Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
DAMIAN
She turns her back. Climbs into his car. And something inside me rips apart—raw, brutal. A steel trap triggered in my chest. I move before I think. Before I can stop it, before reason or restraint can reach me.
My fist slams into the windshield. Glass explodes across the hood. Marlowe’s scream rips through the air, sharp and panicked. I see her flinch inside the car. Eyes wide. Shoulders curled in. Like I’m the threat—because I am. I know it. I fucking feel it.
I pull my hand back from the shattered windshield. Blood is already dripping down my fingers, streaking across the broken glass. It’s everywhere—warm, sticky, dripping onto the pavement. My knuckles are split wide. Throbbing. But the pain is distant, like it belongs to someone else.
And the blood isn’t the worst part. The worst part is her face. That look in her eyes. Like she doesn’t recognize me anymore. Like I’m something she needs to run from. That look destroys me.
How much of a monster do you have to be to make the woman you love look at you like that?
She’s fucking looking at me the way my mother used to look at Clay.
That same quiet terror. That same knowing—like no matter how much you love someone, they can still ruin you. Jesus. What the fuck is wrong with me?
My breath turns jagged. I stumble back from the car, chest heaving, lungs seizing, pain spreading through my hand and not even touching the shit inside me.
I’m not my father. I am NOT my father. Yet Marlowe’s in that car, glass on her lap, her whole body trembling—choosing another man to escape me.
I did this to her. I’m doing this to her. All because I thought silence was safer than honesty.
I was wrong. So goddamn wrong. I should’ve told her everything. From the start. I should’ve never let Reese watch her without explaining. I should’ve stayed. Showed her what the hell she meant to me instead of hiding it under silence and blood and things I thought would keep her safe.
I kept her in the dark. That’s not love.
That’s control. Fear. Survival. But I do love her.
I love her so much it eats at me. It chews through the edges of my sanity.
And if she drives away in that car with him, if she lets him be the one to pull her back together, then I lose her.
For real. Not just to a fight. Not just for tonight. Forever.
I move toward the car again, desperate, shaking, ready to tear the door open and make her hear me.
But before I can take another step, arms slam around my shoulders from behind.
Bridger.
“Enough,” he snaps, dragging me back. “You’re going to get arrested again, you fucking idiot.”
I fight him for half a second. Maybe less. Then I stop.
I let him hold me back. Not because I want to. Because I don’t trust myself not to do something worse. Marlowe won’t even look at me now.
My voice cracks when I say the words. “Lo, everything I’ve done is because I fucking love you.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch.
Fuck. She won’t even turn her head to face me.
“Say something,” I beg. “Please.”
The air tastes like smoke and metal. My lungs are burning. Every part of me is straining toward her and still not close enough. Bridger’s arms are locked around me like a leash, like he thinks he can drag me back from the edge. He should know better.
I shift my weight, plant my feet, and pull him with me. He’s solid, but I’m bigger. Stronger. I lift him right off the ground like he’s nothing but ballast. He grunts, surprised, but doesn’t let go. He doesn’t fight either. He knows I’m past the point of reason.
I step forward, dragging him with me, because nothing is going to stop me from reaching her.
She’s still sitting in that car. The windshield is shattered. Her hands are trembling. Her profile is lit in the last vestiges of the sunset. Her jaw is locked tight, her hand clenched around the oh shit handle like she’s bracing for a crash.
And I’m the crash.
“You can’t leave me.” My voice scrapes out of my throat like gravel.
“You’re in this as deep as I am. You fucking know you are.
” I take a shaky breath, because I don’t know what I’ll do if she drives away from me—break something, break myself, rip the world apart just to feel like I still exist in hers.
“We fit, Lo. Even when it’s fucked up—we fit.
” My voice drops, splintering at the edges.
“You’re the one thing in my life I got right.
” I swallow hard, my chest tightening. “And I’m not letting you drive away with him.
” My fists clench, my voice barely a whisper now. “I’m not letting you go.”
She wipes at her eyes, fast, like she doesn’t want me to see her crying. But still, she won’t look at me. That hurts worse than the glass in my knuckles.
“I should’ve told you. About everything. From the start. Reese. The threats. What I knew. I kept it from you because I thought silence was safer. I thought you were better off not knowing. I just wanted you focused on the bakery. On living. On something that wasn’t this fucking ugly.”
My throat locks. My vision blurs, but not from tears. From rage. From loss. From the fear that I already lost her and this is just the slow bleed.
“Please, Lo,” I whisper. “Get out of his car. Come with me.” My voice drops lower, and I mean every fucking word. “I may not know how to love you right, but I’d die before I let anyone else try.”
Silence stretches.
She still doesn’t move.
The world feels like it’s holding its breath, waiting for her to make a decision that might wreck us both.
My pulse pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. I feel Bridger’s grip start to loosen behind me, like even he doesn’t know what the hell happens next.
Then, finally, she looks up.
Tears streak her cheeks, but her eyes are locked on mine, sharp and burning with something that cuts deeper than hate. It’s pain. It’s fury. It’s everything I’ve earned and everything I’m about to lose if I don’t fucking handle it right.
She opens the car door and steps out, slow, deliberate.
The purple sunset catches her face just enough to make her look like fire.
She’s barefoot. Her clothes are ash-stained, wrinkled, clinging to her like she got dragged through hell.
Just skin, fury, and stubborn rage holding her together.
Fuck. She’s wearing my favorite thing she sleeps in—those tiny little boy shorts and that cropped top that rides up when she rolls over in bed.
The same ones she must’ve been wearing when the fire started.
There are burn holes singed into the fabric, blackened marks across her ribs, a tear near the hem like something tried to rip the shirt straight off her.
My gut twists hard. She walked through fire in that.
Barefoot. With Neve. While I wasn’t there to save her.
She walks right up to me, standing toe to toe, head high, spine straight, her chin tilted like she’s not scared of me.
“You have one chance,” she says, her voice low and shaking, but full of heat.
“Only one, Damian Cross.” She stabs her finger into my chest. “You’re telling me everything.
And I mean every little fucking detail.” Her voice breaks, just slightly.
“Or I walk away. And I swear to God, you will never be able find me.”
Bridger lets go of me.
And I don’t hesitate. I reach for her, wrap my arms around her, and pull her into me. Her body is still trembling, still wired tight with everything we’ve been through, but she lets me hold her. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away.
I tuck her into my chest, holding her like a lifeline, burying my face into the crook of her neck.
She smells like fire and smoke. Like the end of the world.
Like everything I almost lost. My chest heaves against her.
My hands stay locked around her back, fingers digging in like I’m afraid she’ll vanish if I loosen my grip.
I don’t say a word. Not yet. I just breathe her in like she’s oxygen, like she’s the only clean thing left in the wreckage I made.
Because she is. And I don’t know how long I’ll get to hold her like this. Not once she knows. Not when I tell her everything I’ve done. The deals I made. The people I crossed. The blood I still carry on my hands.
Not when she finds out what’s still coming. Because once I open my mouth and let the truth out, she might not just walk away—she might run.
And I’m not sure I deserve to chase her.