Chapter Sixteen
Trey
All To Myself – Marianas Trench
Just shy of one point four million bucks for a ring would have once been a number I respected purely for its weight, for its financial gravity, for the power it represented in rooms where power was measured in what a man could acquire and how easily he could do it, but standing here now, watching my wife in the morning light with that same ring resting against her skin as though it had always belonged there, I know with absolute, immovable certainty that it is the single best investment I have ever made.
If she asked for it all… I’d give it to her.
Push over.
Shut the fuck up.
I’m actually relieved they stopped talking about that “uncut” shit—I was two seconds away from losing it. Not for the reason they think, either. I’ve got something uncut, but that’s for my wife… and only my wife.
Focus motherfucker.
Jesus.
The tattoo pros. Piercers. Whatever the hell they’re called—there has to be a proper name for that.
Professionals?
No.
Sadists.
Yeah. That tracks.
Christ, I’m off track.
Where was I?
Wife.
Wifey.
Her ring.
And then my brain goes somewhere it definitely shouldn’t.
Other rings.
Her other rings.
Fuck.
She stands at the window, her back to us, her silhouette softened by the pale gold of the Nevada sun as it rises over the city, her fingers resting lightly against the glass as though she could feel the life moving below, the endless current of strangers and noise and freedom that exists without her, and even from here I can see the way her shoulders hold themselves, not defeated, not resigned, but quietly aching in a way that makes something corrosive spread through my bloodstream.
Las Vegas stretches out beneath her. Wild, chaotic, fueled by alcohol and drugs, adrenaline and traded fortunes.
And my wife stands above it.
The ring on her finger catches the light.
My chest tightens.
We’re up here when we should be down there—making mistakes, doing reckless honeymoon shit, losing ourselves in each other.
You almost lost her… do you really want to risk going out there? Out there with them?
“Among the people.”
Christ, that makes it sound like I need to go outside and touch grass. We can’t keep her locked up here.
We should…What?
Socialize her?
Yeah, no. That sounds wrong. Like I’m about to clip a leash on her and take her for a walk.
…although.
My mind immediately betrays me.
Silk. Leather. Her beneath me, wrecked and soft, a collar at her throat, a leash in my hand.
Then it flips.
Me on my knees. Naked. Collar tight.
…what the fuck.
Am I into that?
Jesus. Focus.
Stop getting distracted, you fucking idiot.
Right.
Right—are we just trading one cage for another?
There it is.
Fucking hell, that took a minute.
Because I know what this looks like.
I know what it feels like.
A gilded cage is still a cage.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful the bars are.
Poetic.
Poignant…
Heat crawls up my spine, slow and venomous, as the full weight of her life settles over me again—not just what Gideon did, not just the violence or the theft or the cruelty, but the years before that, the quiet theft of choice, of autonomy, of breath, the systematic stripping away of a girl’s right to exist freely in her own skin until she no longer recognized the shape of freedom even when it stood in front of her.
We can do more for her.
My jaw tightens.
I refuse to be another man who takes from her.
I refuse to be another man who cages her and calls it love.
Across the room, Chace shifts, and when I look at him, I find his eyes already on me, already knowing, because he has always known me in a way few people ever will, and he doesn’t need words to understand the war happening behind my ribs.
His gaze moves past me.
To her.
I follow it.
She hasn’t moved. Still staring.
Still longing.
For what, I don’t know.
Freedom?
Air?
A life that belongs entirely to her?
My head shakes once, small, helpless.
Chace exhales beside me, the sound heavy with something that mirrors my own helplessness.
“Do you… wanna go out tonight?”
She turns so fast it almost startles me, the towel wrapped around her head slipping loose as she spins, her hands flying up to catch it before it falls, her eyes wide, luminous, fragile in their hope.
“What?” she breathes.
“Tonight, we can see some of the nightlife?” She nods and her contemplative expression shifts into a smile.
It guts me.
There is a little gurgling sound from my stomach, hungry for probably more than the thought of breakfast, but that being said…
“You want to go down and get breakfast, Dove?” I say gently. “We don’t have to stay up here.”
She moves a few errant strands of hair from her forehead and nods. It hits me, how such a small gesture on her part moves me so much. Shit, I want to give everything to her. She deserves the fucking world. So much life stolen.
So many firsts taken before she ever got to have them.
Chace pushes himself upright, slipping his hands into his jeans with forced casualness.
“I could eat. And Trey is a growing boy, he needs to eat his meat and veggies, like the child he is.”
For a split second she just stares at him, like she doesn’t trust it, like she doesn’t trust herself to believe it.
Then she smiles.
Christ.
It’s blinding.
Flash-banged by my own wife…
If she had a theme song when she did that—something epic, something completely over the top—Angel with a Shotgun would be blaring in the background.
Fuck.
I still owe DeLeon money from that Grammy bet… they should’ve been nominated.
The Cab is maybe not the strongest name, though.
Then again—why not? It works for Fake Taxi.
…which is porn, not a rock band.
It transforms her entire face, splits her open with joy so pure and unfiltered it makes my throat tight, because this—this right here—is who she was always meant to be.
“Me too,” she says breathlessly. “Yes.”
I laugh quietly, the sound pulled out of me without permission, because her happiness is so simple, so undemanding, so devastating in its innocence, and I know in that moment there is nothing on this earth I wouldn’t give to see it again and again for the rest of my life.
“There are some Nike trainers in a box in our bedroom,” I tell her. “Socks in the top drawer.”
She doesn’t hesitate.
She runs to me.
Launches into my arms with absolute trust, her legs wrapping around my waist, her hands framing my face as her mouth finds mine in a kiss that is warm and grateful and alive in a way that steals the air from my lungs.
“Thank you,” she breathes against my lips.
Two words. Two words that feel like both a gift and an accusation.
Because she shouldn’t have to thank me for this.
I think she likes the idea of going down to breakfast more than the ring she picked out.
Or maybe it’s the socks?
Just think… if you asked ten minutes ago, you could have saved 1.4 mil…
Fuck off, you old penny grubbing meiser, what were you going to do with the money?
Leave it to make more money. Duh.
Or spend it on fucking FIFA points.
She slides down my body and disappears into the bedroom, her bare feet silent against the floor, her energy trailing behind her like sunlight.
The door closes.
The room feels colder without her in it.
Chace pulls out his phone.
“I’ll get security to stay out of view,” he says, already typing.
I stare at the door.
At the space where she vanished.
At the invisible line between who she was and who she might still become.
“I can’t keep her caged, Chace,” I say quietly, the admission tearing its way out of me. “It’s killing her. It’s killing me. It’s all she’s known.”
My throat tightens.
“I can’t do it.”
He stops typing.
Looks at me.
In his eyes I find no judgment.
Only understanding.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “I know. Still makes you a huge pain in the ass though.”
He slips the phone into his pocket.
“Besides,” he lets out a short sigh. “I don’t think I could do it to her either, brother.”
Neither of us speaks after that.
Because there is nothing else to say.
Her hair is down now, no longer hidden or restrained, but alive in a mass of wild red curls that tumble halfway down her back in soft, untamed waves, the color of it burning against the pale gold of the morning light as though it belongs to fire instead of flesh.
There is no makeup on her face, nothing to conceal her, nothing to refine or sharpen what is already devastating in its honesty, and she looks so young like this, so fresh and unguarded and painfully beautiful that it hits me in two places at once—deep in my chest, where love lives, and low in my body, where hunger does—and I have to curl my hand into a fist for a second just to steady myself before I reach for her.
She doesn’t hesitate when I take her hand, her fingers slipping between mine with easy trust, and I hold on as Chace leads us out of the suite, pausing only long enough for me to pocket the keycard in the back of my sweats, my attention already half gone to the woman beside me, to the quiet warmth of her, to the miracle of her being here at all.
Blessed. I’m blessed.
My ribs ache with every step, a dull, persistent reminder of yesterday’s violence, of the way my father’s knuckles split against my skin and the way mine returned the favor without mercy, and the loose grey sweats and black T-shirt had been less a choice this morning and more a necessity, because anything tighter would have pressed too closely against damage I’m not interested in examining yet.
Yet, I persist. I survive. I should have thought ahead, should have pulled on a cap, should have done something to obscure myself before stepping out into a public space where my face belongs less to me than it does to everyone else, but it hadn’t mattered in the moment, and it doesn’t matter now, not when I glance at Chace and see that he’s made the same decision, his blonde head bare, his identity as exposed as mine.
If we get recognized, we get recognized.
There are worse things in this world than being seen.