Chapter Twelve
Ronan
She thinks I left her alone. That I stayed buried in the shadows, watched her light up a goddamn building like a Fourth of July spectacle, and let her disappear into the night without a second thought.
She’s wrong.
Dead wrong.
That blown kiss wasn’t a goodbye. It was a dare. A twisted little invitation wrapped in amusement. She knows I understood—it was there in the way she moved, the way she met my gaze without hesitation. No fear. No guilt. Just fire. And fire like that doesn’t vanish. It waits.
And now she wants to see what I’ll do with it.
I hoped she’d remember more of me. Of us.
Of what I become when someone dares me to hunt.
I’m not built to let things slip through my fingers.
Especially not her. Not after everything we survived.
Not after years of believing she was gone—dead, reduced to ash and memory that never stopped clawing at my chest.
No.
She doesn’t get to come back from the grave and walk away like it doesn’t matter. Like she didn’t leave a crater behind.
Instead, I follow. I hunt.
Not fast. Not careless. I melt into the shadows like they’ve always belonged to me, every step measured and silent.
I know how she moves—I’ve memorized the rhythms of her body, etched them into the back of my mind.
Even after all these years, I can still track the way her breathing changes when adrenaline takes over. I feel it in my bones.
She’s trying to stay hidden, trying to lose me in the maze of alleys and dimly lit paths, but it’s useless. I don’t need to see her to follow her.
Because she doesn’t realize something crucial—I’ve been chasing her ghost for years.
And now that I know she’s real.
Now that I know she’s alive.
I’m not letting her vanish again.
Instead, I wait.
I trail her from a distance, every step intentional, every breath kept in check.
The city fades into background noise, the night pressing in, thick with tension.
I know her pace. Her cadence. The way her body moves when she thinks she’s in control.
But I’ve been studying her far longer than she understands.
And when the moment is just right—when the shadows are deepest and the distance between us thins to nothing—I strike.
In one fluid motion, I’m on her. I wrap myself around her from behind, locking her arms tight against her sides with a force that’s firm but not cruel. My body molds to hers like it always has, muscle to muscle, breath to breath. She tenses… but doesn’t panic. Doesn’t even flinch.
Which tells me everything.
She knew.
She felt me.
She wanted this.
My mouth brushes close to her ear, the heat of her skin radiating against me as I murmur low, the words heavy with memory and blame.
“Berk… where the hell have you been hiding?” My voice comes out rough, scraped raw by years of grief and fury.
“You know they told us you were dead. That you burned with the house.”
She shifts against me, hips moving just enough to press back—not in protest, not in panic, but with deliberate intent.
A distraction. She knows exactly how to use her body, how to find that sharp edge that gets under my skin.
The contact, the friction, the temptation sparks something deep in my chest—raw and volatile. Primal. Furious.
She’s trying to take control. To unbalance me.
It won’t work.
Because now that I have her in my arms again—really have her—I’m not letting go. Not until I get answers. Not until I pull the truth from her lips, breath by breath.
“Ronan…”
She breathes my name like a prayer—soft, shaky, reverent. And it wrecks me.
Her voice wakes something feral inside me, something that’s been buried and starving for far too long.
I press my face into the curve of her neck, breathing her in, letting the scent of smoke, sweat, and something unmistakably Berk flood my lungs like air I didn’t realize I’d been choking without for years.
She shivers beneath me, her breath catching as I drag my nose along the sensitive spot just beneath her jaw. And fuck, I’m hard as steel just from the sound of her panting. From her body pressing back into mine like she’s never left.
“I missed you,” I whisper, voice rough with everything I haven’t said. “I never stopped looking, Berk. Not once.”
The words linger between us—too exposed, too real—but I don’t pull them back. I can’t. Because beneath the anger, beneath the years of silence and betrayal, one truth remains unbroken and sharp: I never let her go. Not once. Not even when the world insisted I should.
She freezes at the confession. I feel her go quiet, like she’s weighing what I just gave her, and maybe trying to figure out if it changes anything. Then, in that quiet voice I remember too well, she says the one thing I never expected.
“Can we just have one night?” she whispers. “No questions. No lies. No ghosts between us. Just… us.”
It damn near guts me.
Because I want it too. Badly. More than I should. Not with everything still fractured between us, not with the wreckage we haven’t touched yet. But I’ve never been good at denying her. Never once.
Still… I’m not handing her the reins.
“One night,” I say, my voice like gravel.
“But on my terms.” I kiss her hard—fierce and unrelenting—with all the years of aching, missing, and silent rage that I’ve poured into every swing I’ve thrown in the ring.
Every fight was a substitute for this. For her.
And now that she’s in my arms again, I let it all pour out in that kiss—hungry, desperate, real.
Before she can argue—or smile in that way that makes me weak—I hook my arm around her waist and toss her over my shoulder like she weighs nothing. Her breath escapes in a surprised laugh, but she doesn’t fight it. No kicking, no screaming.
Instead, her hands settle on my lower back… then slide down to cup my ass.
She’s bouncing over my shoulder, smug and sweet and dangerous, like she planned this. Like she knew exactly what would happen when she whispered my name like that.
I carry her to my car in silence, fire smoldering beneath my skin, knowing full well this night won’t fix anything. But it just might be the only thing that holds me together.
We drive back to my place without a word, the city streaking past in bands of shadow and light.
There’s nothing that needs saying. The weight of what just happened—the fire, the kiss, the truth written in her eyes—still hangs thick between us.
But it isn’t heavy. It’s electric. Like we’re both holding our breath, balanced on the edge of something neither of us is ready to name yet.
With all the chaos burning across town, I don’t doubt that Dean and Bryce already have Rowen and Emerson running damage control.
They’ll be out there, investigating the blast sites, trying to piece together a puzzle they don’t realize I’ve already solved.
I could call them. Could check in, pretend I’m still playing my part in the cleanup. But what’s the point?
I already know what happened.
And more importantly, I know who did it.
She’s sitting right next to me.
And I’m not about to let her out of my sight.
My little Pixie—the storm in combat boots, with fire in her veins and secrets still bleeding through her skin. She’s always had her hooks in me, even when she wasn’t around to pull the strings. No woman has ever made me feel the way she does—like I’m one wrong word away from worship or destruction.
When we turn into the drive, her gaze drifts, taking in the house as I cut the engine.
It takes a beat, but I catch the moment it hits her—a slight shift in her expression, like a shadow sliding across her face.
Subtle enough that anyone else might miss it.
I don’t. Recognition flashes there, followed by pain.
A memory she didn’t ask for, forcing its way back to the surface.
Of course she knows this place.
She’s been here before. More than that—she practically lived here.
This house was once a haven before it became a prison. And even though it’s been years since Dean last stepped foot through that door, his presence still clings to the walls like rot beneath the paint.
After she vanished, Rowen, Emerson, and I couldn’t bring ourselves to leave.
As much as this place hurt, it was the last thing that still felt tied to her.
Walking away felt final, like admitting she was really gone.
I couldn’t do it. Not when there was still that stupid, fragile hope whispering that she might come back.
It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t healthy. But we were drowning, and that thread—thin as it was—kept us anchored to something that felt like survival.
So we stayed.
We changed what we could. Tore out the old carpet. Put fists through drywall. Ripped apart anything Dean ever touched and rebuilt it piece by piece. We told ourselves we were cleansing the place, driving out the ghosts. That we were taking it back.
Maybe we were just trying to convince ourselves we weren’t still haunted.
But deep down, we always knew the truth. This house never stopped being a tomb—because somewhere within these walls, each of us lost something we couldn’t get back.
The life we once had—the version of ourselves that existed before everything shattered—was buried the moment they were gone. And now, walking back into this place with her at my side, feels like prying open a grave we spent years pretending we’d already laid to rest.
She doesn’t say a word. Just stares at the porch. The front door. The windows. Like they’re watching her back.
And maybe they are.
Since the night she vanished, I turned into something cold and hollow—an emotionless pit barely pretending to be human.
I channeled the ache into fists and fury, into blood on canvas and silence in the spaces she used to fill.
But now? That switch—the one I’d flipped to survive—is snapping back with a vengeance.
And everything I’ve buried comes flooding out the second she walks through the door beside me.
I lead her into the house, not rushing, not speaking, just letting the air settle around us. It’s quiet here—dim lighting, muted walls, clean lines—but nothing feels calm. Not with her presence setting fire to the air between us.
She scans the space, her voice soft when she finally asks, “What about Rowen and Emerson? Will they be back soon?”
I don’t miss the change in her voice. The pause. The tension humming just beneath it. She isn’t ready to face them yet—not now. For reasons I don’t fully understand, she’s chosen me first. I don’t know why I’m the one she trusts to step back into her orbit.
Maybe it’s because I was always the most unhinged, the one most willing to burn the world down for her. Maybe it’s because I never stopped searching. Or maybe it’s simpler than that.
Maybe our monsters just recognize each other.
Whatever the reason, I take it. I breathe it in like it’s oxygen, letting the weight of that small mercy settle deep in my chest.
Without a word, I reach down and slip my fingers between hers. She doesn’t pull away. The contact is warm and electric, grounding me in a way nothing has in years.
“They won’t be back tonight,” I murmur, my voice low and certain. “Dean and Bryce will keep them running in circles for hours. Probably investigating your little firework show.”
Her lips twitch, just barely, trying not to smile.
I tilt my head, giving her a look I know she remembers. The kind that used to make her laugh, roll her eyes, and blush all at once. “You’ve been a very naughty little pixie,” I say, letting just a touch of teasing curl through my voice.
This time, the smile breaks free—small, cautious, but real.
I don’t waste the moment. I step in closer, brushing my thumb along her jaw.
“You wanted one night, right?” I ask, voice rougher now, lower.
“You’ve got it. Just you and me. No questions.
No ghosts.” Her expression softens, but I don’t let her get too comfortable.
“But when the sun comes up…” I pause, holding her gaze, watching the way it flickers.
“You’re telling me everything, Berk. All of it. I’ve waited too damn long for answers.”
She nods once, slow and uncertain, then again—steadier this time. Like she’s gathering the nerve to finally tell me the truth, and I’m steeling myself to hear it.
And maybe… when it’s over, we won’t be standing in the wreckage anymore.
Maybe we’ll finally start clawing our way out.
Together.