6 #4
“I am destroyed,” he said again, quieter and meaner because softness embarrassed him now. “And you keep standing there like I did that to myself.”
My eyes burned, but I smiled through it because if I let the hurt show, everyone in the kitchen would know exactly how close he had gotten to something I could not afford to hand him. “Maybe you did.”
His face went blank.
Bliss whispered my name like she could stop the damage after it had already left my mouth.
I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
He had dragged me to the edge, and if I was going over it, I was taking the entire room with me.
“You want to know whose mistakes you paid for?” I asked.
Easton didn’t blink.
I let the silence stretch until it shook. “Yours. Because you were stupid enough to think being good to me meant I owed you anything.”
The words landed exactly where I aimed them.
I watched him absorb the hit. The last open thing in his face folded shut as the pain disappeared and something colder took its place.
Cade muttered, “Fuck, Aura.”
Bliss made a broken sound beside Charm, who looked straight shook by my coldness.
Easton nodded once, slow and empty. “Right.”
I wanted to take it back the second I saw it land. I wanted to reach across the space between us and shove the words back into my mouth before they found another weapon, before they carved that look into his face and made it permanent.
I wanted him to yell so I could yell back because yelling would have been easier than watching him go quiet.
He didn’t.
Easton looked at me with a coldness I had earned, every open part of him disappearing behind it, and said, “Message received, Clarke.”
The name hit harder than it should have.
Clarke was the wall he built when Aura started costing too much. Hearing it now felt like watching him lock the last door from the other side.
Not Aura.
Not after that.
Maybe never again.
The thought nearly bent me in half, so I turned away before anyone could see it.
Bliss moved immediately. “Ay—”
“Do not call me that right now.”
She stopped like I had shoved her.
I kept walking because if I remained in that kitchen another second, I would either break or go back and make sure Easton did.
My fingers dug into my jacket pocket for my phone, shaking so badly I nearly lost my grip. Charm said my name behind me, soft and wrecked, and I hated that softness.
I hated that she got to sound hurt after handing him the corner of a truth I had not given her permission to share.
I made it two steps into the hallway before Easton’s voice followed me.
“That’s it?”
I didn’t stop.
His laugh cracked through the kitchen, ugly and hollow. “That’s really it? You cut me open in front of everyone and now you walk away?”
Cade said his name quietly, but Easton didn’t listen.
Movement erupted behind me—a chair leg scraped tile, Briggs muttered something under his breath, and Ryan’s voice came sharper than it had all night.
I still didn’t turn around.
Easton’s voice rose. “You don’t get to do that, Clarke.”
The name hit the center of my back like a thrown blade, but I kept moving.
“You don’t get to stand there and make me the asshole for caring, make me the asshole for getting too close to whatever the fuck you won’t tell me, then leave when you get backed into a corner.”
My hand tightened around my phone.
Charm whispered, “Easton, don’t.”
That stopped me more than his voice had.
She sounded afraid of what he was about to say, like she already knew he was aiming toward the place my trauma hid and was about to swing.
Like everyone in the kitchen had spent the last five minutes treating my locked door as an inconvenience, and now they wanted to protect me from whatever came crashing through it.
Easton laughed again without a trace of humor. “Feels like this means something.”
My chest caved around the words.
I turned slowly enough to pretend it was a choice and not the impact.
Easton stood in the kitchen with Cade in front of him and Briggs close at his side. His face was flushed beneath the fury, his eyes too bright, cruel, and hurt. The coldness from a moment ago had cracked apart, and every ugly, broken piece of him stood exposed before everyone.
I curled my fingers tighter around my phone. “Fuck you.”
His smile vanished. “You did.”
Bliss gasped. “Easton.”
Cade shoved a hand against Easton’s chest and forced him backward. “Enough.”
The room broke open after that.
Briggs caught Easton from the side, the joke burned completely from his face, while Rider secured one shoulder when Easton shifted forward again. Ryan moved quickly from the island, putting his body between Easton and me so Easton would have to go through him to reach me.
Charm had both hands around my arm before I realized she had crossed the room. Bliss stood half in front of me, crying now, but the look on her face wasn’t only fear.
It was disappointment.
I could survive Easton’s hatred and the entire house watching.
I did not know what to do with Bliss looking at me like she had finally reached the edge of defending my damage.
And maybe that was Cade too. Maybe she had spent so long loving a man who understood Easton’s pain that she had finally decided mine no longer excused anything.
“Ask her,” Easton said, breathing hard and staring at me over Cade’s shoulder. “Ask her why she cares.”
“Easton,” Cade warned.
“No.” Easton shoved Cade’s hand from his chest, not hard enough to hurt him but hard enough to remind everyone he wasn’t finished. “She wanted a reaction. She got one.”
Bliss pulled on my arm. “Aura, come on.”
I couldn’t move.
Easton stepped around Cade, and Briggs caught him before he made it more than half a step. “Don’t.”
Easton shook him off enough to keep his eyes on me. “Why do I need to remain single for your fucking ego?”
The words ripped through the kitchen and into the silent living room beyond it.
My breath left me.
“Tell me,” he said. “Why do I have to stand in a corner untouched so you don’t have to watch me survive losing you? Why does Brinley touching my chest make you look like you want to burn the house down, but Gage’s hands on you are supposed to be fair?”
“Easton,” Bliss cried.
He heard her. Guilt flashed across his face, but it could not get through the rest of him.
“You didn’t want me,” he said, his voice breaking around the words. “You made damn sure I knew that. So why do I have to stay alone? Why do I need to stay loyal to you when you never once gave it to me in return?”
I opened my mouth, but the words stayed trapped behind my ribs.
My silence was somehow worse than anything I could have said.
His face twisted, and for half a second, I saw what my silence had done to him over and over again.
Then the cold returned.