Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Hayden
The door clicks shut behind me, I make my way down the steps, the gravel crunching under my boots as Declan follows without a word. We don’t talk as I unlock the truck and climb in.
I can still feel her kiss on my lips, I’ve wanted to kiss her again since prom, that was the kiss I remember. I’ve kissed her since she’s come back, but they were out of anger, this one was what I wanted. The hunger I’ve been holding back.
“You think you can really put all this behind you?” Declan asks after a moment.
I stare out at the dark road ahead. Put it behind me?
The courtroom. The months inside. The scars on my body, and she hasn’t even seen the ones on my back. The weight of betrayal, and the years I spent building walls just so I wouldn’t have to remember what it felt like to need her. To trust her.
I inhale slowly, eyes still on the road.
“I love her,” I finally say. “If I want her in my life... I have to. I either find a way to live with it, or I lose her for good. And I can't do that again.”
Declan nods, not saying anything at first. “Alright. If she’s what you want, we’ve got your back. All of us. Hers too.”
I glance at him, my jaw tightening. There’s no judgment in his face. Just quiet loyalty. Our family is built on two things, loyalty and faith in each other.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He shrugs like it's nothing. But it’s everything, because she not only betrayed me, but she also betrayed them too.
The road ahead blurs in the headlights, trees lining both sides like shadows watching us pass. The silence gives me room to breathe, to think.
I can’t stop thinking about her lips trembling just before I kissed her. The way she didn’t push me away. She leaned into it, into me, like she'd been waiting years for that one moment.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white.
What if this is all just temporary? What if she breaks me again?
I want to believe her. God, I do. But every time I get close to trusting her, my brain flashes back to the cold courtroom, to the feeling of those cuffs digging into my wrists, the echo of a verdict I’ll never forget, “Guilty.”
That word tattooed itself across my fucking soul.
She said she had no choice. She told me the truth, finally. About her mother, about the threats, about the blackmail that drove a knife into my back and twisted it without warning.
But knowing why doesn’t erase the scars it left.
It doesn’t undo the prison nights where I didn’t know if I’d see morning.
Doesn’t undo the hatred I swallowed every damn day, trying not to remember how much I used to love her voice. Her laugh. Her everything.
And now here I am, heart racing from the taste of her mouth on mine like we were still those two kids in the treehouse, dreaming about a life we never got to live.
I shake my head, jaw tight.
“Scared?” Declan asks, surprising me.
I glance at him, and he just raises an eyebrow like he already knows the answer.
“I should be,” I mutter, eyes back on the road. “She broke everything, D.”
“Yeah... but you never stopped loving her.”
My chest squeezes so hard I feel like I can’t breathe. “I didn’t,” I say quietly. “I still do and that’s the problem.”
Declan exhales a breath through his nose, leans his head against the window. “Then take the risk. She already showed you what she gave up protecting her mom. That wasn’t selfish, that was sacrifice. You know how this family works, H. Loyalty like that... it's rare.”
I don’t answer, because he’s right.
Because if I give her all of me again, and she breaks it a second time?
I don’t think I’ll survive that.
The second we step into the club; the noise is like a punch to the chest which I never get used to. The music thumping like a heartbeat, the crowd moving from one table to the other, the stripper moving to the music, and not one empty table.
Walking over to Lincoln who’s standing by some of the other security, I can already see whatever he called me for is because Cain is being a pain in the ass tonight.
“What’s going on?” I ask, my eyes scanning the floor instinctively.
He exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. “Cain’s having one of his headaches. A bad one. Doc came by to check on him, and now they’re fighting like pissed-off exes.”
Declan snorts beside me, and I press my lips together not to laugh myself. “Let me guess. Cain tried to headbutt the doctor?”
“Close,” Lincoln mutters. “Doc punched him instead. Cain didn’t even flinch.”
Of course he didn’t.
I sigh, already heading for the stairs. “This is going to be fun.”
We push through the club crowd and up the stairs. I push open the door to Cain’s office, I hear it before I see it, Cain’s voice, sharp as glass.
“I said I’m fine. You come here again trying to change my dosage, I’ll inject you.”
“Cain—” Doc snaps back, hand in the air, “—you haven’t slept in three nights, and your scans are spiking again. You’re not fine.”
“I’m functioning.”
“You’re fading.” The word comes out slowly, but the worry hits me. Cain never told me they were getting so bad, I think I need to talk to Autumn, if she’s worried to call me.
I step in before Cain puts his head through the drywall.
“Doc,” I say calmly. “Talk to me. Leave Cain alone before we have to sedate me.”
Doc glares at me, then glances back at Cain, who’s practically vibrating with rage. Even I can feel how intense Cain is tonight, but I didn’t know he hadn't been sleeping.
“I’m not changing his dosage,” Doc mutters. “But he needs sleep. Deep, long sleep. Or next time, it won’t be a headache.” He looks over my shoulder at Cain. “It’ll be a blackout.”
“Fine,” I hold out my hand. “Give me the pills. I’ll make sure he takes them. Later.”
Doc eyes me, then finally reaches into his bag, handing over a small bottle.
“I’m trusting you,” he mutters before walking out.
I close the door behind him, then turn to Cain, who’s pacing like a caged animal, jaw locked, temple pulsing.
Something is happening, and he’s keeping it to himself, but even I know not to ask him about it when he’s in this mood of his.
Declan drops into the chair across from the desk with a lazy grin. “So... how’s your evening going?”
Cain glares at him, grabs a file off the desk, and slaps it down in front of us.
“The hit.”
I sit, lean forward, and flip the file open, scanning it. My mind’s still stuck on Olivia, the kiss, the soft hum of her voice when she whispered goodnight. I should be focused.
I try to be focused.
But then Declan laughs. “He didn’t even look at it. He’s been too busy making out with Olivia in the kitchen like a teenage boy with no concept of house rules.”
“Seriously?” Cain’s voice cuts sharp, and I look up just in time to see him staring at me like I just kicked his dog.
I roll my eyes. “It’s not like that.”
Declan shrugs, all innocent. “It looked like that to me.”
Cain doesn’t smile. “Business comes first, Hayden. Always. You know that.” There’s a meaning, a warning behind those words.
I nod. “I do. But something about this one... feels different.”
Cain eyes me carefully. “Different how? It’s a fucking job. Open the envelope follow the fucking step. Do the job and never talk about it again.”
Cain leans back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. The fatigue is painted all over his face, the war he fights inside his skull evident in the deep lines around his eyes.
I hold out the pills. “Take the fucking pills, Cain,” I say finally. “Or I swear to God, one day I’ll drug your whiskey and handcuff you to the bed while Doc plays musical chairs with your brain cells.”
Declan bursts out laughing, but Cain doesn’t, but he does slide the pills closer to him like he’s considering it. Progress. I think he knows I would do it
I flip back to the file, letting the weight of it sink in. Leo’s father. The man behind everything. The one who fucked everything up. How do I just walk away from it?
“How deep does this go?” I ask.
Cain taps the side of his whiskey glass. “Deeper than we thought. Connections in politics, medicine, law enforcement. Everything that crushed Olivia, it started with him.”
Again, I ask myself, how do I walk away without him knowing it’s me who ended him.
I grit my teeth. “Then it ends with him.”
Cain nods, but again it feels like something is going on in his head, like he is planning something else.
There’s a long pause, and then Declan clears his throat.
“Oh, by the way, Autumn says the flower shop’s busier than ever and she’s pissed at you, Cain.” Now Cain knows the shop is busy, because she tells him all the time, so Declan is doing something to break the silence.
Cain doesn’t even blink. “Why this time?”
“She says you never come home. You spend more time here or at The Pit.”
Cain groans. “We run a fucking criminal empire; she runs a flower shop. I can’t exactly close shop early because she misses my face.” Now I know Cain’s head is bad, and there’s a lot more going on in his head, because he loves Autumn, so for him to snap like this, it’s weird.
Declan smirks. “Well, your face is the reason she’s with you, apparently.”
“I’ll send her a bouquet,” Cain mutters. “With your dead body in it.”
I laugh quietly. It’s a strange moment but it still makes me laugh.
Leaning forward, so Cain looks at me with his dead eyes. “You have a family who cares, a woman for some crazy reason who loves you. Take the pills Doc gives you, if you care about any of us even a fucking little.”
He stares at me for a whole minute between turning around and looking at the screens, and that’s him telling us to fuck off.
The house is quiet when we get back, Mason and Miles have probably gone back to the house and Declan disappears upstairs after mumbling something about needing a nap, which is bullshit, he just wants to get to Trixie.
My door's slightly ajar, light spilling out softly like she’s trying not to disturb anyone. I push it open and there she is, curled up in the middle of my bed, a paperback in her hand and her lip caught between her teeth.
I don’t even have to ask what she’s reading.