Chapter Eighteen #2
Knox goes still. But he doesn’t soften.
“The deal is the trap,” he says. “She doesn’t need us alive after she gets what she wants. Right now the diamond is the only
thing keeping us breathing.”
“Or we find a way out before it comes to that,” Liam argues. “Get out of here—with the diamond if we can, without it if we
have to. But sitting here refusing to engage isn’t a strategy, it’s a death wish.”
“I’m not refusing to engage. I’m refusing to hand her the one card we’re holding.”
“You’re gambling with Hailey’s life.”
“You’re gambling with all our lives by refusing to consider the obvious solution.”
They’re squaring off now, and I can feel the tension ratcheting up. Different from their fight earlier—less about old wounds,
more about strategy—but just as volatile.
“Stop,” I say, stepping between them with my hands up. “Both of you. She’s watching us right now. This is exactly what she wants.”
They don’t back down, but they stop advancing.
“Ten days,” I continue. “We have ten days. We use the time to figure out our options, look for weaknesses, come up with something
better than ‘give her what she wants and pray.’ ” I look at Knox. “And something better than ‘refuse to cooperate and hope
for a miracle.’ ”
Neither of them responds, but some of the fight drains out of their postures.
“Can we do that?” I ask. “Can we at least try to work together?”
Liam nods slowly. Knox doesn’t, but he steps back, which I’ll take as agreement.
“Fine,” Knox says. “We assess. We plan. But I’m not agreeing to hand over the diamond until we’ve exhausted every other possibility.”
“And if we come up empty?” Liam asks.
“Then we revisit.”
It’s not a yes, but it’s not a flat no either.
Outside the windows, the light is already fading. The days are short this far north, and the afternoon has bled into evening
without any of us noticing. We’ve been talking in circles for hours, going over the same arguments, reaching the same dead
ends.
The bed dominates one corner of the room. King-size, piled with pillows, dressed in white sheets that look obscenely inviting
after everything we’ve been through today. The couch faces the fireplace. The floor stretches between them.
One bed. Three people. Cameras watching from somewhere we can’t find.
Nobody mentions the obvious. If it were just Knox and me, we’d climb into that bed together without a second thought.
We’ve already slept wrapped around each other.
Already woken up tangled in sheets that smelled like both of us.
But Liam is standing by the fireplace, and Knox is standing by the window, and suddenly the math doesn’t work anymore.
Knox glances at the bed. Then at me. Then—just for a second—at Liam.
“I’ll take the couch,” he says.
The words land wrong. Too casual. Too quick. Like he’d rehearsed them.
“Knox,” I start, but I don’t know how to finish. What am I supposed to say? Sleep with me anyway? Ignore the fact that my ex is three feet away? Pretend this isn’t incredibly fucking weird?
Liam saves me from having to figure it out. “I’ll take the floor,” he says, already grabbing blankets from the closet. “Done
it plenty of times.”
But there’s something in his voice too. Something careful. He’s not looking at either of us, focusing instead on arranging
the blankets into a pallet near the fire.
The silence stretches. Knox still hasn’t moved toward the couch.
“This is stupid,” I say. “That bed is huge. We’re adults. We can just—”
“It’s fine,” Knox cuts me off. His jaw is tight. “Get some sleep, Hailey.”
He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Liam. And Liam is very deliberately not looking back.
I’m not part of what’s happening right now. Some unspoken negotiation I don’t have the decoder ring for. Knox on the couch.
Liam on the floor. Me alone in a bed big enough for three.
Nobody’s happy about it. But nobody’s willing to be the one who suggests the alternative.
Knox settles onto the couch with a grunt, trying to fold his frame into a space clearly not designed for someone his size.
His feet hang off the armrest. He shifts, trying to find a position that works, and I can already tell he’s going to wake
up with a knotted back.
I want to tell him to stop being an idiot. I want to pull him into the bed and curl against his chest and let the warmth of him drown out everything else.
But Liam is right there. Watching. Pretending not to watch.
And Knox won’t cross that line. Not with an audience. Not when everything between us is still so new and undefined.
I climb into the bed alone.
The sheets are obscenely soft. Cool against my skin at first, then warming. Too much space on either side of me, too many
pillows. I grab two and toss them—one to Knox on the couch, one to Liam by the fire. Neither of them says thank you. Neither
of them needed to be told. But the bed is still too big. Designed for bodies tangled together instead of one woman lying awake
and staring at the ceiling.
From across the room, I can see Knox’s silhouette on the couch. He’s not sleeping. I can tell by the tension in his shoulders,
the way he shifts every few minutes trying to find a position that doesn’t hurt.
Liam is a dark shape near the fireplace, wrapped in his blanket. I can’t tell if he’s asleep or just pretending.
Three people in one room. Close enough to touch. Choosing not to.
I think about Knox following me across a border because he couldn’t stand not knowing where I was. The tracker in my boot
that should make me furious but mostly makes me feel . . . I don’t know . . . The way he looked at me when I told him the
truth about my past—not with disgust or judgment, but with what appeared to be relief.
I think about Liam, who showed up after five years and turned my life upside down. Who looked at me like no time had passed.
Who’s hiding something—I can feel it, even if I can’t prove it—but who also looked genuinely terrified when they dragged him
out of his room.
I think about the two of them together. Their history I don’t fully understand, the tension that runs underneath everything they say to each other. Knox pinning Liam against the wall, and the heat that flared in both their eyes before they remembered I was watching.
Marlena sees it too. That’s why she put us here. One bed, one room, nowhere to go. She wants to watch us circle each other,
wants to see what happens when the pressure builds and something breaks.
I won’t give her the satisfaction.
But lying here alone, listening to them breathe in the darkness, I can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to not
be alone. Knox’s body warm against my back. Liam’s hand on my hip. Both of them here, with me, in this bed that’s too big
for one person.
I close my eyes and try to make my brain shut up.
From the couch, I hear Knox shift again. A soft exhale.
Then Liam’s voice, barely audible. “You awake?”
A pause. “Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Silence. The fire pops, sending a brief flare of light across the ceiling.
“This is fucked,” Liam says quietly.
“Yep,” Knox agrees.
“You really think she’ll do it? Kill one of us?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Yeah,” Knox says. “I do.”
More silence. I hold my breath, not wanting them to know I’m listening.
“Then maybe I’m right,” Liam says. “Maybe we should just tell her.”
“And maybe she kills us anyway once she has what she wants.”
Knox doesn’t say anything else. The quiet stretches out, filled only with the wind and my own heartbeat loud in my ears.
“Get some sleep,” Knox says. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Liam says. “Tomorrow.”
The cabin settles into silence.
I lie there in the dark, in my too-soft sheets, and think about ten days. About Christmas Eve and deadlines and a woman who’s
working on her impulse control.
About the two men across the room, awake like I am, carrying the same weight.
Tomorrow we’ll plan. Tomorrow we’ll strategize. Tomorrow we’ll try to find a way out of this that doesn’t end with one of
us dead.
But tonight, all I can do is listen to them breathe and wish I wasn’t alone.