Chapter 61
RYKER
Morning came in thin, gray slices through Sloane’s curtains.
My body didn’t care.
Each shift was a calculation. Every breath dragged. I lay on my back on her couch, staring at the ceiling, and reminded myself I was in a house with locks I’d chosen. In a room that smelled like her detergent and coffee and the faint trace of tea.
Safe.
My mind didn’t believe it yet.
Sloane moved quietly in the kitchen, careful with cabinets, careful with footsteps. She carried that controlled energy she wore when she was holding the world together. I saw it in the way she paused at the end of the hall, listening, then checked the bedroom door again like Nate might vanish.
She crossed the room and brushed her fingers through my hair, light and grounding. “You awake?”
“I didn’t sleep much.” I doubted she had either. She’d insisted on the floor so Nate and I could heal. I hated it, but I didn’t have much choice.
She crouched beside the couch and checked the gauze on my wrists, fingers hovering instead of pressing. “How bad do they hurt?”
“It’s manageable.”
She arched a brow. “That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got right now.”
Sloane stood and grabbed a bottle of water from the counter. The cap twisted off with one quick motion. She held it out like a directive. “Drink some. It will help.”
I sat up slowly. Pain cut through my abdomen, hot and immediate. I kept my face neutral until it backed off into something I could tolerate.
Sloane watched anyway. She caught everything. “I made coffee. I can scramble some eggs if you can stomach them.”
“Coffee first.”
She glanced toward the hallway. “Nate’s awake. He’s in my room.”
My hand tightened around the water bottle.
Before last night, the last time I’d seen him, he’d been unconscious—tied up, beaten, drugged, slipping away. Seeing him safe and breathing in Sloane’s bed had been a relief I couldn’t touch yet. It wasn’t an introduction. Not really. This would be.
I set the bottle down and stood, careful, controlled.
Sloane didn’t rush me. She stayed close enough that if my legs decided to quit, she’d be there.
We moved down the hallway with quiet steps. I tracked the house as we went. Corners. Shadows. Lines of sight. I hated that my brain still lived there.
Sloane stopped outside her bedroom and set her palm against my chest. “Take it easy.” Her voice dropped to a whisper.
I nodded.
She pushed the door open.
Nate sat propped against her pillows, blanket pulled to his waist. He looked smaller than he should have, as if the last week had stolen weight and sleep and whatever illusion of safety he’d had.
He looked at Sloane first, then at me. He didn’t flinch, or even smile.
He just stared, trying to decide who I was to him.
Sloane stepped in first and angled her body toward Nate, a buffer and a bridge.
“Nate … this is Ryker.” Her hand lifted, palm open, indicating me. “He’s the man who brought you home.”
Nate looked at me for several long moments. His fingers shifted under the blanket like he needed something to do with them.
Finally, he spoke. “Sloane told me you … saved me.”
I stopped two steps inside the room. I didn’t crowd him and kept my hands where he could see them. “I did what I had to.”
Nate’s expression went distant, like he was watching something that wasn’t in this room.
“I heard you. In the dark. I didn’t know who you were, but I heard you.”
The words hit deeper than I expected.
I held still. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because I did. “I was there.”
Nate nodded, steadying himself. “Thank you. I owe you my life”
I moved closer, slowly, stopping at the edge of the bed near Sloane. I didn’t reach out to shake his hand. It might make him uncomfortable.
“You don’t owe me anything.” My voice stayed low. “You just keep getting better.”
Nate looked at my wrists, to the bandages, then back to my face.
“I will.”
Sloane’s hand went to Nate’s hair, smoothing it back from his forehead. Nate didn’t pull away. He leaned into her touch like he’d been starving for it.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“A little.”
“I’ll bring you something.” She tucked the blanket higher with a quick, practiced motion, then glanced at me. “Coffee first.”
I followed her out of the room and pulled the door mostly closed behind us.
When we reached the living room, she set a mug on the coffee table and guided me back toward the couch.
“You did good.”
“He did,” I corrected.
Her gaze softened for one beat. “That too.”
I lowered myself down with care. The couch cushions shifted. Pain flared low and deep. I stayed still until it eased.
Sloane perched on the edge of the coffee table, facing me. She scanned my posture, my breathing, the way I held my hips locked.
“You need pain relief.”
“I can handle it.”
She reached into her pocket and removed her phone, holding it up like evidence. “I didn’t ask.”
I exhaled once. “I’m fine.”
Sloane stood, disappeared into the bathroom, then came back with a bottle of Advil and a fresh glass of water. She shook pills into her palm and held them out.
“Take these.”
I stared at them.
“You’re stubborn,” she added. “But you’re not doing this without help.”
It was only Advil, not the pain pills they shoved down my fucking throat when I was recovering in rehab. I took them and swallowed.
Sloane watched until it was done, then nodded as if she’d won a small war. “Good.”
Her attention shifted, practical. “Do you still have your phone?”
I reached into my pocket and removed it. The casing wasn’t mine. The screen looked too clean. Too handled.
“They gave it back.”
Sloane’s mouth tightened. “Compromised.”
“Yeah.”
I held it between two fingers, like it was dirty. “I need to contact Kip and Death. But not on this.”
Sloane opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a new one. A burner.
I looked at her.
“We use them for Red Thread.” She smiled a little.
A short breath left me. I took the burner and turned it over in my hands.
“My body needs a few days,” I told her. “But I have some business to take care of soon.”
Sloane didn’t argue. Her chin lifted a fraction, as if she was already thinking through logistics.
“Your friends will want to see you soon.”
“I know, but not here.”
Her eyes held mine. She understood.
I moved toward the window and kept my back to a wall. The burner powered on. My fingers found the numbers from memory.
I typed a message to Kip and Death:
I’m home. Alive. I need some time for my body to heal but we need to meet in person.
Do not come to Sloane’s. I’ll send location when ready.
I stared at the screen for one beat before I hit send.
Sloane stood in the kitchen doorway, watching me as if she was learning a new version of me. A version built out of instinct and damage and discipline.
“You’re shaking.” She walked over and put her hand on my chest, right over my heart, steady and warm. “You don’t have to perform for me.”
I closed fingers around her wrist. “I don’t know how to turn it off yet.”
“Don’t.” She leaned in closer. “Just stay.”
I kept hold of her wrist a second longer, then let go.
Sloane glanced toward the hallway again. “I’m going to feed him. Then you eat too.”
“Okay.”
She paused. “You’re doing better than you think.”
I didn’t answer.
Because if I did, the truth might come out too fast, and Nate was still awake. It wasn’t a conversation for him to hear.
Sloane disappeared down the hall.
I settled on the couch and watched the burner until the screen went dark.
I’d come home.
And the price of that home sat in my body, in my blood, in my future.
I didn’t know how to carry that in a room with sunlight.
The house shifted into late afternoon.
Sloane convinced Nate to eat, then to shower, then to lie back down in her bed “just for a nap.” He fought it at first, then gave in the way exhausted people do when their bodies finally realize they’re allowed to rest.
When the bedroom door clicked shut, the silence changed. It got heavier. More private.
Sloane brought me another glass of water and set it on the coffee table. She sat on the couch beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m here.”
Her gaze didn’t move. “That’s not what I meant.”
I stared at my hands. Rope burns under the gauze. Bruises blooming under the skin. Evidence.
Sloane’s fingers brushed the back of my hand. “You told me tomorrow.” She looked up at me. “It’s tomorrow.”
I turned my head and looked at her.
She didn’t flinch. She was choosing the truth, even if it hurt.
“I need to tell you something first.”
Sloane’s fingers tightened over mine. She didn’t look away. “Okay.”
I drew a breath and kept my voice level, because if it cracked, I didn’t know if I could pull it back together.
“There was someone a long time ago.” I glanced at the floor, then back to her. “A woman. Her name was Evelyn.”
Sloane stayed still, giving me her full attention.
“And there was a boy.” The next words took more effort than it should have. “His name was Gavin.”
The space between us thickened.
Sloane’s lips parted as if she wanted to ask a dozen questions at once. She closed them again and forced only one to come out. “Who were they to you?”
I held her gaze. “Evelyn was my ex.”
Sloane’s expression didn’t change. “And Gavin?” Her voice stayed quiet.
I hated the way the truth sat in my mouth.
“He was my son,” I said. “He’s dead.”
Sloane went very still. Her hand stayed on mine, but her fingers tightened like she needed something solid to hold.
“How?” The word was barely there.
“A car accident,” I answered. “I knew. And I didn’t tell you. It was almost twenty years ago. I was in college.”
Silence held for a beat, heavy and honest.
“Why?”
I watched our hands. Her warmth. My damage. “Because I didn’t think I deserved you. Every time I got close to telling you, I pictured your face changing and you walking away.”
Sloane’s jaw tightened. “What about Evelyn?”