Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
MARLOWE
Bridger’s apartment still smells like last night’s takeout and yesterday’s panicky adrenaline, but for the first time in what feels like days, my heart isn’t clawing at my ribs.
My skin hums in the aftershock of what just happened in Bridger’s spare room with Damian—the ache between my legs, the raw sting of his teeth on my neck, the way he touched me like he needed me to breathe.
And, God, the way he told me he loved me.
He left marks. I kind of hope they never fade. But I’m not the only one who noticed.
“Jesus,” Bridger mutters, lowering himself onto a recliner. “Was the headboard fighting back?”
Cody snorts and tosses a handful of dry cereal into his mouth straight from the box. “Fuck, I thought it was an earthquake until I heard the dirty talk. Damn, Lo, I didn’t know you were such a porn star.”
Neve lifts a brow and grins from where she’s perched on the arm of the couch with her coffee. My cheeks burn hot and I lean into Damian’s side, where he sits next to me on the couch, one arm thrown around my shoulders like he’s fucking proud. He hasn’t let go of me since we got out of that bedroom.
They’re all teasing, but we’re all a little sleep-deprived and anxious.
Although, I think for a brief, strange moment, there's something like hope floating in the room.
A folder sits on the table, the fake IDs they bought spread out like a fan of escape routes.
New names, new birthdays, shitty new headshots.
I have no idea how Damian got that awful picture of me, it could pass for a mug shot.
“We can go anywhere,” Neve says, setting down her coffee. “Hell, the Caribbean sounds good to me. Beach, rum, great food. I could start a resort romance with a lifeguard named Mateo. No strings. No fires. None of your psycho family drama.”
I glance at Bridger. He’s not smiling. Oh, that’s interesting.
“Neve,” Cody grumbles, leaning forward. “We’re not going on vacation. This isn’t a fucking honeymoon package.”
She shrugs. “Didn’t say it was. Just said that wherever we go I’m getting laid.”
Bridger shifts uncomfortably and places his coffee down a little too hard on the coffee table. Oh, that’s very interesting. I wonder if anything happened between them.
Cody’s eyes sharpen on Damian’s. “We should just stay and kill him before he kills us.”
The room freezes. Even the air feels colder.
Bridger exhales through his nose, slowly, and then leans closer to the coffee table. He taps one of the IDs. “It’s just for a few days. How about that place we used as a safehouse in Arizona—it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
Damian grunts beside me. “You think it’s still standing?”
“It’s built into a canyon wall. If a nuke hit it, it’d probably be the last thing left,” Bridger says. I can’t picture it. I don’t even want to. Hiding in a cave while Clay creeps around looking for us.
“We should take the fight to him,” Cody says again, louder this time. There’s something wild in his voice. “He deserves it. He used to beat the shit out of me just for breathing too loud.”
Damian’s jaw clenches. Bridger won’t look up.
“I’m not running,” Cody snaps. “I want to see his face when he realizes I’m not scared of him anymore.”
“Good,” Damian says, voice low, sharp. “Then help me get her away from here first. We’ll deal with him. But after I know Marlowe is safe.”
Cody throws up his hands. “So you want us to just sit on a beach or in some dusty-ass safehouse with our thumbs up our asses?”
“No,” Bridger says dryly. “No one said you had to stick your thumb up your ass, Cody. That’s a you choice.
Feel free to explore whatever self-soothing method gets you through the day—as long as you don’t do it near me.
” He grabs one of the fake IDs and waves it.
“We’re not bailing. We’re regrouping. Off-grid.
Couple days to breathe, reload, have Damian stop bleeding from various holes.
Then we come back and end this the way it should’ve ended years ago. ”
Damian’s hand tightens on my shoulder.
And just like that, whatever hope was floating in the room evaporates, replaced by the low thrum of the Cross brothers’ fury. Everyone’s on edge. Wound tight. Teetering on the edge of snapping.
So I do the only thing I can think of to cut through it. I clear my throat. “Okay, but like… not to be that girl, but I wouldn’t say no to a little beach getaway. You know, somewhere with umbrella drinks. Sunshine. Maybe some sex on the beach.”
Damian raises a brow.
“I meant the cocktail,” I add, deadpan.
Neve snorts. “Sure you did.”
“I’m just saying,” I shrug, “if you want to take me someplace safe, I’d rather do it getting tanned and mildly buzzed, with Damian inside me instead of in a cave in the middle of a desert. That sounds too much like the grave Joel threw me in.”
Bridger grimaces. “Right, sorry. Beach it is.” He gets up with a grunt and pulls his laptop from where it’s plugged in on the counter in his tiny kitchenette.
The cord knocks over a half-empty bottle of hot sauce on the way down, and the sound it makes as it hits the counter startles me.
It zigs a sharp jolt of heat across my collarbone.
I guess I’m not as calm as I thought I was.
Bridger settles into the armchair, balancing the computer on his lap.
“I’m just going to see what the next available flights are and where they’re heading.
Might as well give ourselves some options.
” His fingers tap the keys, low and methodical, as he mumbles destination names under his breath.
“Barbados... St. Lucia... Antigua… damn, they’ve got one to Curacao leaving tomorrow night… but we need something today.”
Damian shifts beside me, his muscles tensing. He rubs a slow, absentminded circle into the small of my back, and when I look up at him, he’s already watching me. He smiles, but it’s the kind that doesn’t travel anywhere near his eyes.
The gash on his cheek is a little cleaner now—I did what I could with the first aid kit and my shaky hands—but the split is deep and angry, edged in red.
The bruise under his eye is worse, a dark bloom spreading into the corner and making the white of his eye pure red.
I lift my fingers and trace the bruise, featherlight, careful not to press.
His stare doesn’t break.
I whisper, “Does it still hurt?”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing.
So I kiss it. Just below the swollen skin. And when I pull back, his hand tightens against my hip like he’s ready to flip me on my back here in front of everyone. My pulse races with the thought of it.
“Turks and Caicos,” Bridger announces to no one in particular, his eyes glued to the screen. “Round trip’s a no. But there’s a one-way out of Atlantic City International. Five p.m. And get this—it’s cheap as hell. Which probably means it crashes into the ocean, but hey, maybe that’s a win-win.”
Neve flicks a glance at him. “Morbid much?”
He doesn’t look up. “Just being realistic. Are you upset that you won’t end up screwing some local with a man bun and a guitar who swears he’s ‘between surf gigs?’”
Neve raises an eyebrow, slow and sharp. “Aw, Bridger. That almost sounded like jealousy.”
He snorts. “Please. I’m just preemptively judging your poor taste.”
Neve scoffs, but there’s color in her cheeks now, and she won’t look at Bridger. And he keeps clicking through tabs like he didn’t just throw a verbal grenade across the room.
I glance at Damian, and he’s already giving me that look—the one that says what the actual hell is happening between those two?
I raise my brows in silent response. Whatever it is, it’s messy.
And unfinished. And clearly not our business…
but also very entertaining. Before I can say anything, Damian catches my hand—his fingers closing gently around and presses a soft kiss to my knuckles. Just once. Tenderly.
Then his phone buzzes. He sighs, pulls it from his pocket, and glances at the screen. “It’s Reese,” he mutters, then swipes to answer.
Reese’s face appears on the screen in a dark room, his jaw tight, his voice low and urgent. “Taylor’s at the bakery.”
Everything in me goes still. Taylor? A cold chill crawls zips up the back of my spine.
Across the room, Neve stiffens mid-bite, her hand frozen with an apple halfway to her mouth. Bridger slowly lowers the screen of his laptop and sets it aside. Even Cody—who’s been vibrating with rage since the Clay topic came up—goes quiet.
The whole room holds its breath.
Damian bolts up off the couch. He paces fast, one hand gripping the back of his neck. “What the fuck is she doing there? What the fuck does she want?”
On the other end of the call, I hear her. Taylor’s voice—high-pitched, sharp, frantic—cuts through the room. “Where’s Marlowe? Damian, is she there with you? Please, I need her!”
My stomach flips. I jump off the couch and crowd in close, shoulder pressed to Damian’s arm as I lean to see the phone screen.
Reese is holding the camera at a weird angle, trying to keep it pointed at both himself and the girl pacing like a caged animal behind him.
She looks like hell—no, worse than hell.
Her hair’s a tangled mess, sticking to her face with sweat.
One side of her cheek is so swollen it nearly closes her eye.
The bruises bloom in shades of violent purple and sickly yellow across her jaw and temple, and there’s a split in her lip that looks deep enough to need stitches.
Damian’s gash and bruise suddenly look like paper cuts in comparison.
She’s pale, trembling, arms wrapped around her ribs, hugging herself.
I hate how fast my heart responds. Because I’m still angry. I haven’t forgotten what she did. How she sold me out—left me dangling, clawing for my life, terrified while she slithered away like it wasn’t her problem.
But the terror in her voice—it’s real. She’s shaking. Begging. And she went to the one place that’s now a pile of charred wreckage. “Taylor,” I say, louder than I mean to.
Her head snaps toward the phone like she’s just heard a ghost. “Marlowe?” Her eyes fill instantly. “Oh thank God—please, I didn’t know what else to do. I had to find you. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill all of us. He’s got Daddy.”
“Daddy?” I scoff, the word tasting like acid. “I don’t have a daddy. I have a sperm donor named Vick, who I couldn’t care less about.”
Taylor flinches like I slapped her through the screen.
“I—I don’t know what to do. Clay told me to get you.
To get to Damian.” She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, smearing dirt, mascara, or both.
Her fingers shake. “He said if I didn’t bring you to him, he’d start cutting fingers off.
He’s in some old school… it’s abandoned on Somers Point Road. ”
My stomach turns. “That’s the Scullville School,” I say flatly.
“Egg Harbor Township. It’s been vacant since the ‘90s.” That place was our unofficial high school after-hours playground.
No lights, no rules, and no adults stupid enough to chase us out.
I lost my virginity in the auditorium—back row, under a torn velvet curtain—with Jordan Ramirez.
He swore he loved me—until Monday morning, when he didn’t.
I got even by dating his older brother. Then his older, older brother.
I refocus on the screen. Taylor’s eyes are wide, lips trembling.
“I hitched a ride to get here,” she goes on, frantic, rambling. “I didn’t know what else to do. When I got here, the bakery—what happened? Why is it—?”
“Oh, like you fucking care?” I cut in, my voice sharp. I laugh. It’s hollow and mean. “You should’ve called the cops, Taylor. Not us. The cops. Or you can let Clay cut off all his money grubbing fingers, I don’t care.”
She stares at me through the screen, breathing hard, eyes wild with something between guilt and desperation.
One of Damian’s hands drops to the small of my back, supporting me.
Maybe trying to calm me down—but I’m already moving.
I reach for the phone in his other hand.
My thumb hovers for just a breath. And then I press the red button.
Call ended—just like that. The silence that follows is instant and deafening, like someone sucked all the air out of the room.
I’m still tense, still vibrating with the taste of old betrayal, when I feel Damian shift beside me. His hand slides up my spine, slow and possessive, until he’s cupping the back of my neck.
He leans in, his mouth brushing just below my ear, voice low enough that only I can hear it. “Fucking hell,” he murmurs, eyes burning into mine, “your mean streak turns me on.”
My heart stutters.
Heat shoots straight through me like lightning, and just for a second, the chaos fades into static. Because I might be seething, but he’s smirking.
And it’s taking everything in me not to climb back onto his lap and make a whole new kind of mess.