Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
MARLOWE
Neve’s hair is still damp, curling around her shoulders in soft waves as she steps back into the room.
She crosses to me and gently squeezes my arm.
“We’re going to give you guys some more time,” she says with a meaningful glance.
“Bridger’s taking me somewhere we can grab a few things—clothes, deodorant, I’ll get a bunch of stuff for us.
You should jump in the shower.” Her tone is light, but her eyes search mine, careful and warm.
“We’ll bring back dinner too,” Bridger lingers near the doorway, arms crossed. “You both good?”
Damian and I nod at the same time.
Bridger presses his hand to her back and the two of them disappear down the hall. The front door closes softly behind them, leaving us alone.
Without a word, he scoops me into his arms. I let out a small surprised yelp, but I let him lift me. My arms circle his neck. My cheek rests against the solid wall of his chest, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself feel safe.
He carries me down the hall, every step measured and slow, like I might vanish if he moves too fast.
The bathroom door creaks open. The light flicks on, soft and warm against the tiles.
He sets me down gently on the edge of the tub, then lowers himself to his knees in front of me without a word.
His eyes stay on mine, full of something tender.
For a moment, everything else fades. There’s no fire.
No Clay. No contract killings. No ruined bakery or ghosts of the past clawing at the windows. There’s just him and me.
Damian twists the faucet handle, and water rushes out, loud against the tile and porcelain.
He tests the temperature with his fingers, adjusting it until the steam begins to rise.
Reaching for a bottle on the shelf, he flips the cap and pours a stream into the rushing water.
The scent hits almost instantly, sandalwood and cinnamon.
The water churns and clouds, foaming into thick white bubbles.
I watch him from the edge of the tub, my legs numb, my chest too tight to hold everything that’s trying to break free inside me.
He paid someone to kill his father. I should be afraid.
I should be angry at how he acted. Hell, I should be halfway down the street with my heart in my throat calling the police.
But I’m still here. Sitting in this quiet little bathroom while he draws me a bath.
He called himself a monster. I’ve grown up around monsters.
The kind who dragged me into backroom poker games before I was old enough to know what the word illegal meant.
The kind who let men with yellow teeth and thick hands leer at me through clouds of smoke, press their palms against my inner thighs while my father smiled across the table and called me his lucky charm.
Damian isn’t a monster. Maybe to other people, maybe to himself, but not to me. It’s the rest of what he said that opens the trapdoor in my head.
Clay killed Laura. Has Damian been carrying that alone all this time? Does Neve know? What about Bridger and Cody? Is Clay really going to try and kill me too?
The faucet is still running. The water rises, thick with heat and soft white foamy bubbles. I stare at it, while a cold ache pulls inside my chest, dragging tighter with every question crashing into the next.
Where will I live now? How will I make money?
What’s going to happen with the bakery? The bakery.
The apartment. Everything I’ve worked for.
Gone. Did Clay do it? Did he come for me?
Will he come again? My lungs won’t expand.
The air thins. My vision tunnels at the edges.
I can’t stop thinking. Can’t stop unraveling.
The water keeps rising. So do the thoughts.
God, Damian was right not to tell me, wasn’t he? Because I’m falling apart just knowing it now. How am I supposed to live with this? How am I supposed to survive this? I grip the side of the tub, but my fingers are shaking. And then the panic crests.
It hits sharp and sudden, slamming into my chest like a blade.
My throat locks. My heart races. It’s too loud in here.
The water rushing sounds like fire. The bubbles look like smoke.
My body feels like it’s still in that hallway, crawling, coughing, burning.
I can’t breathe. I double over, dragging in a ragged gasp, but it won’t stay. It shudders out too fast.
I think I make a sound. A sob or a curse—I don’t know. But Damian hears it. His head jerks toward me, eyes snapping to mine like he felt it in his bones.
And I think I’m going to die. Right here, in his brother’s bathroom, with nothing left but the ash in my lungs and a heart that doesn’t know how to beat through this kind of fear. I’ll die before Clay ever finds me.
His tattooed hands find my face in an instant. Big, warm, steady. “Look at me, Lo,” he says, voice rough but calm. “Look at me.”
I find his eyes and try to focus on them. Hazel. Green and blue, orange flecks in the middle.
“I’ve got you,” he says. He moves one hand down to the center of my chest, flat against my sternum, right over my heart.
“Breathe. Feel that? That’s you. You’re still here.
You’re safe. Right now, you’re safe.” His hand doesn’t press, doesn’t restrain.
Just rests there, warm and solid, catching every wild beat like he’s trying to take some of the rhythm into himself.
“We’re here. It’s just me and you. You’re going to sit in this warm bath, and I’m going to wash your hair, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone hurt you, okay? ”
I nod, but it’s barely that. My whole body feels locked up.
I run through all the breathing techniques I know.
In for four. Out for six. Grounding. Focus on the room.
On the smell of soap. On the water running.
On the fact that I’m not burning. Not dying.
But none of it helps. I look at him and the question rips out of me, a whisper soaked in despair. “How am I going to live?”
His face breaks. Just a little. A crack behind his eyes, and that scares me.
“Everything is gone,” I whisper. “My apartment. My bakery. My fucking life, Damian. Everything I built. Everything I made for myself.” My chest convulses, a sob lodging behind my ribs. His hand is still there, catching it.
“I’ll take care of you,” he says. There’s no hesitation in it. Just promise. “You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone again.”
I want to believe him. I want to lean into those words and let them carry the weight for a while. But grief claws through me like smoke in my lungs, thick and choking and endless.
I shake my head, teeth clenched. “But my bakery.”
“I know,” he says softly. “But I promise you, we’ll get through this.
Come on,” he says softly, brushing his knuckles down my arm.
“Take this off.” His voice doesn’t hold an ounce of demand—just quiet care.
He helps me out of the oversized clothes with a kind of gentleness I’m not used to from him.
No urgency. No heat. Just hands that move like they’re afraid I’ll crack open if he’s too fast.
My borrowed clothes hit the floor, and his eyes sweep over me—not with lust, but something deeper. Something reverent. Like he’s taking in every burn mark, every scrape, and memorizing them like proof that I’m still here.
I step into the tub, the water warm against my skin, and sink down slowly. The heat wraps around me, and loosens something in my chest.
Then he peels off his shirt. I can’t not look. His torso is sculpted and covered in intricate ink, powerful and real, the kind of body that looks like it could shield the whole damn world. He undoes his jeans, pushes them down, then steps out of them and into the tub with me.
He lowers behind me, the water rising to the edge, sloshing over as he pulls me against him. His chest is solid against my back, his arms anchoring me with a kind of strength that doesn’t ask anything in return.
His breath warms the curve of my shoulder. And little by little, my lungs stop fighting me.
We stay like that. Skin to skin. I feel him shift behind me, the water rocking gently around us. Then the quiet sound of a bottle flipping open. Damian pours a pool of shampoo into his hand, and the scent—something clean and citrusy—drifts up between us. I close my eyes.
His fingers touch my scalp, slow and gentle, moving through my hair with a kind of tenderness I’m not used to. There’s no rush, no tension, just slow circles and the occasional sweep of his fingers down the length of it, untangling it with a patience he never gives anything else.
My shoulders slowly start to loosen under the rhythm. It’s so intimate I almost want to cry again. Not because it hurts, but because it doesn’t. Because for the first time since the fire, my body doesn’t feel like it’s in fight or flight mode. I’m not flinching. I’m not curling in on myself.
I’m letting him take care of me.
The pads of his fingers move behind my ears, trace the curve of my scalp.
His thumbs press gently at the base of my skull, massaging there until I melt further into him.
His thighs bracket mine, warm and solid.
His chest is a steady wall against my back, his breathing syncing with mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You always do that,” he murmurs low against my neck.
“Do what?”
“Hold tension in your shoulders. Like you’re bracing for something. You do it even in your sleep.”
“I always am bracing for something,” I whisper.
His hands are still in my hair. Gentle. Intentional. Like he’s memorizing the feel of each strand between his fingers. He presses a kiss to the back of my soapy head, lips warm against my scalp.
Then he shifts behind me.