Chapter 34
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— Bea —
Sarah had been coming to me for eight months. Betrayal trauma—she’d found her husband of fifteen years’ second phone and discovered he’d been sleeping with her best friend. The pain had been devastating, the trust shattered beyond recognition.
For eight months, I’d watched her struggle. Watched her build walls, maintain control, function with clinical precision while the grief festered beneath the surface. Watched her do exactly what I’d been doing.
Today, she’d finally broken through.
It had started small—a memory of her wedding day, her husband’s vows, the way she’d believed every word. And then the dam had burst. She’d sobbed in that chair for twenty minutes straight, ugly crying, snot and tears.
And when she was done, when she’d finally stopped shaking, she’d looked at me with something I hadn’t seen in eight months: peace.
“I think I can move forward now,” she’d said. “I think I can actually heal.”
I’d walked her out, scheduled her next appointment, closed the door behind her.
And then I’d returned to my desk and sat down.
The office was quiet. The building was mostly empty—everyone else had gone home hours ago. Just me and the silence and Sarah’s breakthrough hanging in the air.
I pressed my hands flat against my desk, focusing on the cool wood, the solid reality of it.
The ice was still there, still protecting me.
Cracked, yes — more cracked than ever after the birthday, after watching Holden with those boys and carrying all that grief without letting it touch them — but still intact.
Still keeping me safe.
Safe from what?
The question surfaced unbidden, and wouldn’t leave.
I thought about Sarah. About the way she’d finally stopped fighting the pain and just let it come. About the peace in her eyes afterward—not because the hurt was gone, but because she’d finally stopped running from it.
My breath caught. I pressed my hands flat against the desk and they were shaking.
And then, without warning, the ice shattered.
The first sob caught me off guard. I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to hold it back, but it was already too late. The dam had burst, and everything I’d been holding at bay for months came flooding out.
Everything came at once and without order.
A boy I barely knew, nineteen, stepping in front of a bullet because he believed in the man I loved.
The man I loved, still love, breaking apart in the dark as I’d held him.
The morning I’d found him at my door. What he’d said, and how he’d looked saying it.
The future we’d been planning, I’d been planning — ordinary things, a Saturday, a dinner, the easy assumption that there would be more.
The trust that had taken years to build.
Every clinical reflex I’d used to avoid feeling any of this.
The sobs came in waves, each one more devastating than the last. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but let the grief consume me.
At some point, I slid off my chair and onto the floor. I curled up against the wall of my office, my knees pulled to my chest, and I wept like I hadn’t wept since I was a child.
I don’t know how long I stayed like that. Minutes. Maybe longer. Time had ceased to have meaning.
When the worst of it passed, I fumbled for my phone, my hands trembling so badly I could barely unlock it. The phone rang twice before Indira picked up.
“Hi Bea, what’s—”
“I need…” The words wouldn’t come. My voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. “I need help.”
The response was sharp and immediate: “Where are you?”
“My office.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes. I’m safe. I just—” I couldn’t get the rest out.
“Okay. I’m coming. Stay on the phone with me.” I heard keys, a door. “Talk to me, Bea.”
“I can’t stop crying.” It sounded pathetic and I didn’t care.
“Don’t try to.” More sounds — a car door, the engine. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Indira found me still on the floor, still crying. She didn’t say a word. Just crouched down, put her arms around me, and held on.
After a while she helped me to my feet, grabbed my bag and my coat, and walked me to the car. I sat in the passenger seat with my knees pulled up and my face against the window, and she drove us back to the club grounds without asking me to talk.
Her house was warm and quiet. Dutch was at the clubhouse. She sat me on the couch, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and put the kettle on.
“I’m sorry,” I managed. My voice was still wrecked. “I don’t know what—”
“Don’t.” She handed me a mug and sat beside me. “You’ve been holding this together for months. Something had to give.”
“My client—” I took a shaky breath. “She broke through today. She just let it come. And I sat there watching her do the thing I haven’t—” I couldn’t finish.
“And you realized you haven’t let yourself feel anything.”
“I’ve been so stupid.” More tears. “I thought I was being strong. I was just hiding.”
“Men are useless, Bea.” Indira said it quietly, the same words she’d used on that phone call a lifetime ago — napkins and wedding drama and a world that hadn’t fallen apart yet. “All of them.”
I almost laughed. Almost. “Even Dutch?”
“Especially Dutch.” She squeezed my arm.
“It’s like every Venom Rider has to go through the useless stage before they figure out how to be worth a damn.
Dutch did it. Colt did it. Holden’s doing it now.
” She paused. “Doesn’t mean the happy ending isn’t coming.
Just means they make you wait for it while they figure their shit out. ”
I stared at the tea, watching the surface tremble. “I love him.” It came out wrecked. “I still love him and I keep waiting for that to stop and it won’t.”
A soft knock at the door. Lilac let herself in, still in her house clothes, hair pulled back. She looked tired — the twins were only weeks old — but she came straight to the couch and sat on my other side without asking what had happened. Indira must have told her enough.
Lilac didn’t say anything right away. She just sat with us, her shoulder against mine, and waited.
“He told me he’d come back.” I said it to the mug.
“When he came to tell me about the baby. He said he’d fix himself and then he’d come for me.
” I wiped my face with the heel of my hand.
“He’s doing the work. I can see it. The therapy, the group, Mrs. Curtis — all of it.
He’s different. I watched him at the birthday party with Knox and Luca and he was—” I stopped.
“He’s doing everything he said he would. But he hasn’t come.”
“Maybe he’s not ready,” Lilac said.
“Or maybe he decided I’m not worth coming back for.”
“You don’t believe that,” Indira said.
“No.” More tears. “But I’m tired of watching him get better from across the room and pretending I don’t care.”
It was quiet for a while. Lilac shifted, pulling her legs up under her. “What would you do if he showed up tomorrow?” she asked.
The answer came before I could think about it. “I’d let him in.”
“Even after everything?”
“That’s what scares me. It’s not even a question. He could knock on my door right now and I’d fling it open and drag him to the bedroom.” I wiped my eyes. “We probably wouldn’t even make it to the bedroom.”
Indira let out a short laugh. “Remind me never to eat at yours again.”
I snorted. “Please. Dutch takes you on the kitchen table and you know it.”
“That is — not wrong.” Indira didn’t even try to deny it. “But I didn’t need you knowing that.”
“Too late.”
Lilac let out a long sigh. “I miss those days. Anywhere in the house, any time, no planning.” She stared at the ceiling. “The kitchen counter. The hallway. That one time on the porch—”
“And that,” Indira said, “is exactly how you ended up with a second set of twins.”
Lilac threw a cushion at her.
For a few seconds we were just laughing — messy, tearful, stupid laughing. Then it faded, and the quiet came back, and I looked at my hands. “What kind of therapist does that make me?”
“A human one,” Indira said. “You want him back. That’s not a clinical failing.”
“I want him back but he said he’d come and he hasn’t. I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep waiting or—” My voice broke.
“Or go get him yourself,” Lilac finished.
I hadn’t said it. But she wasn’t wrong.
“You don’t have to figure that out tonight,” Indira said. She pulled me into her and I collapsed against her, crying again. “We’ve got you.”