Tristan
Chloe’s words hit me like a fist to the chest. I rest my forehead against her hand and stay there for a moment with my eyes closed.
I don’t try to stop the tears. There’s no point pretending—she can feel them on her skin and we both know it.
I stay like that for a few seconds, just breathing, because walking out of this room is going to take everything I have.
When I lift my head, she’s watching me with hazy, medicated eyes, her lids heavy. She’s in pain, both physical and emotional, and I’m the goddamn reason for both. The fractures will heal. The invisible wounds are going to take longer, and that’s on me.
I pick up her ring from the blanket and set it on the table beside her bed, next to the water cup and the call button, close enough that she can reach it without straining.
“Even if you won’t wear it right now, I’m not taking it back,” I tell her. “It’s yours. It belongs to my wife.”
Tears slip from her eyes and track down the side of her face into her hair.
I reach out and wipe them away, unable to help myself.
She doesn’t pull back from my touch, and I run my thumb over her cheekbone lightly before finally withdrawing my hand.
I lean down, my mouth close to her good ear as I speak in a low voice.
“I’m not giving up on us,” I promise hoarsely. “I need you to know that.”
She doesn’t say anything. I straighten and look at her for a long moment, at her face against the pillow, at the IV line taped carefully to the back of her hand, at the ring sitting on the table beside her instead of on her finger where I’d give anything to see it again. Then I make myself walk to the door.
Walking out of that room is the hardest fucking thing I’ve done since I watched that car hit her. Every instinct I have is pulling me back toward her, telling me to keep trying to fix things, because waiting is not something I know how to do.
But I know if I push her right now, I could lose her completely. So I pull the door closed behind me, lean against the wall in the corridor, and breathe until I can walk a straight line.
She needs to heal. That’s what matters right now.
I track down the head nurse at the station at the end of the hall.
She’s a woman in her fifties with reading glasses pushed up on her forehead and a no-bullshit vibe, and she’s been good to Chloe since they brought her in.
She looks up when I approach, and something in my expression makes her sit up a little straighter.
“All the bills for my wife’s care come to me,” I inform her. “Everything. Nothing gets sent to her family.”
She nods, types something, doesn’t ask questions.
“And if anything changes in her condition,” I add, holding her gaze, “anything at all, you call me first. Before you call anyone else. I don’t care what time it is. You call me.”
“Of course, Mr. Thorne.” She gives me a considering look for just a second before shifting her focus back down to her screen. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“I know you will,” I tell her, and I mean it as both a thank you and a reminder.
I head for the exit. Stepping out through the front doors into full afternoon sunshine stops me in my tracks for a moment, and I squint against the harsh light.
I’ve been inside that building for days, and the brightness feels like a shock to my system.
I stand there blinking for a second, then straighten my shoulders and keep moving.
Reid dropped my car off at the parking structure two days ago. I find it on the second level and get in. The interior is warm from sitting in the afternoon sun, the leather hot against my back as I start the engine and pull out.
I drive without a destination, navigating the streets of LA on autopilot while the rest of me replays the look on Chloe’s face when she pulled her hand back.
Even though I’m barely paying attention to the road, some part of me must’ve decided on a destination, because twenty minutes later, I find myself pulling up outside Gabriel’s house.
I sit in the car for a minute, the engine ticking as it cools. Then I get out.
My oldest brother answers the door on the second ring. He takes one look at me—at the days of stubble, the wrinkled shirt, whatever is written all over my face right now—and opens the door wider without a word.
We end up on the rooftop deck, the city spread out below us in the late afternoon light, the sky going orange and pink where the sun is getting low over the water.
I drop into one of the chairs and put my head in my hands.
Gabriel disappears for a few minutes and comes back with tea, setting a cup on the table beside me.
On any other day, I’d give him a bit of shit about that.
But right now I just pick it up and wrap my hands around it, letting the heat seep through the ceramic into my fingers.
“Tell me what happened.” Gabriel drops into the chair beside me.
I swallow. “Chloe and I had a fight. Before the accident. A bad one.”
“What about?”
“I can’t get into the details.” I shake my head, staring down at the tea. “I made her a promise. Just know it was bad, it was my fault, and she walked out because of it.”
I don’t mention Genevieve. I don’t mention the files or the breach or any of it, because the moment I do, my brothers are going to want to act on it, and they’d be right to want to.
Under normal circumstances I’d be right there with them.
But I gave Chloe my word that I wouldn’t do anything without her say-so, and that promise is the only thing I have left to offer her right now. So I’m keeping it.
“She told me she needs time apart,” I say. “That she doesn’t know if she can do this.”
Gabriel is quiet for a few beats. The city hums below us, a distant siren fading out somewhere to the east.
“Can you?” he asks.
“I don’t know how to do anything else,” I tell him. “I fucked it up badly. Now I have to figure out how to fix it without making it worse, and I have no fucking idea how to do that while she’s in that hospital bed.”
Gabriel nods slowly, his eyes on the skyline. He’s quiet long enough that I think he’s said everything he’s going to. Then he sets his cup down on the glass table. “When I lost Melanie, it took years before I could get through a day without it pulling me under.”
I sit up straighter, inhaling quickly. I haven’t heard Gabriel talk much about his late wife, who died unexpectedly of a fall that led to a severe head injury when Peyton was less than two years old.
None of us have. He’s been stoic about it for years, even though it’s been obvious how much grief he was carrying.
“There were times when I’d imagine she was just somewhere else, you know?
Like if I looked hard enough, if I just kept searching, I could find her and bring her back.
” Gabriel’s voice cracks slightly, but he continues.
“It’s a cruel thing, that hope. You keep thinking that if you just hold on a little longer, things might change.
But the reality is… she was gone. Truly gone. ”
He looks at me, his expression serious.
“Your situation is different. Chloe’s not dead. She’s hurt and she’s angry and there’s a rift between you. But she’s alive, Tristan. You’re both alive. Which means it’s not over. There’s still a way back.” He holds my gaze. “Don’t waste that.”
The sound of light, shuffling footsteps comes from behind us, and Peyton appears on the deck. She looks between me and her father with wide, curious eyes, clearly trying to work out what she’s walked into. Her gaze settles on my face, and she frowns.
“Is Uncle Tristan okay?” she asks Gabriel, her voice quiet.
He reaches over to ruffle her hair as she comes closer. “Yeah. He’s just a little sad tonight, bug.”
She thinks about that for a second, her brow furrowed. Then she walks straight over to me and climbs up onto my lap, her small sneakers scuffing against the chair.
She puts her small hand flat against my cheek and looks at me very seriously. “Don’t be sad,” she says with that soft little lisp of hers.
I wrap my arms around her and hold on. She settles against my chest with her head tucked under my chin, innocent and uncomplicated, and I press my face into her hair and close my eyes.
“You can be happy,” she tells me with the simple conviction that only a kid can muster up. “It’s okay.”
Swallowing hard, I run my palm over her back and meet Gabriel’s eyes over her shoulder.
If only it were that simple.
But I don’t know how I’ll ever be happy without my wife. Without the love of my life.