Chapter 39
Grim
Grim heard the phone call before he understood the words.
Sophia stood in the kitchen, sunlight catching the strands of her hair, phone pressed to her ear. Her abuela’s voice carried through the speaker, sharp, commanding, impossible to ignore. It wasn’t a request. It was a summons.
When Sophia hung up, she turned toward him. Grim sat on her couch, elbows on his knees, boots planted on the floor, trying to look steady even though something inside him had just dropped.
Sophia swallowed. “Abuela… wants us to come over tonight.”
Grim didn’t move. Didn’t blink. “Your whole family?”
“Yeah.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He looked away, throat tightening. “They’re not gonna like me.”
Sophia crossed the room and cupped his face, her palms warm against his skin. “They’ll love you.”
He wanted to believe her. He didn’t.
But he nodded anyway.
“For you.”
Abuela’s house was loud before they even reached the porch.
Laughter spilled through the open windows. Pots clattered. Someone shouted in rapid Spanish. Music drifted through the air, bright, warm, alive. The smell of cumin, garlic, and tomatoes simmering on the stove wrapped around Grim like a blanket he didn’t know how to hold.
Sophia squeezed his hand. Grim squeezed back, but his palm was damp.
Inside, the entire Martinez family turned toward them at once.
Her mother froze mid-stir, wooden spoon suspended in the air. Her father’s brows shot up. Her three brothers straightened like they were preparing for a fight.
Grim stood behind Sophia, tall, tattooed, wearing his cut, a walking warning sign. He kept his expression neutral, but tension radiated off him like heat.
Her oldest brother, Mateo, crossed his arms. “So this is him.”
Sophia stepped forward. “Yes. This is Maddox.”
Her middle brother, Diego, eyed Grim’s tattoos. “He’s… older.”
Sophia’s jaw tightened. “He’s not old.”
Her youngest brother, Miguel, muttered, “He looks like he eats people.”
Grim blinked. “I don’t.”
Sophia elbowed Miguel. “Stop.”
Her mother approached slowly, wiping her hands on a towel. “Sophia… he’s in a motorcycle club?”
“Yes,” Sophia said, chin lifting.
Her father frowned. “Those men are dangerous.”
Grim felt the words like a punch. He stiffened, jaw clenching, breath catching.
A familiar old instinct rose up — the one he’d learned in a dozen foster homes, standing in doorways while adults decided if he was worth keeping. That quiet, sinking feeling in his gut. The bracing. The waiting. The certainty that one wrong move would get him sent away.
He hated that it still lived in him. Hated how fast it came back now, here, in a kitchen that smelled like home. But his body didn’t know the difference. It only knew the look on a man’s face when he was weighing whether you belonged.
Sophia stepped closer to him, voice steady. “He saved my life.”
Her father hesitated. “We heard what happened. But—”
“No.” Sophia’s voice cracked like a whip. “You don’t understand. He didn’t just save me. He tore the world apart to find me.”
Grim’s breath hitched. He looked down, throat tight, chest aching.
Then Abuela swept into the room like a tiny hurricane.
“?Basta!” she snapped, smacking Mateo’s arm with a wooden spoon. “You judge him by his jacket? By his tattoos? You think that makes a man?”
She turned to Grim, eyes sharp but kind. “Mijo, come here.”
Grim froze. “Uh—yes, ma’am.”
She cupped his face in both hands, turning his head left, then right, inspecting him like produce at the market. Her hands were warm, steady, familiar in a way that made something inside him crack.
“You love my granddaughter?”
Grim swallowed hard. “More than anything.”
Sophia sucked in a breath.
Abuela nodded once. “Then sit. Eat. You’re family.”
Grim didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know how to breathe around it. He didn’t know how to hold something that gentle.
Dinner was loud and chaotic, overlapping conversations, clattering dishes, music humming in the background. Grim sat beside Sophia, tense, answering questions in short, careful sentences.
But slowly… he relaxed.
A little.
Her brothers softened when they saw the way he looked at Sophia, like she was the only light in the room.
Her mother softened when he insisted on helping clean up, even though Abuela smacked his hand with a towel and told him to sit.
Her father softened when Grim thanked him, quietly and sincerely, for raising a daughter strong enough to survive what she’d been through.
By dessert, the tension had melted into something warm.
Something like acceptance.
Something like belonging.
Something he hadn’t felt in decades.
Sophia walked him outside, the porch light casting a soft glow over them. Crickets chirped. The air smelled like jasmine and warm tortillas. The night felt soft in a way Grim didn’t trust.
He leaned against the railing, exhaling slowly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.”
Sophia laughed softly. “My family can be intense.”
He shook his head. “Not them. You.”
She blinked. “Me?”
He nodded, eyes dark and vulnerable. “I kept waiting for you to realize you deserve better. Someone cleaner. Softer. Someone your family wouldn’t look at like a threat.”
Sophia stepped between his legs, cupping his face. “Maddox. Look at me.”
He did.
And she saw everything: fear, hope, love, disbelief.
“I choose you,” she whispered. “Fully. Fiercely. Without hesitation.”
His control slipped.
“I choose you when it’s easy. I choose you when it’s hard. I choose you when the world is burning. I choose you when it’s quiet. I choose you every time.”
Grim’s eyes burned in the porch light.
He swallowed hard. “Sophia… I love you.”
Her heart soared across her face.
She kissed him, slow, deep, and certain, her hands sliding into his hair, his arms wrapping around her waist like he was afraid she’d disappear.
When they finally pulled apart, Grim rested his forehead against hers, voice breaking. “No one’s ever chosen me.”
Sophia brushed her thumb over his cheek. “I choose you every time. I love you, Maddox.”
And in that moment, under the porch light, surrounded by the echoes of family and food and laughter, Grim finally believed her.