Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
MARLOWE
The door slams behind them, and something inside me snaps.
A thread pulled too tight for too long finally gives way, and the sound it makes is silent—but I feel it everywhere.
In my chest. In my gut. In my goddamn bones.
Everything in me knows—some part of this, this moment right here, is the start of something I won’t be able to undo.
My legs feel unsteady, like they’re trying to fold beneath me.
I clutch the edge of the kitchen counter to keep from sinking.
The air is too thin. Or maybe too thick. It’s choking me either way.
Neve’s pacing, chewing the corner of her nail, eyes darting toward the front door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispers, over and over like it’s a prayer. “This feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I whisper back, my throat dry. “I should have stopped him.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. Not even close.
A deep, dizzy wave of nausea curls through my stomach, and suddenly the room tilts sideways. I grab the counter harder, knuckles white.
“Whoa.” Neve’s at my side in a flash. “Lo—sit down. You’re white as a ghost.”
“I can’t sit down,” I snap, shaking her off. “I can’t fucking breathe, Neve.”
She stares at me, eyes wide, panic matching mine in real time.
“I need to go,” I say, already moving toward the door. “I’m not just going to sit here and wait to find out he’s dead.”
“If you’re doing this, I’m coming with you.” Neve says, without missing a beat. Our eyes meet—and there’s no hesitation.
“We need weapons,” I mutter, already yanking open drawers in Bridger’s tiny kitchen. If I focus on getting there, I can control my breathing. Just get there. Everything will be fine.
Neve’s at my heels, digging through a hall closet, coming up empty. We search faster, louder, more frantically. The panic is turning kinetic now—buzzing through my blood, making my hands tremble. “Nothing,” Neve says, breathless, swinging the closet door shut with a frustrated bang.
“In here,” I say, grabbing the wooden knife block from the counter and dragging it closer. I yank them out one after the other—steak knives. Every single one.
Neve raises an eyebrow. “What the hell are you going to do with that? Cut him medium rare?”
“In case he gets close to me,” I say, testing the edge against my thumb. “I’m really good with a knife.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, cutting onions. Cutting people is different.”
“Just take one and let’s go.” I slide the knife into my back pocket just as Neve pulls the curtain back and peers out the window.
“Shit,” she mutters.
I’m already moving toward her, handing her a knife. “What?”
She steps back so I can look. “Damian’s SUV,” she says. “And Bridger’s Jeep are both gone.”
“Fuck,” I breathe. My heart hammers harder. “How are we going to get there? My car is still parked near the bakery,” I say, panic starting to swirl. “And I don’t have the keys. They’re somewhere in my apartment.”
She chews her bottom lip and shakes her head, like she’s gearing up for something stupid.
“We need to find a way there. Fast,” I say.
“Uber?” She checks her phone. “Seven-minute wait.”
“We can’t take an Uber to a gunfight, can we?” I ask, pacing.
And then she looks at me. That look. The one right before things go absolutely sideways.
“What?” I ask.
“I can steal a car.”
Neve doesn’t wait for me to agree.
We fly out of the apartment, slamming the door behind us, our new sneakers thudding against the worn stairwell as we bolt down the steps. Outside, the air is sharp and humid, the first spring heat that sticks to your skin and makes every breath feel thick.
We cut behind the building, dodging trash bins and ducking low between back alleyways lined with cracked pavement and chain-link fences. I’m sweating and shaky and can barely think past the words repeating in my head—he’s going to die, he’s going to die, he’s going to die.
“There,” Neve says suddenly, grabbing my arm and yanking me toward a nondescript silver sedan tucked between two dumpsters. She crouches low and circles the car with a quiet, calculated calm I can’t even fake.
“Be my lookout,” she mutters, already pulling something sharp from her pocket—a hairpin, maybe—and going to work. I look closer. It’s not a hairpin it’s the steak knife.
I spin in place like an idiot, trying to figure out where the hell I’m supposed to look. Down the alley? The street? Up at the goddamn sky? I’ve stolen wallets. Watches. Purses. Whatever Vick taught me to when I was a kid. But never a car. It’s not the kind of thing you can get quick money for.
I hear something a few feet away—shuffling, low to the ground.
My panic spikes so fast it almost chokes me.
I spin toward the sound, heart slamming, breath caught in my throat like it’s trying to suffocate me.
A skinny, orange cat darts out from behind a trash bin, startled by my movement.
It hisses, fur bristling, and bolts down the alley.
My panic doesn’t ease. It mounts—curling in tight, nauseating knots under my ribs.
I can’t take a full breath. My hands are shaking.
“Neve,” I whisper, desperate, “please tell me you’re almost done.”
And then—click. The engine hums to life. Relief crashes through me so hard I nearly buckle. I scramble to the passenger door and wrench it open.
Neve eases the car out of the alley with the kind of smooth, practiced quiet that makes me wonder how many times she’s had to do this. Her eyes flick to the rearview, her jaw tight.
We don’t say a word until we’ve turned the corner and put a full block between us and the alley.
Then I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for a year.
“Go straight for two more blocks,” I tell her, voice still shaking. “Then make a left onto the expressway.”
She nods and punches the gas. The silence that follows is thick and vibrating, broken only by the hum of the stolen engine and the pounding of my heart.
“They’re going to be okay… right?” My voice cracks even though I try to keep it steady. It barely comes out above a whisper.
Neve glances away from the road for just a second, her eyes meeting mine.
And that flicker of uncertainty in her expression guts me.
“I never met him,” she says quietly. “But the stories I’ve heard…
Damian never talks about it, but Delilah did.
And even then, it felt like she was pulling her punches. ”
My chest aches. “What did he do?”
Neve exhales, looking back at the road, her hands tightening on the wheel.
“Delilah told me once… when she first started having memory problems.” Neve’s voice is low, almost reverent, like she’s handling something sacred and broken.
“She said Clay used to lock them in a crawlspace in the basement to discipline them. Damian. Bridger. Cody. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes overnight. No lights. No food.”
My stomach twists. I picture them—young, terrified, in the dark. My Damian, barely more than a boy.
Neve swallows. “She said it always came after the belt. But not just the strap part. He used the side with the buckle. Hit them until they bled. And then he’d drag them to that space and leave them there. Still bleeding.”
I cover my mouth, trying to breathe through the wave of nausea.
“She said sometimes they’d pass out. From the pain. Or hunger. Or both. And when Clay let them out, they were expected to thank him. For ‘correcting’ them. For making them men.”
Tears sting my eyes. My throat is too tight to speak.
“She didn’t do anything to stop him?” I ask, my voice brittle and too loud in the confined car. “Delilah?”
Neve lets out a breath. “You know one of the ways people get early onset dementia?” she asks, eyes fixed on the road. “Repeated trauma to the head.”
That makes me freeze.
“It increases the risk of developing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. CTE. It’s a form of early-onset dementia, and it’s usually linked to pro athletes. Boxers. Football players. People who get hit in the head over and over.”
My skin goes cold.
“It didn’t sound like Delilah had it any better than her sons,” Neve continues.
I don’t know what to say.
Damian never talks about his childhood. Not in full.
Just the edges of it—sharp enough to cut, but never enough to see the whole wound.
But there’s always been this deep rage in him.
Not anger. Rage. Like something old and feral trying to drag him under.
And this desperate need for me to be safe.
For him to be in control. For the world to be ordered and quiet—at least around me.
Now I understand why.
It’s not just protection. It’s survival. It's penance. It's him trying to rewrite the ending he never got. And suddenly I feel it in my chest—what it means to love a man like that. Someone stitched together with broken glass and fury. Someone who would burn the world to keep me warm.
My chest tightens. I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Neve, drive faster.”
We hit traffic. It doesn’t make sense—a two-lane road, middle of nowhere, and cars slowing to a crawl like the air got heavy. I shoot forward in my seat, straining to see past the cars in front of us. “What the hell is this?” I breathe.
Neve doesn’t answer. She yanks the wheel hard to the right and jerks us onto the shoulder.
My head knocks against the side window as we bump and grind over gravel and dips in the dirt. I grip the dash, my heart slamming so hard it rattles my ribs.
“Neve—”
“We don’t have time,” she snaps, eyes razor-sharp. “I’m not losing Bridger.”
I don’t argue with that. I get it.
My panic is bubbling over now, my skin hot and tight, my vision too bright. I feel everything. Every bump. Every jolt. The way the seatbelt cuts into my chest with each bounce. I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my own skin.
I reach for the glove compartment and yank it open, desperate for something. Anything.