Chapter Twenty-Three
Ronan
She’s a vision of defiance and devastation—a dark, avenging angel with blood on her lips and fury in her eyes.
The split looks like it’s reopened, probably from how hard she’s been clenching her jaw to keep from falling apart.
Her tears are silent, streaking down her cheeks without sobs or trembling.
That’s what guts me the most—she’s beyond breaking.
She’s already broken, and despite that, she stands tall. Bleeding and silent and furious.
My brain’s fogged from pain and drugs, but instinct kicks in.
I scan the room without needing to think about it.
Reign’s room. Untouched since the night everything went to hell.
The housekeeper keeps it clean, but she’s never allowed to move anything.
It’s a shrine. But the moment I see the nightstand shoved aside; my chest tightens.
The vent’s exposed. And she’s holding something—no, clutching it like it’s her last lifeline.
Reign’s phone. The one we couldn’t find after that night. My stomach twists.
But it’s not the phone or the room that keeps dragging me deeper into this pit—it’s her. It’s Berk.
Her face is a map of fresh bruises and healing cuts.
Injuries that weren’t there the last time we touched.
That night, when everything was soft and slow and full of promises, she was whole.
Now she looks like she’s been through a war.
I know some of that damage came from Trent—Bryce’s pit bull with a trigger finger—but the rest?
That’s on Rowen. On Emerson, too. Even if he didn’t throw a punch, he let it happen.
He stood back and let him work her over like she wasn’t the girl I’d die to protect.
My blood boils in my veins. I want to tear something apart. They hurt her. My girl. And now that I’m conscious, they’re going to answer for every mark on her skin.
My fury simmers just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over as I glance between Rowen and Emerson.
Rage isn’t new to me, but this… this is something deeper.
Something venomous. It coils in my gut, bitter and cold.
I can barely wrap my head around the fact that they didn’t recognize her.
Berk. The girl who’s been a part of us—of me—since we were barely more than kids.
Especially Rowen. He saw her up close. Heard her breath.
Watched her bleed. And he still didn’t see her for who she was?
That’s not just oversight. That’s betrayal.
But even if they hadn’t known… there were still rules.
Boundaries we never crossed, not even in our darkest moments.
No hitting women. No hurting kids. That line was non-negotiable.
And Rowen—my twin—blurred it. Crossed it.
Blew straight past it. I know what he thought.
He believed she was the shooter, the traitor who tried to end me.
But I’m alive, and he should’ve waited until I could tell him the truth.
Should’ve trusted me, trusted her. Instead, he let his paranoia take over, and now?
Now he might never recover from the damage he’s done.
My gaze is dragged back to her—my girl, broken on the floor, holding herself together with the barest thread of strength.
Her pain is etched into every inch of her, and it’s killing me that I can’t hold her.
I can’t fix this. Instead, I force myself to look away for just a moment, my eyes locking on Rowen’s face, and what I see guts me.
His eyes are wide, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen before.
Open, but hollow. Like something inside him has fractured too deep to ever be repaired.
I’ve seen Rowen angry, furious, even murderous—but never like this.
Never this quiet devastation that radiates off him in waves.
He doesn’t just regret what he’s done. He’s unraveling because of it.
Not recognizing her was one thing. Refusing to believe me was another.
But hurting her? Causing Berk pain with his own hands?
That’s something I don’t think he’ll ever be able to live with.
And I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive him either.
Berkley’s voice slices through the fog in my mind, sharp and raw, as she screams at Rowen with every ounce of fury she has left. Her words—accusations, pain, a desperate demand for truth—crack something wide open in me. But it’s not just what she says. It’s what she doesn’t know.
She doesn’t know.
The realization hits like a freight train to the chest, sucking the breath from my lungs.
She wasn’t here. She vanished before Reign.
.. before we lost her. My knees go weak, but it’s not from the wound in my chest—it’s from this unbearable weight in my soul, the weight of knowing what’s about to happen next.
Berkley doesn’t look at me. Not really. Her eyes keep bouncing between Rowen and Emerson, a storm of fury and betrayal building in their depths.
Every glance she throws them is blistering.
Accusatory. But I see it—buried behind the rage is a quiet understanding.
A gut-deep instinct that something’s been festering beneath the surface, something too heavy to face head-on.
They can’t answer her. Rowen and Em stand there as if they’ve forgotten how to speak, mouths parted, breathing shallow.
I can’t let her get it from them—not like this.
Not with their silence stretching into something jagged and cruel.
I clear my throat; the motion scrapes like sandpaper, and shuffle one unsteady step forward.
Every muscle in my body protests, but I ignore it. She needs me more than I need comfort.
I kneel—slowly, painfully—and let my body sink beside her. My legs collapse beneath me, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting close enough to touch her. To anchor her before the truth sends her reeling.
She gasps the moment I settle beside her, startled by how close I am. Her hands flutter just above my chest, trembling, as if afraid to make contact and find nothing but wounds. Her eyes swim with unshed tears, her lower lip quivering as she chokes out a whisper meant only for me.
“You’re, okay?” she breathes, her voice laden with so much weight it nearly crushes me.
“I’m okay,” I murmur, reaching up to cup her face, careful not to cause her more pain.
Her skin is warm and soft against my palm, despite everything.
She leans into the touch instinctively, like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.
My thumb brushes beneath her eye as her lids flutter shut for a second of fragile peace.
But that peace is short-lived.
“We didn’t get to the conversation the next day, did we?” I ask quietly, already knowing the answer. Her head shifts against my hand, a barely there shake, a sad smile tugging at her lips.
“No,” she whispers.
“It sounds like we need to go first.”
The air changes. I feel it before either of them makes a sound. Emerson and Rowen inhale sharply at the same time—synchronized like the fuckups they are—because it’s finally sinking in.
She doesn’t know.
Berkley has no idea about Reign.
I let my hand drop from her cheek as I brace for the blow. My voice is rough, heavy with regret. “Reign’s gone, Berk. She…” I pause, swallowing hard. “She died.”
She stills, like her blood’s turned to ice.
“She passed a week after the fire and—” I stop myself, choosing my words carefully, trying to protect her from the jaggedest parts, but how do you protect someone from a truth like this?
“She left a note,” I continue quietly, feeling her begin to tremble. “Said… said that you slept with her boyfriend the week before. And now that you were gone, she couldn’t—” My voice cracks. “She couldn’t handle life.”
Berkley doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. It’s like the words reach out and rip her heart clear out of her chest. And I hate myself for being the one to say them.
But someone had to. And if I could carry this weight for her, I would.
But some truths—some griefs—you just can’t shield the people you love from.
Not when the past refuses to stay buried.
She starts to shake her head slowly, like if she denies it gently enough, the truth won’t exist. Her mouth parts on a whispered “no,” the sound so soft I barely catch it, but it guts me all the same.
The way her entire body folds inward is like watching a building collapse in slow motion—too tragic to stop, too painful to look away from.
And that’s when Rowen, in all his self-loathing glory, decides to twist the blade.
His face morphs into something ugly, not in appearance, but with intent.
That practiced sneer pulls at the corners of his mouth; the same one he’s used since we were kids whenever he wanted to push someone away before they could get close.
It’s a mask—a damn obvious one—but it still slices clean through the air between them.
His voice drops low and cruel, brittle with rage disguised as indifference, but I know him too well. There’s nothing indifferent about it.
“Don’t know why you’re so upset,” he spits, glaring down at her like it’s her fault the entire world is crumbling beneath us. “She lost it after you fucked around on us.”
The words hang in the air like a bomb with a delayed explosion.
His tone is bitter, but his eyes betray him.
He’s unraveling. The desperation underneath his words is screaming loud enough to drown out his cruelty, but she doesn’t hear it.
Can’t. She’s already too far gone, and that sentence—those hateful, hollow words—might just be the final blow.
The worst part? He knows it. Rowen knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to punish her for the hurt he doesn’t know how to handle, for the truth he doesn’t want to admit. And it makes me want to punch him square in the face. Because this—this is not how we handle the people we love.