Chapter 63
SLOANE
The house felt different in daylight. Not safer. Just easier to breathe in.
Nate had eaten three full meals yesterday.
He’d showered without me hovering in the doorway.
He’d slept through the night with only one wake-up, and when I checked on him, his eyes had opened clear instead of frantic.
He’d looked at me like he still didn’t know what to do with the fact that he was home, then he’d rolled over and gone back to sleep.
Small wins. The kind you collected one at a time because the bigger ones still felt too fragile.
Ryker was in my kitchen, leaning a hip against the counter, watching the coffee maker like it was a threat. The bruises had faded, and he had healed physically. Mentally was another story.
I didn’t expect him to ever be the same. He checked the windows before he made coffee. He sat with his back to the wall. He went quiet in the middle of sentences sometimes, like his mind had slipped somewhere I couldn’t follow, and he’d have to find his way back to the room.
Small things. The kind I noticed because I’d memorized the old version of him.
I set a box on the floor with a dull thud and pushed hair off my cheek. “Okay. We’re doing it.”
Ryker looked at me. “Doing what?”
“Resetting the war room,” I said, as if it was the most normal sentence in the world. “And giving Nate a real bedroom.”
He looked toward the hall, then back at me. “You want to move it?”
“No.” I shook my head. “War room stays. But it stops being Nate’s case file. Nate is home. He’s not evidence anymore, and neither are you.”
Ryker held still, like the words landed somewhere deeper than I’d meant them to.
Then he pushed off the counter and came toward me. “You don’t have to do all of this today.”
“I do. If we don’t, we’ll keep living like the worst moment is still happening.”
Ryker didn’t argue. His hand went to the box at my feet and lifted it before I could.
I grabbed the stack of folders and followed him down the hall.
The war room had been a lifeline. A place to pour panic into something that looked like progress. Photos, maps, notes, printouts, timelines. The chair I’d sat in for hours while my phone stayed silent. The desk I’d gripped hard enough to leave half-moon marks in the wood.
Now it looked different.
Not wrong.
Just … overgrown.
Ryker set the box down and scanned the wall where the map hung, where the folders were stacked in aggressive, ugly piles. “Do you want to clean it?”
“I want to organize it. In my mind there’s a difference.”
Ryker’s mouth tightened, like he understood the impulse too well.
I started pulling Nate’s pieces out first. Hospital discharge papers. His medication schedule. The handful of photos that didn’t belong on a board because they were too personal. The notes I’d written in the middle of the night, messy and desperate.
I slid them into a folder and wrote Nate — Recovery on the tab.
Not Missing.
Not Evidence.
Recovery.
The word blurred for a second. I pressed the cap back onto the marker with more force than necessary and stared at the folder like it might vanish if I looked away.
Ryker didn’t move. He watched me as if he understood exactly how heavy one clean word could be. “You don’t have to live in that week anymore.”
A sharp breath left me. I shook my head once, fast. “It still doesn’t feel real.”
Ryker’s gaze dropped to the tab. “It is.”
I covered my mouth with my hand and blinked hard, then lowered it before the tears took over. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get him back.”
Ryker’s hand closed around mine, firm. “You didn’t give up.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.
Ryker opened a drawer and pulled out a screwdriver set. He started tightening the wobble in the chair legs like he’d been doing it his whole life.
The domestic normalcy of it hit me hard.
When the desk was clear, I slid the laptop to the center and stacked the folders beside it in neat piles. Chargers went into the top drawer. The burner phones went into a locked drawer. One place. Every time.
Ryker watched me set it up.
A floorboard creaked behind us, and I turned.
Nate stood in the doorway, wearing sweatpants and one of my oversized shirts. His hair was damp, his face clean, his eyes tired. He looked past us at the desk, the map.
Then he looked at me.
“You’re cleaning,” he said.
“Organizing,” I corrected gently. “War room stays. But it’s not … it’s not about you being missing anymore.”
He looked away like he wasn’t sure what to do with that.
Ryker stayed still, giving him space.
Nate had taken my bedroom since he’d come home. Ryker and I had claimed the couch without discussing it, which somehow felt right. But it wasn’t a permanent solution, and we all knew it.
Nate glanced at Ryker, then back to me. “Where am I sleeping?”
“Not in my bed forever,” I said, keeping my tone light.
Nate’s shoulders dropped a fraction, relieved.
I pointed down the hall. “Remember the room you used to have your weights in?”
His forehead creased. He remembered. Of course he did.
“That room is yours now,” I told him. “It’s close. It’s safe. And we’re going to make it yours. Not a hideout. A real bedroom.”
Nate looked at me for a long moment. “I’d like that. A lot.” He motioned at the folders. “Are you keeping that stuff in here?”
“Yeah. Things are organized though, not scattered everywhere.”
Nate’s mouth tightened. “Yeah, that helps.”
Nate looked back at Ryker. “Do your wrists still hurt?”
“Not much,” Ryker said.
Nate seemed like he filed that away. “If I wake up, and you hear me at night, I’m not … doing anything. I’m just awake. Can’t sleep.”
Ryker’s voice dropped. “Same.”
Nate let out a breath and looked at me. “The coffee smells good.”
A laugh almost escaped me. It wasn’t full. It wasn’t free. But it was real.
“I’ll get you some. And then we’re going to look at your room and figure out what clothes and furniture you need.
” I knew Nate was grown and could get his own coffee, but it was something I could do that kept me grounded.
Kept my brain and heart aware of the fact that he was home, not being tortured somewhere I couldn’t reach him.
Nate gave us a small smile and walked away. When his footsteps faded, I exhaled slowly.
Ryker’s hand found mine. His fingers closed around it, warm and firm. “He’s trying. He was gone for three years. Rebuilding a new normal will take time.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Eventually I’ll bring up therapy to him. Maybe Holland knows someone. I’m not too proud to realize when I need help keeping my family together. I’m done surviving alone.”
Ryker’s mouth tightened as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.
We spent the next hour turning the war room into something that could exist without swallowing our lives. Nate’s folder went into a drawer. The most personal photos came down. The map stayed, but it got folded and re-taped neatly instead of hanging in jagged strips.
When it was done, I stood in the doorway and looked back at it.
A war room, but not a shrine. It was no longer a cage. It was now a tool.
Ryker moved past me and headed toward my bedroom. Our bedroom.
I followed him without thinking.
The bed was made. The curtains were open. Sunlight warmed the bedspread in a way that made my chest ache. I stood there for a second like I didn’t belong in my own space anymore.
Ryker reached behind me and shut the door gently.
He sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on his thighs. His posture was less guarded than it had been, but the tension was still there.
I crossed the room and sank down beside him.
He didn’t reach for me first. So, I reached for him.
I leaned into his shoulder and listened to his breathing. Steady. Real.
Ryker’s arm slid around my waist and pulled me close. We stayed like that for a long time, the quiet filling in around us. Then my mind did what it always did when the world stopped moving.
It started hunting for what I hadn’t solved.
Evelyn.
Gavin.
The accident.
I lifted my head and looked at Ryker’s profile.
His attention was on the window, on the light, like he didn’t fully trust it.
“Hey,” I said softly.
Ryker glanced at me. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to pull the accident report,” I told him.
His body went still. “I don’t want you to.”
“I know.” I kept my voice gentle. “But I need to close it. I don’t trust the people who orchestrated your past.”
Ryker’s jaw tightened.
I touched his cheek, forcing him to look at me.
“I love you. Let’s find out what we need to do to move on. If it’s clean, we put it away. If it’s not, we don’t ignore it. We label it. We understand it. And then we decide what to do with it. Together.”
Ryker stared at me as if he was deciding if it was a good idea. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” I leaned back into him and let his arm tighten around me.
He shifted slightly. “I love you too, little fox.”
Down the hall, I heard a drawer open and close. Nate moving. Living.
Ryker’s mouth brushed my hair, barely there. For the first time in weeks, the quiet didn’t feel borrowed.
It felt like something we might actually keep.