Chapter 16 #2
He looks like he’s been in a fight. His left eye is swollen, bruised and red around the edges. There’s a gash on his cheekbone, angry and bleeding through the crusted mess, and his lip is split open, like someone took a fist to his mouth and didn’t stop there.
I freeze, a new kind of panic rising. My stomach twists hard.
What happened to you? I want to ask, but the words stick.
Because even bruised and bloodied, even broken, he came. And for one fragile second, that means something. For one second, I think—he’s here. I’m not alone.
A sob rips from my throat. Not from fear this time, but from that dangerous, stupid hope that I still don’t know how to let go of.
“Lo,” he breathes, the word breaking open in his chest.
He starts to run toward me, but then the back doors of the SUV swing open—and everything inside me goes cold.
Bridger steps out first. Then Cody—who’s supposed to be in Vegas.
And then him. The man in the Cross & Sons tee shirt.
The one I’ve seen before. Watching. Lurking.
The one who stood on the fire escape. The one who never blinked.
Still wearing the same damn shirt, like it means something I don’t understand.
My blood turns to ice.
My relief collapses into dread.
I stumble back a step.
Damian keeps coming, arms half-reaching, like he’s about to wrap me up and put the world back together.
But I can’t look away from the man near the SUV. He steps out slow, eyes fixed on me like he’s still taking inventory. Like he already knows how this ends.
“No,” I whisper, raising both hands. My voice breaks. “Don’t.”
I look at the stranger. Then at Damian. My heart slams so hard it hurts. “Don’t touch me.”
Damian stops short when he sees my face.
His eyes shift—first to me, then to the man standing by the SUV. There’s a flicker of hesitation, something unreadable tightening his jaw. “This is Reese,” he says finally, voice low, controlled in that way that makes it worse. “Caleb Reese.”
I blink. Reese? Reese? The name hits like a punch to the ribs.
My head spins. “The one from the text message?” I ask, my voice rising.
“Reese is a he?” I point at him, hand trembling.
“He was there, Damian. He was at the fire. On the fire escape. And he was in his car, watching me. At five in the morning opening the bakery. He came in 5, 6 times, stalking me.”
Damian’s face twists—anger, guilt, something darker. He doesn’t look at Reese. He looks at the ground like it might swallow him whole. “That’s because I paid him to watch over you,” he says.
The words land like bricks in my chest. I can’t breathe for a second. “You what?” I ask. Neve squeezes my shoulders. Fuck, did she know and not tell me? “And why did you think I needed a babysitter?” I snap, my voice cracking.
Bridger steps forward, arms crossed, jaw clenched. “I told you, you should’ve told her what was going on.”
Damian’s head whips toward him, eyes burning. “Shut up,” he growls through his teeth.
The silence that follows is sharp, charged, like a wire pulled too tight.
When he looks back at me, the fire in his eyes flickers.
It softens into something strange. Not rage.
Not arrogance. Something I’ve never seen on Damian Cross’s face.
Regret. Real, hollow-eyed, bone-deep regret.
But before he can say anything, I hear a car door click shut behind me.
Nathan.
He steps up quietly, stopping just behind my shoulder. His presence is steady. Close. Protective. I don’t even turn. I can feel the tension radiating off both of them.
Damian’s whole body changes the second he sees him. His jaw locks. His eyes go dark. That small flicker of apology vanishes in a blink, swallowed whole by something else.
Possessive. Violent. Murderous. His hands curl into fists. His nostrils flare. “Why the fuck is he here?” Damian growls, his voice low and barely holding back the storm beneath it.
I don’t flinch. “He went to the hospital with me,” I say, my voice steady but shaking underneath. “He stayed all night. He drove us home.” I glance at Neve, then back at him. “We were alone, Damian. In a fucking fire. We crawled out of a burning building barefoot and choking. Where were you?”
His expression falters. That violence in his eyes flickers, overtaken for a second by something else—something broken. His brows pull together, and I swear I see sorrow behind the rage. His mouth opens like he wants to explain. But it’s too late for words.
He steps toward me. The whites of his eyes are laced with angry red vessels and this close I can see the harshness of the jagged gash below them. It’s raw and glistening in the light, like it only stopped bleeding minutes ago. He looks wrecked.
I want to ask what happened. The words claw up my throat, but they don’t make it out.
Because I feel eyes on me. Reese’s eye. He’s still standing by the SUV.
Watching closely. The kind of stare that prickles the back of my neck.
The kind that makes the air feel wrong. Whatever questions I might’ve asked dies in my chest. It’s the feeling creeping down my spine that I’ve been pulled into something far more dangerous than I ever understood.
And I step back, instinct taking over. I retreat right into Nathan, and his hands land gently on my shoulders to steady me.
That’s all it takes.
Damian sees the contact—Nathan’s hands on me—and something inside him snaps. His pupils dilate, wide and sharp, like he’s not just angry, but hunting. Every muscle in his body goes rigid.
A breath catches in my throat. For a second, I’m afraid for Nathan’s life.
I step forward, out of his hold. I don’t want his hands on me either.
“Where were you?” I ask Damian, my voice sharp and cracking. “When he was there with me?”
Damian’s jaw clenches. His gaze flicks to Reese, then to Nathan, then back to me like he doesn’t know where to aim all that fury boiling under his skin.
“I was trying to protect you,” he says, almost too fast. Like that makes any sense to me.
“From what?” I fire back.
But he doesn’t answer. He turns and starts pacing, dragging a hand down his face like he’s trying to hold something in.
When his hand drops, there’s blood smeared across his fingers.
He looks like an animal caught in a trap—unsure whether to run or tear something to pieces.
“I just wanted you safe,” he mutters. “That’s all I fucking wanted. ”
And that’s what shatters me. I let out a sob, raw and shaking, and throw my arm out toward the bakery. Toward the still-smoking ruins of my life. “I feel really safe now, Damian. Real fucking safe,” I choke out. “Thanks for the excellent security detail.”
He stops mid-step. His eyes snap to mine, wild and wounded. He looks torn—ripped in half by it. Half of him is breaking apart watching me cry, the other half locked on Nathan like he's seconds from tearing him limb from limb.
And Nathan? Still hasn’t moved. Still standing behind me like he belongs there, like he doesn’t feel the danger radiating off Damian’s skin.
“Why do you think I need a stranger,” I say, pointing at Reese, “watching me? Silently. Secretly. Like I’m a prisoner. Or am I bait?” My voice shakes. My body shakes.
Damian doesn’t answer. His fists just curl tighter, and the silence thickens, heavy with all the truths he won’t say.
“You’re hiding things from me,” I say, my voice low, shaking. “And I don’t know who you are at all, Damian. Not really. Because you won’t let me.”
I take another step back.
He reaches for me, eyes wide, voice catching. “Lo—”
But I cut him off.
“You know,” I say, swallowing hard, “I… love you. And my God, I’m an idiot for it.
” My chest heaves, and the tears blur my vision, but I keep going.
“And I don’t even know what I love. Or what I’m holding on to.
Because you never really gave me anything to hold, Damian.
Not your trust. Not your truth. Just pieces.
Just shadows. And I don’t understand right now why I can’t let you go.
” I pause, my breath trembling, my heart aching.
“But Jesus,” I whisper, “you’re starting to make it real easy for me to walk away. ”
He says nothing.
Nothing.
So I turn toward the ruined building. The bakery. The blackened bones of the life I built.
And still, he doesn’t speak.
I nod slowly, just once, because I was waiting. Hoping. Begging in my silence for him to say something. Anything. I love you too. Stay. Please don’t go.
But the silence stays.
And it breaks me. It scorches across my chest, lodges like glass in my throat—his silence.
His unbearable indifference to my pain. His complete and utter willingness to let me walk away like none of it ever mattered.
Tears slip down my cheeks as I turn away, heart hammering, lungs raw from ash and grief.
I can’t do this anymore. Not tonight. Not like this.
I turn to Nathan, my voice barely more than a breath. “Can you take me to your place? Please. I just… I need to get away from him.”
He nods without a word and walks to the car, opening the door for me like he’s been waiting for me to need something—anything—he can give.
Behind me, I hear it. “Lo.” Damian’s voice again. This time cracked. Quiet. Almost broken.
But I don’t turn around.
Because my name isn’t what I need to hear.
I slide inside the car, every muscle in my body shaking as I close the door behind me. The world outside muffles—voices, movement, the faint hum of wind—but I can still feel Damian watching.
I can feel his silence pounding against the window.
Nathan rounds the front of the car, calm, quiet, steady. He opens the driver’s side door.
Then it happens.
A crack slices through the air like lightning.
The windshield explodes.
Shards of glass rain in every direction—glittering like ice in the setting sunlight. I scream, instinctively throwing my arms over my face. My heart slams so hard I think it might stop. I taste blood.
And then I see him.
Damian.
Standing there, chest heaving, hand curled into a tight fist, blood dripping down from his knuckles. His face is wild—unhinged—like the last thread holding him together just snapped.
His pupils are blown wide, and the look in his eyes is almost feral.
“Lo!” he shouts, voice torn from the deepest part of him. “Don’t go. Don’t fucking leave me.”