The Rules Between Them #2
“What did you tell her?”
“That her father didn’t know about her.”
His attention snapped back to me.
“You told her that?”
“I wasn’t going to teach her that you abandoned her when you didn’t.”
Silence.
Cole looked away.
Ryder stared at me for several seconds.
“You could’ve.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
Something passed between us then.
Small.
Dangerous.
Gratitude, maybe.
Or the memory of who we had been before everything went wrong.
He rubbed his thumb over the scar on his knuckle.
“When do we tell her?”
“When this is safer.”
“That could take weeks.”
“Then it takes weeks.”
His eyes held mine.
“All right.”
Again.
No fight.
My shoulders loosened slightly.
Knox moved closer to the table.
“My rule.”
I looked at him.
“If something feels wrong, you tell us.”
“I do.”
“No,” he said. “You decide whether it’s serious enough first. Then you tell someone after you’ve already handled half of it yourself.”
I opened my mouth.
Stopped.
Cole laughed under his breath.
“See?”
“You don’t know me.”
Knox’s gaze remained steady.
“I know you came here only after someone followed you three times.”
I looked toward Ryder.
He had told them.
Of course he had.
Knox continued.
“You found a note under your windshield wiper Monday. You changed your route Tuesday. Somebody sat outside Lily’s school Wednesday.”
My stomach tightened.
“And you still went to work Thursday.”
“I had clients.”
“You had someone hunting you.”
“We don’t know that.”
“No,” Knox said. “You’re right. Maybe they were collecting information for a scrapbook.”
“Knox.”
Ryder’s warning was quiet.
Knox lifted his palms.
But the point remained.
I rubbed two fingers against my temple.
“Fine. If something feels wrong, I tell you.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes.”
Cole slid off the counter.
“My rule is simple.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“No disappearing.”
Every trace of humor left his face.
I looked at him.
“If you get scared, angry, overwhelmed, whatever, you don’t pack Lily into a car and vanish.”
My back stiffened.
“That sounds less like a safety rule and more like a personal issue.”
“It’s both.”
His gaze did not leave mine.
“You disappear, we can’t protect you.”
The words carried more than the present threat.
They carried five years.
I looked from Cole to Knox, then Ryder.
It hit me then.
I had not disappeared from one man.
I had disappeared from all of them.
Whatever complicated thing had existed between us before I left had been messy, unfinished and far too intense for me to name.
But I had been part of their world.
Then one morning I had not been.
“I had reasons.”
Ryder looked at me.
“I believe you.”
That landed harder than anger would have.
“You don’t even know them.”
“No.”
“Then how can you believe me?”
“Because you wouldn’t have kept Lily from me for fun.”
My eyes burned.
I looked down before anyone could notice.
Too late.
Cole turned toward the coffee machine.
Knox suddenly became interested in his phone.
Ryder stayed exactly where he was.
Giving me space.
That might have been the worst thing he could do.
Kindness had always been harder for me to defend against.
A small voice came from the doorway.
“Mom?”
I turned.
Lily stood at the foot of the stairs in dinosaur pajamas someone had found for her, hair messy on one side.
I was out of the chair before I realized I had moved.
“What happened?”
She rubbed one eye.
“I woke up.”
“That’s usually how sleeping ends.”
She frowned.
Cole whispered, “Tough crowd.”
Lily noticed him and smiled.
Then she looked at Ryder.
The smile faded into curiosity.
He became very still.
I crouched beside her.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“Can I have water?”
“Of course.”
Before I could stand, Ryder picked up the untouched bottle beside him.
He stopped halfway toward her.
Looked at me.
Asked permission without saying anything.
That tiny gesture cracked something open.
I nodded.
He crouched several feet away from Lily and held the bottle out.
“Here.”
She walked to him.
My entire body went rigid.
Not because I thought he would hurt her.
Because I knew he wouldn’t.
That was somehow more frightening.
Lily took the bottle.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She studied the patch on his leather vest.
“Is that your motorcycle outside?”
“The black one.”
“There are four black ones.”
Cole covered his mouth.
Ryder glanced toward him.
“Apparently I need a better answer.”
Lily pointed through the window.
“The big one with silver on it?”
“That’s mine.”
She took another drink.
“I like it.”
His eyes flickered toward me.
I remembered what I had said earlier.
She likes anything loud enough to annoy me.
A smile reached his face this time.
Not the hard half-smile I remembered.
Something softer.
Almost stunned.
Lily yawned.
I held out my hand.
“Back to bed.”
She reached for me.
Then stopped.
Looked at Ryder again.
“Are you staying here?”
He glanced at me before answering.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She slipped her hand into mine.
We started toward the stairs.
“Mara.”
I looked back.
Ryder stood beside the table.
The rules were still there between us.
So were the secrets.
The hurt.
The years.
But something else had joined them.
A beginning I had not agreed to.
A possibility I did not know how to refuse.
“We’ll keep you both safe,” he said.
I should have told him not to make promises.
Instead, I looked at the man my daughter did not yet know was her father, then at the two men standing behind him who had once meant almost as much to me.
And for the first time since the black SUV started appearing outside my apartment, I believed I might actually sleep.
That frightened me more than the threat outside.
Because safety could become trust.
Trust could become dependence.
And dependence had always been the first step toward losing something I could not afford to lose again.
Lily tugged my hand.
“Mom?”
“I’m coming.”
I climbed the stairs with her.
Halfway up, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I stopped.
Unknown number.
One message.
A photograph loaded beneath it.
Lily walking out of school that afternoon.
My hand tightened around the phone.
Then the text appeared.
The bikers can’t watch her forever.
I looked down toward the kitchen.
Ryder was already watching me.
And from the way his expression changed, he knew something had happened before I said a word.
I turned the screen toward him.
Whatever fragile peace we had created around that table disappeared.
Ryder read the message once.
Then he looked at Knox.
“Find out who sent it.”
Knox was already moving.
Cole reached for his jacket.
Ryder came toward the stairs, stopping two steps below me.
Close enough that I could see the small scar beside his eyebrow.
Close enough to remember things I had spent five years forgetting.
“New rule,” he said quietly.
I held Lily’s hand tighter.
“What?”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Until we end this, nobody gets near either of you.”
And for once, I did not argue.