18. Ryan #2
“You’ve caused enough problems.”
“Where is she?”
“You don’t come onto my property and demand anything from me.”
“Where the fuck is she, Roman?”
“Ryan,” Arthur warns.
Then there’s movement behind Roman in the doorway. Ally.
Everything else disappears. She’s standing there in the light spilling out of the house.
The bruise on her face is still visible beneath the makeup.
Her lip is healing. Her arms are covered, but I know what’s underneath every inch of that fabric.
Her eyes find mine across the yard, and they’re scared.
Really fucking scared. And she doesn’t look away.
She holds onto me with that look like I’m the only steady thing in the whole yard.
Jane is behind her. Tobias is tucked against Jane’s side, both hands fisted in her shirt. All three. Breathing. Standing. Here. I count them the way Roman counted us, and something in my chest unlocks half an inch just seeing them upright.
Roman turns and sees them. “What are you doing?”
Ally flinches. Jane’s hand closes around Tobias’s shoulder.
Arthur looks past Roman. “Jane.”
Roman spins back. “Don’t speak to my wife.”
Jane looks at Arthur. Then Dad. Then toward our house — toward the lit windows across the yard where the mothers are waiting. I watch her make herself do it.
“I want to leave.”
Roman laughs. “No.”
Her face goes pale. But she doesn’t move. “I am leaving.” His smile disappears.
“You’re going inside.”
“No.” The word shakes. Roman hears the shake.
So does Tobias. “I wanna go.”
Dad closes his eyes for half a second.
Roman turns toward Tobias. “Go upstairs.”
Tobias presses himself closer to Jane. “No.”
Roman’s face changes. “What did you say?”
Jane immediately shifts in front of him. “Leave him alone.”
Roman stares at her. “Move.”
“No.”
Dad starts forward. Arthur catches him. “Walter.”
“He’s fucking scared.”
“I know.”
“Then get him out of there.”
“Not yet.”
Roman points through the doorway. “Tobias. Upstairs. Now.”
Tobias starts crying. “No!”
“Do what you’re fucking told!”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Dad snaps.
Roman wheels around. “SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT MY SON.”
“THEN STOP FUCKING HURTING HIM.”
“He’s MY son!”
“Then act like his fucking father!”
And now the whole yard tips over the edge.
Everyone starts talking at once. Arthur tells both of them to stop.
Roman tells Arthur to get the fuck off his property.
Callum moves closer. Gideon with him. Clifford and Theodore spread out behind us, quiet, just closing the space so Roman can feel how outnumbered he is.
Ally reaches back and takes Tobias’s hand.
Roman sees it. “He isn’t going anywhere.”
Ally’s fingers tighten around her brother’s. “He is with us.”
Her voice shakes. But she says it anyway, right to his face, and I have never been prouder of anyone or more terrified for them in my life.
Roman laughs. “You think you get a vote?”
Dad lunges forward a step. Arthur catches him again. Then headlights sweep across the yard.
Ally freezes. Every bit of color leaves her face. I don’t have to turn around. Victor. His car comes up the driveway too fast and stops behind the others, half across the lawn. The door slams.
“What the fuck is going on?” Victor comes toward us, his eyes moving over the yard — Arthur, the dads, the boys, me, Roman. Cataloging it. Then Ally. “Alison.” She doesn’t move. “Come here.”
Her hand tightens around Tobias’s. “No.”
Victor stops. Roman gives a sharp, humorless laugh. “There. You see what I’ve been dealing with?”
Victor turns on him. “Shut the fuck up, Roman.”
Roman’s head snaps toward him. “Excuse me?”
“I told you not to put your hands on her again. You couldn’t control yourself for one fucking week, and now look at this!”
He throws an arm out at the yard — at Arthur, at all of us — like Roman’s temper is the only thing standing between him and a clean acquisition.
“You think this is because of me?”
“I think I told you what would happen if you kept putting your hands on my fiancée.”
“She is my daughter!”
“And she’s my fucking fiancée!”
“Not yet.”
Victor gets closer. “Close enough.”
Arthur moves between them. “Enough.”
Roman points at all of us. “Get these people off my fucking property.”
“Nobody is going anywhere until Alison and Jane are safely out of this house,” Arthur says.
“Nobody is fucking leaving!”
“The fuck they aren’t,” Dad snaps.
Victor doesn’t give a shit about any of them anymore. He’s staring at Ally. “Alison. We’re leaving.”
She shakes her head. “No.”
His jaw flexes. “Don’t start this shit with me. Come here.”
“I won’t leave Tobias.”
Victor looks at her brother like he’s something inconvenient stuck to the bottom of the evening. “This has nothing to do with him.”
“It has everything to do with him!”
“Alison.”
“I won’t leave him.”
Victor’s voice rises. “And I told you to COME HERE.”
“She fucking heard you,” I snap. His head whips toward me.
“You shut your fucking mouth.”
“She said no.”
“You don’t speak for her.”
“I don’t fucking have to. She keeps telling you herself.”
“Ryan,” Arthur barks.
Victor starts toward me. Callum steps between us before he gets far. Kaid’s hand lands on my shoulder. X moves in on my other side — not holding me back, just there, a wall on both sides of me so I don’t do the thing every muscle in my body is begging to do.
Because now nobody’s having one conversation.
Roman is yelling for everyone to leave. Dad is yelling right back.
Arthur is trying to get everybody to shut the fuck up long enough to hear him.
Thomas starts in the second Roman threatens to call the police.
Clifford has one arm across Danny’s chest because Danny is staring at Roman like he’s one wrong word from forgetting every warning Arthur gave us in the yard.
Theodore is beside him. Gideon moves up with Arthur.
It’s all the same fight now, ten voices deep, and underneath it Tobias is crying and Ally is white-knuckling her phone and I can feel this whole thing coming apart in real time.
Then Roman stops yelling. I see why. He’s looking at Jane.
Really looking at her. Jane standing behind him ready to leave.
Tobias clinging to her. Ally holding his hand, her phone still clenched in the other.
Arthur Walsh standing in his yard with half the people whose lives have crossed the exact names Jane spent years hiding in a box.
I watch it land on him. I watch him do the math.
“What did you do?”
Jane’s face drains.
Victor looks at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Roman ignores him. His eyes drop to Ally’s phone. Then Arthur. Then back to Jane. “You went through my things.”
“No.” Too fast. Way too fast.
Roman laughs, ugly and low. “You fucking did.”
“Roman—“
“What did you give her?”
Victor’s attention snaps to Ally. “What did she give you?”
Ally takes a step backward. Tobias goes with her.
Jane moves in front of both of them. “Leave them alone.”
Roman fucking explodes. “WHAT DID YOU GIVE HER?”
Tobias jumps at the sound.
Dad surges forward. Arthur catches him across the chest. “He’s fucking terrified, Arthur!”
“I KNOW.”
“Then let me get him!”
“Not yet!”
“Fuck not yet!”
Roman doesn’t even hear them. He’s already moving toward Jane. “You went through my fucking office?”
“Get away from us.”
“Did you?”
Jane backs up. “Roman, stop.”
“DID YOU?”
Victor looks from Roman to Jane. Then to Ally. “What did she give you?” Ally doesn’t answer. His face changes. “Alison.” Her hand closes tighter around her phone. “Answer me.”
“Nothing that belongs to you.”