21. Stone
I don’t know whose place it is when we pull up.
Third floor. Narrow balconies. It’s too quiet for how hard my pulse is pounding. I kill the bike and swing off, my hands shaking so bad I almost drop my helmet.
“Don’t blow it,” Bruiser mutters, but his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.
I don’t answer. I see the sedan with the university sticker.
Rasmus.
Of course it’s him.
I take the stairs three at a time, my boots echoing like gunfire in the narrow stairwell. I’m not the President of the Broken Halos right now. I’m just a man who can’t breathe.
I don’t knock. I hammer on the door until it jerks open. Rasmus starts to say something—his face is tight, protective—but I don’t even see him. I shoulder past him, my eyes frantically searching the small, clean space until they land on her.
She’s curled in the corner of the couch. Small. Broken. Her eyes are red, her cheeks streaked with the kind of quiet, exhausted tears that tell me she’s been crying since the moment she left the club.
The sight of it hits me harder than a physical blow. My legs literally give out.
I hit the floor in front of her, my knees cracking against the hardwood, but I don’t feel it. I’m already reaching for her, my hands hovering in the air because I’m terrified that if I touch her, she’ll flinch.
“Lex,” I choke out. Her name is a jagged edge in my throat.
She looks at me, and for a split second, there’s a flicker of the girl who sat in my lap yesterday. Then it’s gone, replaced by a hollow, agonizing hurt that makes me want to rip my own heart out of my chest just to stop the feeling.
“Please,” I whisper, the word sounding small and pathetic. “Please, Lex. Just look at me.”
“You need to leave,” Rasmus says from behind me. I can hear the threat in his voice, but I don’t care. He could kill me where I kneel and I wouldn’t blink.
“I’m not leaving,” I say, my voice raw and cracking. I’m pleading now, my pride stripped bare in front of a man I don’t even know. “I just need five minutes. Baby, please.”
The room is suffocatingly silent until Lex finally speaks.
“Rasmus,” she murmurs. She doesn’t look away from me.
“Lex, you don’t have to—”
“I need to hear him,” she says. It’s not a command; it’s a plea of her own. She needs the lie to be a lie as much as I do.
Rasmus exhales, his jaw tight enough to snap.
He retreats, and the silence that follows is even worse. I follow her into a small spare room. The second the door clicks shut, I break.
“I was trying to keep you safe,” I say, the words tearing out of me, rough and jagged. I’m moving toward her, my hands open, pleading. “I killed the charter deal with the Romanians today. Lex, baby, think about yesterday. You sat in my lap and then you told me exactly what they were planning. You’re the reason I’m shutting them down. You’re the only witness to what they said.”
Her arms fold around herself, her fingers digging into the sleeves of her sweater.
“So you erased me,” she says. Her voice is a hollow whisper, more painful than a scream.
“I had to hide the source,” I admit, and the truth tastes bitter. “If those men realized you understood their language—if they had even a suspicion that you were the reason the deal died—they wouldn’t just be angry. They’d come for you.”
I step closer, my voice fraying at the edges, desperate for her to see the nightmare I was trying to prevent.
“I had to make sure they saw you as nothing more than a distraction. I needed them to believe I was making my own decisions for my own reasons, and that you were just... incidental. If they think you’re irrelevant to the business, they have no reason to look at you twice.”
I reach for her, needing to anchor us to something real—
She flinches.
It’s slight—a sharp, instinctive pull-back—but it hits me harder than a bullet. I freeze, my hand hanging useless in the air between us.
“I should’ve told you,” I choke out, the pride I usually wear like armor lying in ruins at my feet. “I should’ve trusted you to handle the truth instead of making the call alone. I was so blinded by the need to get the target off your back that I didn’t see I was putting a knife in your heart myself. I chose the fastest way to keep you safe, and I didn’t think about what it would cost to keep you mine.”
Her eyes shine, glass-bright, and I know that look. She’s holding herself together by force.
“You gave me your name this morning,” she says. “Do you know what that meant to me?”
My throat tightens. “Everything.”
“And then I watched you with someone else.”
I shake my head hard. “I hated it. I pushed her away the second they left. Baby, there was nothing there—nothing but fear. I swear to you, it meant nothing.”
Her breath stutters. For a moment she looks like she might break again, like the hurt is too big to carry.
Then something shifts.
Her sadness hardens into anger, sharp and bright and alive.
“You don’t get to decide alone,” she says, stepping closer now, not away. “You don’t get to claim me and then pretend I don’t exist when it suits you.”
“I know,” I say immediately. “And I will never do it again.”
The silence that follows is brutal. Loud with everything we’re not saying.
She opens her mouth, and I see it—see the exact second she’s about to end this, to tell me it’s over, to walk out and take every good thing in my life with her.
“Stone—” she begins.
I cut her off, firm but low: “Don’t call me that.”
Her brows pull together. “Stone—”
“No,” I repeat, stepping closer, careful this time, slow, giving her room to pull away if she needs to. “Don’t say it. Don’t give up on us. I won’t let go of the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I was scared and stupid for one damn hour.”
Her breath catches.
“I’ll earn it back,” I go on, voice rough, pleading now and not ashamed of it. “Your trust. Your faith in me. However long it takes. But don’t end us over something I did to keep you alive.”
She searches my face, like she’s trying to decide if I’m worth the risk of believing again.
The seconds stretch thin.
Then she exhales, long and shaky.
“Let’s go home.”
The word hits me like a blow.
Home.
My chest floods with something so intense it almost drops me again.
I don’t trust my voice. I just nod, too hard, joy and relief slamming into me all at once.
But she isn’t done.
She steps into my space, finger pressing into my chest.
“Cole,” she says, eyes sharp now. “If you ever pull shit like that again—if you hide me, erase me, or let someone else touch you to ‘protect’ me—”
“I won’t,” I say.
“You won’t get the chance,” she finishes coolly. “I’ll be out of the country before Cyber finishes typing my name.”
A breath of something like laughter escapes me — reverent, shaken.
I nod.
She studies me for a moment longer, then softens just enough to undo me completely.
We walk back into the living room together.
Rasmus straightens immediately, posture shifting from casual to alert in a heartbeat. His eyes sweep over me, sharp and assessing, then settle on Lex. Protective. Reluctant. Like he’s not entirely sure he trusts the world not to break her.
I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Lex, though… her hand slides into mine, warm and certain. The contact grounds me, keeps the tight coil of irritation and possessiveness from snapping completely. She’s here. With me. Despite him.
“You okay?” Rasmus asks, voice calm but firm. The kind that tells me he’s ready to step in if needed, though he has no idea what he’s walking into.
“I am,” she says. Then, quietly, “I’m leaving now. But… thank you. For being here. For everything.”
Rasmus nods, a small, approving tilt of his head. “Always. You know that. You’re welcome here anytime, Lex. Anytime you need—”
I scoff and roll my eyes so hard I can practically feel the irritation coiling through my chest. Yeah, sure… she’s welcome here anytime. Try it, and we’ll see how that works out.
Lex shoots me a look sharp enough to cut glass. “Stone,” she warns, narrowing her eyes.
I smirk, letting it slide, but my chest tightens. Every second she’s around someone else who thinks he can step in, I taste it like fire. And yet, Rasmus… he’s solid. He’s careful. He’s not a threat. I know that. But still—I don’t like it.
Her fingers tighten around mine, warm, certain. A reminder. She’s here with me. The rest of the world can step back. I can feel Rasmus giving me a subtle nod, acknowledging the boundary without words. He gets it. Fine. Good. But he’s also aware—I don’t need him stepping over the line. And he won’t.
I let my smirk soften just enough, my thumb brushing over her hand. Quietly, privately. Mine.
Bruiser is leaning against one of the bikes when we step outside.
He takes one look at Lex’s hand in mine, the set of her shoulders, the way she’s already angled toward me like a decision’s been made — and his mouth twitches.
“Well,” he drawls, pushing off the railing. “Look at that. Took you long enough.”
Lex snorts softly.
I shoot him a warning look.Bruiser just grins wider. He tips his chin at Lex. “You good?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Good,” he says, already stepping back. “Ride safe.”
As if I wouldn’t.
I hand her a helmet, help her secure it, my hands lingering just a second longer than necessary at her jaw. When she swings onto the bike behind me, she presses close without hesitation — arms wrapping around my waist, cheek resting between my shoulders.
That alone nearly undoes me.
I kick the engine to life and pull away, the city falling back as the road opens up. The night air is cool, clean, steady — and she holds me like she belongs there.
She asks where we’re going, and I don’t answer. The road narrows as we ride, asphalt giving way to gravel, the crunch loud in the quiet as the trees close in on both sides. Old growth. Tall and steady. Sunlight filters through in broken gold, and with every turn deeper into the woods, the weight I carry everywhere eases just enough to remind me what quiet feels like.
I slow the bike and cut the engine. Silence rushes in, thick and immediate.
She pulls off her helmet and takes it all in. The house sits tucked into the trees like it grew there, dark wood blending seamlessly with the forest around it. Its clean, modern lines are sharp but unpretentious, as if it was carved from the hillside rather than built. Huge windows stretch across every wall, reflecting the sky and canopy instead of shutting it out, making the forest feel like part of the interior.
The wraparound porch follows the slope of the land, its smooth wood worn slightly by weather but cared for, inviting and private all at once. Somewhere beyond it, faint but constant, the ocean breathes, each wave a distant pulse beneath the trees.
This place doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t shout or demand attention. It waits. Quiet. Patient. A shelter that has existed for those who know how to find it. She steps closer, feeling the weight of the stillness, the way the shadows of the forest pool around the edges, and wonders how a place like this could exist, hidden and perfect, so close to the world but untouched by it.
“What is this place?” she asks softly.
I take off my helmet and set it aside, “It’s my house.”
Her breath catches. I see it.
“I thought you lived at the clubhouse.”
“I do,” I say. “For now.”
She frowns, trying to line the truth up with what she knows. “Then why…?”
I step closer, close enough that she can feel my warmth without me crowding her. “Because that’s temporary,” I say quietly. “This isn’t.”
Her eyes flick back to the house.
“I want it to be our house.”
The word lands between us, heavy and deliberate. Not a promise tossed out lightly. Not something I’ll pretend I didn’t mean later.