifts—clear who owns this moment.
Shoomaker’s lips brush my temple, his voice a growl against my skin. “I decide who touches you and I decide when. Not him. Not anyone.”
His hand slips beneath my blouse, fingers tracing a slow, possessive path over my bare skin. “You’re mine, Starling. Body and soul. And no one — not even him — changes that.”
The command in his voice is absolute.
I shiver beneath his touch, the fire in his dominance stoking something fierce and raw inside me.
Montgomery doesn’t move back, doesn’t so much as acknowledge the line Shoomaker carves between us like it was written in stone.
Shoomaker’s eyes darken as he pulls me close, lips capturing mine in a fierce, claiming kiss that leaves no doubt who is alpha—who holds the power, and who controls the storm.