Chapter 8 #2
"And you're my sister. My only family left besides Vanna and Waylon.
The person I—" He stops. Swallows. This is my brother Sergeant at Arms, the man who doesn't show emotion unless the world forces it out of him, and he's swallowing back something he doesn't want me to see.
"You're the person I pulled out of a burning house. You're the reason I—"
"Garrett."
"Let me finish." His voice is rough. "You're the reason I do everything.
Every decision I've ever made. Every night I sat in a clubhouse instead of living a normal life.
You. Because I chose you over Mom and Dad, and that means I chose for you, and I've spent every day since trying to make sure that choice was worth it. "
My eyes burn. I don't cry.
But the burn is there, hot and immediate, and I have to look away for a second to get myself together.
"It was worth it," I say quietly. "It's always been worth it."
He turns his head and looks at me. Really looks—the way he did on the porch weeks ago, the way that makes me feel four years old and completely safe and absolutely terrified all at the same time.
"If he hurts you—"
"He won't."
"Leah. If he hurts you, I will have to choose between my sister and my brother, and I need you to know right now which way that goes."
"I know which way it goes. You don't have to say it."
"I'm saying it anyway."
I hold his gaze. He holds mine.
"He's a good man, Garrett. You've said it yourself. Multiple times."
"He is a good man. That doesn't mean he can't break your heart."
"Maybe. But that's my risk to take. Not yours."
He's quiet for a long time. His jaw works.
I can see him fighting it—the urge to protect, to control, to keep me behind the wall he's built between me and everything dangerous.
The same wall I've hated since he patched in.
Then he stands and holds out his hand.
I take it and he pulls me to my feet and into a hug—brief, hard, the kind of hug Garrett gives when he can't find words big enough for what he's feeling.
He smells like engine grease and leather and the soap he's used since we were kids, and I hold on for a second longer than usual because I need him to know that whatever happens with Coin, he's still my person.
He'll always be my person. Nothing changes that.
"I'm going to talk to him," he says into the top of my head.
"I figured."
"Don't interfere."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
He pulls back and looks at me.
Something between a warning and a blessing moves across his face, too complicated to name, then he walks inside.
I stand on the steps for a minute, breathing.
Then I follow him.
I don't hear the conversation. I don't need to.
Garrett finds Coin in the main room, and whatever he says, he says it low enough that the brothers around them pretend not to hear.
I watch from the hallway—Garrett's jaw tight, his arms crossed, his whole body coiled with the kind of restrained intensity that makes men twice his size take a step back.
Coin stands still. Those blue-gray eyes on Garrett. Listening.
Not defensive, not apologetic. Just present. Taking it in the way he takes in everything—completely, without flinching.
I can't hear the words, but I can read the shapes of them on Garrett's mouth.
My sister. Not a fling. You understand me.
And then Coin says something. One sentence. Short. His mouth barely moves.
Garrett goes still. Stares at him for a long beat. Then he nods—once, sharp—and walks away.
That's it. No handshake, no chest-bumping, no dramatic declaration.
Just two men, a sentence I couldn't hear, and a nod that apparently settled it.
Later—much later, after dinner with Vanna and Waylon, after Garrett disappears into the garage with a wrench and his silence—I corner Vanna.
"What did Coin say to him?"
Vanna grins. She heard. Of course she heard. This woman has ears like a bat and a complete inability to mind her own business, and I love her for both.
"He said, 'I know exactly what she is.'"
Five words. That's all it took.
I sit with that for a minute.
I know exactly what she is.
Not: I'll take care of her.
Not: I won't hurt her.
Not a promise or an assurance or any of the things a lesser man would say to a woman's protective older brother.
Just a statement. Simple. Complete.
The kind of sentence that a man who uses words like they cost money only spends when he means every syllable.
I know exactly what she is.
I think about that all the way home. I'm still thinking about it when my phone rings.
It's Coin, and his voice is different.
Stripped.
Flat in a way that isn't calm—it's controlled.
The kind of controlled that happens when something detonates and you're holding the pieces together by force.
"Can you come over? I need—the girls need—" He stops. Breathes. "Angelica showed up."
I make it to his house in record time.
My brother's bike is in the driveway.
Maddox's truck is across the street.
The porch light is on and the front door is open, and I can hear voices inside—not shouting, not fighting.
Something worse.
The tight, controlled voices of people who are barely keeping it civil.
I walk in.
The kitchen.
Coin is standing against the counter with his arms crossed and his face completely shut down.
Every ounce of warmth I saw this morning, every crack in the wall, every soft thing he let me see last night—gone.
Locked away.
What's left is the man I first saw in the ER the night Wrenleigh broke her leg—ice and control and a terror so deep it's looped all the way back around to still.
Across from him, sitting at the kitchen table, is a woman.
Blonde.
Thin—the kind of thin that comes from not eating enough, or eating the wrong things for too long. She was beautiful once. I can see it in the bone structure, the shape of her mouth, the way she holds herself like she remembers being looked at.
But the Vegas lifestyle has caught up with her—hard.
Her clothes are expensive but starting to fray at the edges.
Her roots are growing in dark.
Her hands shake when she reaches for the glass of water in front of her.
She looks like Wrenleigh.
The resemblance is so sharp it takes my breath away.
Same blonde hair, same bone structure, same jawline.
Wrenleigh in twenty years, if twenty years were unkind.
And I understand now with a clarity that hurts why Coin flinches when he looks at his eldest daughter.
He's not seeing Wrenleigh. He's seeing this woman. Every single day.
Angelica.
She looks up when I walk in.
Her eyes blue, like Wrenleigh's, but duller, flick over me. She’s a woman sizing up her replacement.
I see her take in the scrubs, the badge, the fact that I'm walking into her ex-husband's house like I belong here.
"Who's this?" she asks. Her voice is hoarse. Tight. The voice of someone who's been crying or arguing or both.
Coin doesn't answer her. He looks at me, and underneath the shut-down wall I can see it—relief.
The barest flicker, gone as fast as it appears.
I came.
He called and I came.
"This is Leah," he says. Not to Angelica—to me. Like he's reminding himself I'm real. "Leah, this is Angelica."
I don't extend my hand. Neither does she.
"Where are the girls?" I ask Coin.
"Upstairs. Garrett's with them."
"Do they know she's here?"
"Not yet."
I look at Angelica.
She's watching me with an expression I can't quite name.
Resentment, maybe. Or jealousy.
Or the pain of watching another woman stand in your kitchen and ask about your children.
"I just want to see them," Angelica says. Her voice cracks on the last word. "I'm their mother. I have a right to—"
"You don't have a right to anything." Coin's voice is quiet. Deadly quiet. The quietest I've ever heard him. "You gave up that right when you put their names on a gambling debt."
Angelica flinches. Actually flinches—full body, like he hit her.
And I watch her face cycle through three emotions in the space of a second: guilt, anger, and something that looks terrifyingly like self-pity.
"I didn't know they'd come here," she whispers. "I didn't think they'd actually—"
"You didn't think." Coin uncrosses his arms. His hands are at his sides and they're steady—rock steady, zero tremor.
That scares me more than if they were shaking.
"You never think. You just do whatever feels right in the moment and you leave the damage for someone else to clean up.
That's what you've always done. That's what you did when you left, and that's what you did when you gave them our daughters. "
Angelica's eyes fill with tears.
I watch them form and I feel—not nothing. Something more complicated than nothing.
This is a woman who abandoned her children.
This is also a woman who's terrified and alone and sitting in the kitchen of a man who looks at her like she's a ghost he's been trying to outrun for a decade.
Both things can be true at the same time.
"I'll stay," I say to Coin. Not asking. Telling.
He looks at me.
Those blue-gray eyes—the ones that were soft and open and full of want this morning—are locked down tight.
But underneath the lock, I can see him reaching for me.
Not physically.
Just... reaching. The way a drowning man reaches for something solid.
"Yeah," he says. "Okay."
I sit down at the kitchen table. Across from the woman who left. Next to the space where Coin usually sits. In the chair where Sadie Jo does her homework.
This is going to be a long night.
But I'm not going anywhere. I told him that on the porch, and I told myself in the dark wearing his flannel, and I meant it both times.
I'm not running.
Not from this.
Not from him.
Not from the blonde woman across the table who's staring at me like I stole her life, when the truth is she threw it away and I just happened to pick up the pieces.