Epilogue #3
“I built myself out of nothing,” I said. “No father with a checkbook. No mother smoothing my path. No family name. No safety net. No one opening doors unless I kicked hard enough to make them unlock.”
Lance’s mouth tightened. “You have no foundation.”
Something in me snapped hot and ugly.
“No foundation? ?Yo soy la puta base!” I roared. “I am the fucking foundation.”
Charm’s breath shook.
Lance stared at me for a long second, and something close to hate moved behind his eyes. I could work with hate. Hate told the truth faster than manners ever did.
“You’re proving my point,” he said.
“No.” I pushed off the desk and straightened, rolling my shoulders once to keep the worst of my temper from climbing my throat. “I’m refusing to prove yours.”
Lance turned his attention to Charm then, and the shift pissed me off more than anything he’d said to me.
Because he didn’t look at her like she was a person. He looked at her like she was territory he needed to reclaim.
“Charm,” he said, his voice softening into something patient and poisonous. “Sweetheart, you need to think very carefully about what you’re allowing into your life.”
She stared at him.
Her fingers still gripped the door. Her face was too pale. Her eyes were wet, furious, scared, torn so wide open I could see every invisible string this house had tied around her ribs.
I waited.
That was the worst part.
I waited like an idiot. Not because I needed her to throw herself between us.
Not because I needed her to scream or burn down her family or choose me in some dramatic speech that fixed everything.
I just needed one sentence. One honest sentence in a room where her father had just stripped me down to everything he thought made me unworthy.
“Dile que importo. Dile que soy algo para ti.” I said the words softly, to her but also to myself.
Tell him I matter. Tell him I’m something to you. Tell him I’m yours. Tell him he doesn’t get to talk about me like that. Tell him anything, mi hada.
Charm’s mouth opened as Lance’s gaze sharpened on her.
Her mother reached for her arm from the hallway. “Darling, let’s not make this worse.”
Charm looked at her mother, then at her father.
Then at me.
The fight in her face flickered. It was there.
Holy fuck, it was there. I could see it trying to claw its way out from under every lesson this house had beaten into her without ever lifting a hand.
Her chin lifted. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach for me. Her breath came in shaky and fast.
I held still and gave her the space to do it.
Lance watched her with calm certainty, like he already knew which way she’d bend, and that was when the first real crack opened in me.
Because she looked down toward the rug between us.
The room didn’t explode. The lights didn’t flicker. Lance didn’t smile, not fully. He didn’t have to.
I saw the satisfaction move through his face anyway. I saw it, and I understood something with a clarity that hurt worse than his words ever could.
This was trained into her.
I stepped back from the desk.
Charm’s eyes snapped up. “Ryan.”
I hated the panic in her voice and that some part of me still wanted to answer it.
I dragged my thumb along my bottom lip and laughed once, low and empty. “Right.”
She took one step into the study. “Wait.”
“Basta, Charm.” My voice came out calm, which meant I was closer to losing it than I wanted anyone in that room to know. “I got my answer.”
Her face crumpled. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I know, mi hada. You didn’t have to.”
That hit her harder than if I’d yelled.
Lance’s hand slid into his pocket, controlled again now that the blade was back in Charm’s hand. “Ryan, perhaps it would be best if you took a moment to cool off.”
I looked at him, and every violent thing in me went quiet enough to be dangerous.
“You don’t tell me what’s best.”
Then I looked at Charm.
She stood between us in that pretty sweater with pearl buttons, trembling like the whole house had turned against her even though all it had done was behave exactly the way I always knew it would.
I wanted to pull her into me.
I wanted to shake her.
I wanted to ask her why the fuck she brought me here if she wasn’t ready to stand beside me when it got ugly.
Instead, I nodded once.
“I’m going to leave before I say something you can’t forgive.”
“Ryan, please.”
I walked past her.
She reached for my sleeve, but her fingers barely caught the fabric before I moved out of reach. Not cruel. Not dramatic. Just enough distance to keep myself from turning around and begging a girl who still couldn’t say what I was to her with her father watching.
Her mother stepped out of the way as I entered the hall.
No one stopped me.
That almost made me laugh.
A house full of people so worried about manners, and not one of them knew what to do with a man who refused to stay and be carved up politely.
I grabbed my coat from the entry bench. The marble floor shone beneath my shoes, spotless enough to reflect the chandelier, cold enough to make the whole house feel staged. Behind me, I heard Charm say my name again, softer this time, breaking around the edges.
I didn’t turn. If I turned, I’d see her face. If I saw her face, I’d give her another chance to cut me.
The front door opened beneath my hand, and winter rushed in like the night had been pressing its mouth to the other side, waiting. Cold air swept across the foyer, sharp and honest, cutting through the expensive heat of the house.
I stepped outside and shut the door behind me with more force than manners allowed.
The sound cracked through the porch, but I didn’t care. Let them hear something break.
Snow crusted along the edges of the driveway, bright beneath the security lights. The gates stood at the end of the long drive, iron and useless, like this family needed one more way to pretend the world only entered when they permitted it.
I made it halfway down the front steps before the door opened behind me.
“Ryan.”
Her voice hit my back.
I kept walking.
“Ryan, stop.”
I crossed the driveway toward my truck with my keys already in my hand, my jaw locked so tightly the pain crawled into my temples.
My breath fogged in front of me, white and sharp in the cold.
I hadn’t put my coat on. Didn’t feel it.
The cold wasn’t shit compared to the heat tearing through my chest.
She was behind me, following now. Finding her voice now. Running after me across her perfect stone driveway now, after standing silent in that study while her father tried to carve me down to foster care, tattoos, bad blood, bad manners, bad odds, and a future too ugly to stand beside hers.
No foundation.
I reached the truck and yanked the driver’s door open when Charm grabbed the edge before I could climb in.
“Don’t leave like this.”
I turned on her so fast she flinched.
Maybe she needed to. Maybe she needed to see the part of me her father thought he could name. The part raised by streets, bad houses, locked doors, and people who taught me early that if someone spit in your face and you allowed it, they came back to see what else they could take.
“Move,” I said.
Her throat worked. “No.”
I laughed, dark and ugly. “Now you’ve got a voice?”
Pain flashed across her face. “That’s not fair.”
“Don’t say fair to me.” I stepped into her space, forcing her back against the open truck door while she still gripped the metal like she could hold me there by force. “Don’t you fucking dare stand here after what just happened in that house and talk to me about fair.”
Her eyes filled. “I froze.”
“You failed me.”
The words hit her hard. Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out, and that only made the rage burn hotter.
“You failed me, Charm.” My voice dropped low enough to shake. “Don’t pretty it up. Don’t cry at me like that changes what happened. Don’t hand me your fear and expect me to carry it after you left me standing in that room alone.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you meant.” My voice cracked across the driveway, sharp enough to cut through the quiet. “Intentions don’t mean shit when I’m the one bleeding from what you didn’t say.”
She shook her head fast, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Ryan, please, I wanted to say something. I wanted to defend you. I just didn’t know how.”
“You didn’t know how?” I stared at her, my laugh coming out mean because if I didn’t laugh, I was going to put my fist through the side of my truck.
“Your father stood there and called me chaos. Said I didn’t belong with you.
Said your future was too good to risk on me.
He used your dreams like a leash and wrapped it around my throat, and you want me to understand you didn’t know how to say, ‘He’s mine’? ”
She covered her mouth.
“No.” I caught her wrist before her hand could hide her face. Not rough enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop the escape. “Don’t hide from me. Mírame.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, wet and wrecked.
Let her see the fury. Let her see the insult.
Let her see the offended disappointment sitting beneath my ribs like a loaded gun.
Let her see I wasn’t some wounded boy waiting for her to kiss my scars and call that love.
I was a grown man with pride, and tonight she’d let her father put his boot on it.
“Do you have any idea how mad I am at you?” I asked.
Her breath shook.
“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand what you did because you’re standing here asking me to stop like I’m the one who made this ugly.
” I let go of her wrist and pointed back at the house glowing behind her.
“Fuck them, Charm. Do you get that? Fuck their opinion. Fuck their money. Fuck their table, their silver, their perfect family pictures, their connections, their country-club bullshit, all of it. I only cared what they thought because you cared.”
Her face crumpled.