Chapter 29 Harper
HARPER
The morning sun warmed my face as I crossed the driveway, keys already in hand. My mind was already inside those concrete walls.
Knox.
I’d spent the whole night replaying what I’d learned. That he’d sent his brotherhood to watch over me. That somewhere in that prison, a man convicted of murder had decided I was worth protecting.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d spent two years sharing a bed with a man the world considered respectable, and Silas had made me feel like prey. Now a convicted killer had become the predator that protected me.
I reached for the car door handle.
“Harper.”
My body went still. Every muscle locked in place, my hand frozen mid-reach. Heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape before the rest of me could.
I didn’t want to look. Looking made it real.
I turned slowly, already knowing what I’d see, and sure enough, there he was.
Silas.
Here. In this state. Standing at the foot of my driveway, holding roses. A dozen of them, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, like something out of a romantic movie. Red petals bright against the winter morning.
He looked … normal. That was the worst part. Clean-shaven, pressed shirt, hands loose at his sides. The picture of a reasonable man who just wanted to talk.
I knew better.
My fingers found the base of my throat before I could stop them. A reflex. Muscle memory from the last time he’d stood this close.
“I know you’re angry.” Silas lifted the roses slightly, a peace offering. “And I get it. I do.”
I didn’t respond. My thumb found the inside of my finger, nail pressing into skin.
“I brought these for you.” He took a step forward, hope flickering across his face. The same hope I used to believe in. “I remember how much you loved the roses I got you on our first anniversary. You kept them until they were practically dust.”
I had. I’d also kept every apology letter he’d written after every black eye. Funny how love and pain could live in the same memory.
“The note on your car.” He shook his head like he was disappointed in himself. “That was the wrong way to approach you. I shouldn’t have done that. I was just … I was hurt, Harper. You left without even giving me a chance to fix things.”
Fix things. Like our relationship was a leaky faucet. Like the problem was something that could be patched.
“Get off my property,” I said.
His jaw twitched. Just once. But he smoothed it over, held up his hands in surrender. The roses dangled from his grip like a white flag.
“I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Please.” The word cracked. He stepped closer, and I saw it then. The redness around his eyes. The slight tremor in his hand. “I haven’t slept in weeks. I can’t eat. I can’t think about anything except you. What we had.”
What we had. Bruises hidden under long sleeves. Excuses rehearsed in the mirror. A constant, gnawing fear that lived in my stomach like a second heartbeat.
“We had nothing,” I said.
“That’s not true.” His voice softened, wounded. “We had everything. I loved you, Harper. I still love you. I know I made mistakes, but I’ve been going to therapy. I’m working on myself. I’m trying to be the man you deserve.”
The words sounded right. They always did. That was Silas’s gift. He could make you doubt your own memory. Make you wonder if maybe you were the crazy one. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe he really had changed.
I’d fallen for it so many times before.
Not again.
I turned and yanked open the car door.
Silas’s hand shot out and slammed it shut.
The sound cracked through the quiet morning. His breathing had changed. Faster. Rougher. The roses crushed against the window where his other hand still gripped them.
He stood there, palm flat against the glass, glaring down at me with something dark and familiar swimming behind his eyes.
Then, like flipping a switch, his expression smoothed. He stepped back. Released the door. Looked down at the mangled roses in his fist.
“Sorry. I just …” He ran a hand through his hair. “I came hundreds of miles, Harper. The least you could do is talk to me.”
“You came hundreds of miles to leave a creepy note on my car.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be creepy.”
I stared at him. “Found you. That’s what it said.”
“It wasn’t a warning.” He said it like it was obvious. Like I was the unreasonable one. “It was a gentle FYI. I didn’t want to show up in person suddenly and scare you. I wanted you to know I was in town first.”
“So polite of you.”
His smile tightened at the edges. “I’m trying here, Harper. I’m trying to apologize. To have a conversation like adults. And you can’t even give me five minutes?”
“We’re done, Silas.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I’m not doing this. I’m not getting sucked into your gaslighting again. It’s pointless. It’s over. We are never getting back together.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. That familiar shift, like watching storm clouds roll in.
“Don’t say that.” His voice dropped. Quieter now. Dangerous. “Don’t say that like it’s already decided.”
“It is decided. I decided it when I left.”
“You left because you were confused.” He took another step toward me, and I stepped back, my hip hitting the side mirror. “You were stressed. Overwhelmed. I should have seen it. I should have taken better care of you. That’s on me.”
“You punched me so hard, I thought my orbital bone was broken.”
The words hung in the frozen air between us.
Silas winced, and for one fleeting second, I saw something that almost looked like shame.
“That was an accident,” he whispered. “You know that was an accident. I never meant to hurt you. I just … I lose myself sometimes. When I think about losing you, I can’t breathe. I can’t function. You’re everything to me, Harper. Everything.”
His eyes were wet. His voice was shaking. And if I didn’t know better, I might have believed him.
But I did know better.
“I need you to leave.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head slowly, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I can’t leave. I won’t. I’ll never let you go, Harper. Don’t you understand that? I’ll never let you go.”
The words weren’t a declaration of love.
They were a life sentence.
“You’re acting like I’m some kind of monster.” His voice pitched with false hurt. “Like you had to flee the state just to get away from me.”
Because I did. Because you are.
I didn’t say it out loud. I just reached for the car door again.
“Stop.” His hand clamped over mine on the door handle, squeezing until my knuckles ground together. “I’m talking to you.”
“You’re hurting me.”
He squeezed harder. “You want to know what hurts? Coming home to an empty apartment. Finding out the woman you love disappeared in the middle of the night like you’re some kind of criminal.”
“Let go of my hand.”
“When you agree to have a real conversation with me.”
I looked up at him. Met his eyes. And said the only thing I knew would break his grip.
“I don’t love you anymore, Silas.”
Silas’s face went blank.
His hand released mine.
I yanked the door open, but before I could slide inside, Silas grabbed the frame and slammed it shut so hard, the whole vehicle shook.
I flinched.
“Don’t.” The word came out low. Controlled. Somehow worse than yelling. “Don’t you dare get in that car.”
Silas stood inches away now, his breath hot on my face. The mask didn’t just crack. It shattered. His eyes went flat. Dead. The look I used to see right before things got bad.
He looked down at the roses still clutched in his fist. Then he hurled them into the snow at the edge of the driveway.
Red petals scattered across the white. Bright as blood. Cold as his heart.
“How could you say something so fucking cruel?”
“It’s the truth. And I need to be crystal clear. I will not take you back.”
He grabbed my shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.
“Get your hands off me!”
“You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
I wrenched free and bolted for the front door, my keys cutting into my palm as I sprinted across the driveway. If I could just get inside, I could lock the dead bolt and call the police.
His footsteps pounded behind me.
“Don’t you walk away from me!”
I jammed my key into the lock.
The dead bolt stuck.
No. No, no, no.
I wiggled the key, my pulse spiking, his footsteps getting closer and closer.
“After everything I gave up for you.” His voice was right behind me now. “I turned down a promotion because you didn’t want to move. I gave you everything, and you just threw it away.”
Lies. All lies. Rewritten history. I was the one who’d been isolated. I was the one who’d shrunk my world down to the size of his approval.
But that was his gift. Making me the villain in my own story.
I twisted the key harder. The lock clicked.
I shoved the door open.
His hand closed around my arm and spun me.
“You’re such an overdramatic bitch—you know that?”
The blur of his hand came too fast to block.
The first thing I registered was the crack of his knuckles against my cheekbone.
The second was the ground slamming into my back. The porch boards bit into my spine.
The third was Silas standing over me, fist still clenched, glaring down at me like I was nothing. Like I had always been nothing.
My face throbbed.
Silas exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair. When he looked at me again, there was something almost sad in his expression.
“Look what you made me do.”
I fumbled for my phone, fingers shaking as I yanked it from my back pocket. “Leave. Now.”
He crouched down, and I scrambled backward until my shoulders hit the doorframe. “I’ll never let you go. Why won’t you understand that? We belong together. We’ll always belong together.”
“I’m calling the police.” I held up the phone like a shield, my voice shaking despite my best efforts. “You ever show up on my front lawn again …”
“What? You’ll file a report?” He almost laughed. “Go ahead. See how far that gets you.”
“Go back to Indiana, Silas.”
He tilted his head. Smiled. And something about that smile made my blood run cold.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because that’s where you live.”
“No.” He stood, brushing snow off his knees, and looked down at me with the calm certainty of a man who had already won. “You live here. So, I live here now.”
My stomach dropped.
“Got a new job.” He said it casually. Like he was telling me about the weather.
No. That couldn’t be true. He wouldn’t … he couldn’t just …
But looking at his face, I knew. He absolutely would. He absolutely had.
Silas walked down the porch steps, unhurried.
At the edge of the driveway, he paused. Looked back.
“See you soon, Harper.” He glanced toward the scattered roses bleeding red across the snow. “I’ll bring fresh ones next time.”
Then he disappeared around the corner, and I was left alone on my porch, snow melting into my clothes, staring at a dozen ruined roses and wondering how many more times he’d have to break me before he finally let me go.
The answer, I already knew, was never.
Silas wasn’t just passing through.
He was here to stay.
Swallowing my absolute rage and fear and frustration, I realized I had another big problem on my hands too: I was due to start work with Knox.
And when I pressed my fingers to my cheekbone, I hissed in pain.
“Fuck.”