Chapter 22
Grim
The hallway felt wrong.
Too bright. Too clean. Too quiet for a night like this. The air held the metallic bite of adrenaline, like the tension from the parking lot attack had followed him inside.
Grim’s boots hit the floor harder than he meant, each step echoing down the corridor. He could feel the mission closing in around him, the weight of it, the precision it demanded, the cold focus he had to slip into like a second skin.
He could feel himself shutting down.
He hated it. He needed it. He didn’t know how to be anything else.
Brick and Ghost stood guard outside his door, shoulders squared and eyes sharp. They looked like they were carved out of the same stone the club was built on.
“You good?” Brick asked.
“No,” Grim said. “Stay here.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He pushed open the door.
Sophia stood by the window, wrapped in one of his hoodies, staring out at the dark lot like she was watching for ghosts. The moonlight caught the curve of her cheek, the tension in her shoulders she was trying so damn hard to hide.
She looked small in his clothes. She looked strong in her stance. She looked like the only thing in the world that could break him.
She turned when she heard him.
Relief flickered across her face, quick, fragile, real.
Then it vanished.
Because she saw it, the wall slamming down behind his eyes.
Something inside him clicked over — a cold, familiar shift he hadn’t felt this sharply in years.
His breathing leveled out, slow and controlled.
His pulse steadied. The edges of the room sharpened, every sound separating into clean, trackable layers.
The overhead lights flickered once, and for a split second, the hallway didn’t look like his bedroom at all — it looked like a deployment hallway again, concrete and dust and the metallic hum of generators.
Lock it down. Feel later. Mission first.
His shoulders squared. His jaw locked. His eyes went flat, the warmth draining out until only calculation remained.
He wasn’t Grim, the man who held her while she shook.
He was Hale, the soldier who survived by shutting every door inside himself.
He couldn’t afford softness. Not now. Not with what was coming.
The distance he was already putting between them. The way he was slipping into mission-mode, shutting her out to survive the next few hours.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move toward her. Didn’t trust himself to.
He just said, “I need to get ready.”
Her brows pulled together. “Maddox…”
“Don’t,” he said, sharper than he meant. “Not right now.”
She stepped toward him anyway, slow and steady, like she was approaching a wounded animal that might bolt.
“You’re shutting me out.”
“I’m getting my head straight.”
“No,” she said softly. “You’re disappearing.”
His jaw clenched. “Sophia—”
She crossed the room, stopping right in front of him. Close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating off her. Close enough that he could smell the faint vanilla on her skin, the clean scent of her shampoo, the lingering trace of fear she was trying to hide.
Close enough that it hurt.
“You don’t get to do that,” she whispered.
He froze.
Her voice didn’t shake. Her hands didn’t tremble. She wasn’t pleading. She wasn’t angry.
She was drawing a line.
“You don’t get to hold me like I’m the only thing keeping you sane,” she said, “and then vanish into yourself the second you’re scared.”
His chest tightened. “I’m not scared.”
“You are,” she said gently. “You’re terrified. And instead of letting me in, you’re trying to disappear so you don’t feel it.”
He looked away.
She stepped closer, forcing him to meet her eyes. “If you need space, tell me. If you’re overwhelmed, tell me. But you don’t get to walk away without a word. Not from me.”
His throat worked. “Sophia…”
“I’m not asking you to be someone else,” she said. “I’m asking you to stay. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
He didn’t breathe.
Couldn’t.
She reached up, fingers brushing his jaw — soft, steady, grounding. Her touch was warm, gentle, but it hit him like a punch. Because she wasn’t touching him to soothe him.
She was touching him to anchor him.
“You told me you couldn’t lose me,” she whispered. “Then don’t push me away like you already have.”
Something inside him cracked, sharp and painful and necessary.
He grabbed her waist, pulling her in like he was drowning. His forehead dropped to hers, breath shaking.
“I don’t know how to do this,” he rasped.
“You’re doing it,” she whispered.
He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I know,” she said. “But you’re not leaving me. You’re going to save those women. And you’re coming back.”
His hands tightened on her hips. “I will.”
She nodded once. “Then stay with me until you go. Don’t disappear in your head.”
He kissed her, not desperate and not frantic.
Present. Grounded. Real.
Her fingers curled in the front of his cut, pulling him closer like she could hold him together with her bare hands. His hands slid up her back, memorizing the shape of her, the warmth of her, the way she fit against him like she’d been carved for him.
His thumb brushed something cool against her chest, the chain shifting under his touch. A small silver charm, warm from her skin, heart-shaped and worn smooth from years of touch. The milagro. The one she’d told him was for protection.
Hope.
Not being alone.
It pressed against his palm like it meant something. Like it was trying to tell him something he wasn’t ready to hear.
When he pulled back, he didn’t look away.
He didn’t shut down.
He didn’t disappear.
He stayed.
For one more breath. One more heartbeat. One more moment before the world demanded he become something colder.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll come back to you.”
Her voice was barely a whisper. “I know.”
And for the first time in years, he believed someone when they said that.