Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Eddie
“I had no idea it was story time,” I say as I walk into the room and listen to our first time together, playing back like a recording that still makes my throat ache.
“She wants to know how it started. Us . . . three—” Barret glances at Cleo. “Her.”
“Not surprised. She’s always liked to watch—a voyeur. Story time with the nitty-gritty is practically her favorite thing, isn’t it?” The words come out with a grin I can’t quite rein in, equal parts fondness and wickedness, because with Cleo it always is.
“Sure, but also . . . you two make sense,” Cleo states, level and curious. “Why add me? Why not let me just be a one-time thing?”
There she goes, trying to erase herself from the equation—from us. Not because she doesn’t accept us, but because she doesn’t want to accept herself.
“I’ve got room for more than one person, and it isn’t a deficit—it’s capacity,” I say, and for once I don’t know if that’s the right answer.
My therapist called it close enough. “I fell for you, and when I brought it up, he felt the same. You’re one of the few things we actually talked about after we figured ourselves out.
I didn’t want to ruin anything for anyone—that’s my job.
” I shrug, trying to keep light what never was.
“Caregiver and fixer,” Barret adds. “Though he’s going to start delegating some of those tasks, aren’t you, babe?”
The corner of my lip twitches. He hardly ever calls me babe. I don’t know when he chooses to, but I like how it settles into me, warm and unexpected.
“Which brings me back to why we’re revisiting the past.” I raise an eyebrow. “Why the origin story?”
“As I said,” Barret repeats, eyes on Cleo. “She wants to know how she fits into this—how we got to threes.”
I hate the way my answer tastes, but I give it anyway.
“I wouldn’t let anyone touch him the way I did after he was mine.
” I shrug, defensive. “Since we couldn’t stop Connor, I’d join in.
I’d control how far everything went—how much they got to touch him, how much they were allowed to take.
It had to be consensual for everyone. If he wanted a blowjob.
If he wanted to fuck them—or go down on them.
I made it good enough so they felt like they got the promise of having a go with the rockstar while making sure nothing happened to him. ”
“He took charge of everything,” Barret says. “Connor liked that I was into orgies. Fucking asshole, he never understood our dynamic, and honestly, that suited us fine.”
“But then I started drinking and using,” I pick up.
“Once pointed out, I had to quit managing the band. Find another way to pay the bills while caring for him. I wanted him to make music, not sell his soul. Also . . . you were around a lot, and I—” I cut off, because I don’t know how to finish that without showing how much it hurt.
“What about me?” Cleo asks, her voice sounding small for the first time.
“You were barely eighteen and very pretty,” Barret finishes for me, blunt as ever. “Plus, my best friend’s little sister. Off limits.”
“So fucking off limits,” I agree.
“I was a consenting adult,” she says, looking like she surprised herself with the courage in her tone. “I liked you. I . . . I—”
“You?” I prod, because she’s flushed, and her eyes are bright with something embarrassed.
“Finish,” Barret says softly. “We’re listening. Use the safe word if you need to.”
“I wanted to be one of those women you took to your room,” she confesses, dropping whatever act she’d been carrying since she walked in. “I thought you wouldn’t because you just saw me as Roderick’s stupid little sister.”
“You are his little sister,” Barret insists, but not cruelly.
“I’m only four years younger than you,” she snaps, cheeks hot.
Barret shakes his head at me. “Almost five,” he corrects her. “But he was twenty-eight then. Not ideal.”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” I offer, because why fish in the rot of what we already survived? “Now we’re all consenting adults. We can choose to stay together or—” I don’t finish. Saying it aloud is a wound I can’t peel open.
“Which one of you decided I was old enough to play with?” she asks suddenly, blunt and sharp in a way that makes us all still.
“It wasn’t playing,” I say, flustered and commanding her, “I need you to take that fucking idea out of your mind. It was never a game.”
“Edgar, that voice,” Barret warns me. “I know you like to boss around, but it’s not the time right now.”
“Sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, princess.” I sigh, run a hand through my hair, and continue. “We wanted to see if you would accept us as we are. The us, while we courted you.” I watch her face for the way it moves when memories bloom.
She points at Barret. “A few times he’d be like, ‘Come with us. You know how much Eddie likes it when I bring you. He loves when you’re around—we both do.’”
I glare at B because what the ever-loving fuck. “Did you seriously say it like that?”
Barret grins at the memory. “Yeah. What else do you say when Kit Dempsey is standing in front of you? ‘Would you like to come on a date with us?’ ‘What if we take you on a trip to forget your shitty family?”
“Fine, that’s nothing you say. Not back then,” I admit. “Now it’d be different.”
“Why different?” Cleo asks, genuinely curious.
“Kit knows,” I blurt. “She knows we’re together—and she saw us once. Right before you disappeared on us.”
“Oh.” Cleo exhales, the single syllable folding into the room. “How is she? Are her and Rod still . . . together?”
I go to my side of the closet and fish out the photo of Arlo and Barret I keep in there. It’s framed and . . . reminds me that this is the moment Barret believed there could be life—a new beginning. And fuck if I’m not trying to create it for him, for Cleo, and me too.
I bring it back like offering a tide that won’t break. I pass it across the coffee table to Cleo.
“Meet Arlo—your nephew.” The name tastes like something holy and ordinary at once. “Kit and Roderick miss you. They keep hoping you’ll come home.”
“They don’t know about—” Cleo starts, reaching for the picture with hands that tremble.
“Dorian? Nope.” I shake my head. “Only Rhodes and Alfie know about the asshole and that you’re safe. We haven’t told anyone where you’re staying—or that you’re with us.”
She bites, “I mean, Alfie knew I was with Dorian.”
“He had no idea how he was treating you,” I say, the memory hot behind my ribs.
I can still see the dull shock on Alfie’s face when I pulled him aside and tried to explain.
“After I told him—” My mouth shuts around the rest. The memory knots in my throat.
It’s a tangle of regrets and mercies that nobody wants to unravel tonight.
Alfie was key to getting her back. He’s now under surveillance with three bodyguards in case Dorian gets any ideas.
I told him to leave the country so I could get him to a safe place, but he says that it’ll make things suspicious.
He swears he’s a good actor who can continue living a normal life and giving zero fucks about his sister.
“How did you know?” Cleo asks.
“You don’t think I feel it when my own heart is bleeding?” My voice is rough, low, meant only for her. “The moment I saw you, I knew something was broken. I just didn’t know where it was coming from. So, I dug into Dorian . . . and what I found—fuck—I wish I hadn’t been right.”
My breath skitters. I have to turn away for a second because the air in my lungs feels thin, constricting like a fist I can’t pry open.
The pictures. The footage. Names and faces that should never have been there.
I cough, the sound half laugh and half sob, and brace myself against the arm of the chair while the room waits.
“I told you not to watch the videos,” Barret says, voice low and rough. “That fucked you for the rest of your life.”
Cleo frowns. “What videos?”
“Mason Bradley,” Barret says. “One of the men who helped me rescue you. He hacked into Dorian’s system, including the building cameras.”
“The ones in the apartment?” she whispers, like the word itself might call them forward.
I nod. Her shoulders fold inward, a paper figure collapsing. Her hands fly to her temples. She draws her knees up, retreating into herself in a way that makes everything around us hush.
“Dreams,” she says, the safe word falling out brittle and small. It catches the room; the sound loosens something raw inside her.
Barret is the first to move, stepping back, palms raised slightly, signaling space.
I shift with him, giving her room, every instinct screaming at me to hold her but knowing this is her boundary.
The silence stretches—slow, endless—until her breathing steadies, until the tremor in her hands eases just enough for her to lift her face again.
“How do we help?” I ask quietly.
“You—us.” Barret’s voice tightens, edges hard as wire. His jaw flexes as he leans forward, the promise in his words as sharp as a drawn blade. “We’re going to make him pay.”
“He’ll find me. He’ll find us and—” Cleo’s sentence unravels into fear.
“You’re safe, Cleo.” My voice is grounded, certain, every word meant to hold her together. “That’s why you’re here. Nothing touches you now—not while we’re here and not ever.”
“Is that why we’re on this island?” Her voice is a small, incredulous thing.
I nod. “Yeah. I began building it years ago, so we could breathe when we were together. When it was time to pull you out, Arthur and his son said this was the safest place to keep you while we figured the rest out.”
She presses her forehead into her palms and rocks once, like trying to squeeze something out of her chest. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel.”
“Can I—” I start, and nearly stop because the moment she lets me touch her, I know I won’t be able to let go. Even if she asked me to leave, I’d stay.
I look at Barret, seeing if he thinks I’m going too far. “What if I can’t let her go?” My voice breaks on the question.
“Fuck,” he says, because there it is—the truth that scares us. “Can he hold you?”
Cleo nods, a shy, tiny motion of surrender and trust.
I cross the room, my knees hitting the rug as I reach for her.
My hands are careful but desperate as I pull her into my lap.
She comes willingly, folding into me like she’s been waiting for the space I’ve been holding.
I wrap my arms around her, cradling her as if I could keep every fracture from widening.
Her face presses into my chest, her breath hot through my shirt.
She shakes once, then again, and I tighten my hold, rocking her in slow circles, my cheek resting against the crown of her head.
Every tremor pulls me apart, but the feel of her in my arms—her warmth, her scent, her small sounds—stitches me back together.
“You’re here,” I whisper into her hair, the words breaking but true. “You’re here with us. We’ll keep you safe. I swear, Cleo. I fucking swear.”
She mumbles something against me, half words, half prayer, and I feel her voice vibrate against my chest. My arms tighten on instinct, hands splayed across her back, as if I could press her deeper into me until nothing could reach her.
My fingers comb into her hair, not to control but to soothe, to remind her she’s not alone.
Barret moves closer, his hand finding my forearm. Not pulling me back, not intruding—just a tether, reminding me I don’t have to carry this alone.
Cleo lifts her head, her eyes wet and fragile, and for the first time since she walked into this house, there’s a trace of peace in them.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I murmur. My thumb brushes her temple as I hold her tighter. “Rest. Breathe. We’ll talk when you’re ready—or we won’t. Whatever you need.”
Her breath slows, her body softening into mine. I press my lips to the top of her head, soft and reverent, like the answer to a prayer I hadn’t dared to speak.
I don’t let go. I can’t. And for the first time that night, I feel the room shift—still broken, still bruised, but holding.