Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
I hear the distinct click of the lock downstairs, echoing through the silence like a gunshot. Soft footsteps follow, padding across the floor below, unhurried but deliberate.
My pulse spikes, thundering in my ears. Glock gripped tight in my fist, I step onto the landing.
Since the shooting, I’ve buried myself in solitude. At first, it clawed at me. Now it’s just air. Heavy, quiet, familiar. People fear the dark for what it hides. I’ve learned to find peace in it. After a while, it stops being an enemy and starts to feel like armor.
Yes, the shooting broke something in me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. But it wasn’t the fear of dying that hollowed me out—it was something worse. Something deeper. A darkness I hadn’t known I carried until it swallowed me whole.
I still don’t know who pulled the trigger. Still don’t know who wanted me gone badly enough to take a shot. And while revenge is well within reach, my mind stays chained to one place—one person.
Cassie .
Her fear that night cut deeper than any bullet. Her scream, her heartbreak—it became mine .
Movement stirs in the dark. Shuffling. Just enough to raise every hair on the back of my neck.
Barefoot and shirtless, jogging pants slung low on my hips, I descend the stairs in silence. I hear the faint scuff of shoes in the office, and then—movement. A shadow breaks across the doorway.
Instinct overtakes thought. I raise the gun, finger twitching at the trigger.
“It’s me!”
Flicking on the light switch, I’m met with a pair of bottle-green eyes.
Her hands lift slowly into the air. No threat, just surrender.
Her eyes are wide, lip trembling. She looks thinner, like life’s been carving pieces out of her one day at a time.
The soft angles of her face are more pronounced, exhaustion swimming in those green depths.
I can’t stop the heat that flares in my chest. I drop my aim and flick the safety back on with a sharp click. Cassie steps forward, cautiously, like she’s walking into a lion’s den.
“What the fuck are you doing here? I could’ve fucking killed you,” I snap.
“You wouldn’t,” she challenges.
“You didn’t answer my question.” I take a step toward her, tucking the Glock into the back of my waistband.
“Trigger brought me.” Her eyes shift past me toward the door. I glance over my shoulder and find nothing but the closed slab of black wood.
“He shouldn’t have,” I growl, brushing past her on my way to the office.
I need a drink. A strong one.
“Axel.” She says my name, and fuck, I’ve missed the way it sounds from her lips.
My hand hovers over the lamp beside the drinks cart, freezing again when she adds softly, “Trigger’s worried.”
I spin on my heel, bottle already in hand. “Trigger?” I echo. “Or you? ”
She doesn’t answer. Just steps farther into the room, letting the quiet stretch between us.
“You’re wasting your time,” I mutter, turning back and pouring a heavy splash of whiskey into a glass. I take a swig straight from the bottle before handing the glass to her. I don’t know why. Maybe because I know she’s not leaving. Not yet.
“Can I?” she asks, gesturing to the chesterfield near me.
“Knock yourself out,” I grunt.
The leather creaks beneath her as she perches on the edge of the couch. She’s hesitant, nervous. Like she’s afraid one wrong move will set me off. But right now, nothing she does could make me regret letting her in. Her safety is my weakness, and if I can’t protect her, who the hell can?
I’m not trying to make myself a hero. I’m not.
But it’s undeniable—she draws out the better parts of me, the ones I’ve spent years trying to bury.
And right now, I fucking hate that. I lean against the arm of the couch, swigging from the bottle like it might drown the ache in my chest, like it could smother the part of me that still gives a damn.
“Axel?” she starts, voice small.
“Don’t.” I cut her off before she can dig too deep, before she asks something I’m not ready to answer. The silence that follows is thick, filled only by the sound of her uneven breathing.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I mutter, rubbing a hand down my face.
“You won’t,” she whispers, her eyes dropping to her lap.
The quiet eats at me. When she came by the other week, the day I got back, and as much as I wanted to open that door, to pull her into my arms and forget everything else—I couldn’t. She reminded me of what I almost lost. Of what still feels so damn fragile.
Sending her away was the only thing I could do. Maybe it was cowardly. Maybe it was stupid. But it felt like the only move I had.
You’ll be the death of me .
Her eyes snap up, red-rimmed and furious. “You blame me?”
“What?”
“You said it—‘You’ll be the death of me.’” She’s on her feet in an instant, standing toe-to-toe with me, her expression tight with pain and rage. “That’s what you just said.”
Shit. Did I actually say that out loud?
She crosses her arms, hands clenched at her hips, waiting for an answer.
“No, Cassie.” I shake my head, eyes fixed somewhere beyond her. The bottle presses to my lips again. “I don’t blame you.”
I throw my head back and take a long pull, mouth filling with whiskey. I hold it there a second, then swallow it down, piece by burning piece. The silence stretches between us, heavy and raw.
Suddenly, Cassie rips the bottle from my hand. Her eyes are glassy, her lashes thick with unshed tears, but her grip is sure as she lifts it to her lips and knocks back several swallows.
I stare, caught between admiration and exasperation.
“What?” she snaps, eyes blazing. “I’m not allowed to drown my shit too?”
She stumbles back to the couch and slumps into the worn leather, the bottle rising to her mouth again like it’s the only comfort she has left.
“Why won’t you leave the house, Axel?” Her voice is soft, almost hesitant.
“I have no reason to,” I lie, eyes on the floor.
“No.” Cassie shakes her head, voice threaded with quiet concern. “You’ve been wallowing.”
“Wallowing?” I scoff, biting back the urge to lash out.
“I know grief better than anyone, Axel.”
“No one died. I’m not grieving,” I snap, snatching the bottle from her hands more forcefully than I intend.
Her expression tightens, but she stays calm. “No one died, no. But you almost did. Grief isn’t just for the dead. It’s for what you lose. And you lost something that night, didn’t you? ”
I stare at her, the words sinking in. I don’t answer—not at first.
I hadn’t thought of it like that. Hadn’t realized the walls I’ve built around myself were mourning something I couldn’t name.
My home became a cage, but it also kept the fear at bay.
Out there, in the world, I’m exposed. I’m vulnerable.
And I can’t handle that—not until I find the bastard who pulled the trigger.
“You’re scared it’ll happen again,” she says quietly, more a statement than a question.
“I’m afraid someone will come after you just to get to me.” Guilt claws at my chest, thick and unrelenting. Her hurt, her worry, it echoes louder than my own thoughts. And when I speak again, it’s not for me. It’s for her. To ease what I’ve inflicted.
My voice drops to a whisper. “I heard you,” I admit.
She blinks, confused.
“When I was in the hospital,” I say, lifting my eyes to meet hers. Those big, beautiful, worried eyes. “I heard you, Cassie. Every time you talked to me. Every time you cried. I heard all of it. I tried to reach you... I tried to?—”
Fuck, this is impossible.
Her green eyes widen, startled by my admission, swimming with disbelief and something softer. Something that might kill me if I let it.
“Axel?” she breathes, her voice barely a whisper as her hand settles gently over mine. She offers me the bottle, and I take a long, punishing swig of whiskey.
“It’s not safe with me,” I mutter, the words scraping out of me like broken glass. I pass the bottle back with shaking fingers. “You’ll never be safe, not as long as you’re near me. People will come after me—through you. And I can’t fucking let that happen.”
She doesn’t speak. But her silence burns. It simmers with fury and pain. Still, she listens. That’s more than I deserve .
“If you were anyone else, Cassie... I wouldn’t give a shit,” I say hoarsely. “But it’s you .”
I watch her fingers pick at the label on the bottle, peeling it back like she’s trying to distract herself from the ache. Her silence only feeds the storm inside me.
“Shit, Cassie. Say something.”
She inhales sharply. “That wasn’t your decision to make.”
Her voice is tight, trembling, and yet steady enough to twist the blade she’s just plunged into my chest. She still won’t look at me.
I sink onto the couch beside her, elbows on my knees, hands clasped. My gaze drops to the floor.
She’s right. She’s fucking right. I took the choice from her. I caged her in silence when she deserved honesty.
“I know,” I whisper, shame thick on my tongue. “I just… it hit me. How much I had to lose. How vulnerable I was with you. And whatever we were…” I turn to her, reaching out, desperate for something to anchor me. “I’m glad we had it. I don’t regret a?—”
“Why are you talking in the past tense?” she snaps, jerking her hand away like my touch burns.
“What?” My brows knit, her question slicing deeper than it should.
She lifts the bottle, takes another long sip, her gaze locked somewhere far from me. “You’re talking like it’s already over.”
I study her, my pulse pounding. Her grip on the bottle tightens as her voice cracks, raw and low.
“Isn’t it?”
“Not for me,” she declares, unguarded and trembling. The honesty in her voice fractures something inside me. “It hasn’t been. Not for one second.”
She sets the bottle down and reaches for her bag.
“Do you even understand what you’re asking of me?” I rasp, anger and longing swirling too close to the surface .
Cassie turns on her heel, sharp and shaky, her finger aimed square at my chest. “You never asked me.” She steps closer, fury building. “Nine days.”