Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
We roll into the driveway, the engine ticks as it cools, the night stretching out around us.
The car sits idly, and neither of us reaches for our doors.
Tyler ends the moment with a sigh. He opens his door and climbs out.
“I’m grabbing a shower.”
I am already unbuckling. “I’ll be outside.”
His eyes snap to me, reflexive, constantly checking, before he dips his chin once and departs inside.
When I step through the front door, the house is wrapped in an ordinary, comforting silence.
I don’t stop until the back door slides open with a quiet rasp of metal along the track. Cool air washes over me at once, making me shiver. I step out onto the deck and let the door glide shut behind me, shutting the rest of the world away.
I stand there, caught between breathing and thinking.
And then it creeps in, the darkness, patient and inevitable, just as it always does.
It seeps in gently like an old friend, thick as smoke, winding through my chest, pressing in until it’s hard to tell where it starts and I end.
But then Tyler comes to the forefront of my mind, shattering the spiral before it can take hold.
Inside. Water running. Shower. Safe. Real. Here.
I repeat the facts to myself until the darkness is only tethering onto me.
He’s the only light I have left in a world that tried to swallow me whole.
We celebrated his twenty-first birthday a few weeks ago and next month we will celebrate mine.
A quiet humorless laugh leaves me as my gaze wanders into the night.
It doesn’t feel real. Any of it.
What happened to me didn’t break me; it revealed me.
The girl I used to be, she’s been gone.
Fearless. Adventurous. Innocent to the evil lurking in the world.
I buried her.
I clench the railing, centering myself as the memories gather at the edges of my mind. Nights I couldn’t breathe, days I couldn’t leave the house, and the phantom feel of hands that weren’t there anymore but still burned like they were.
It’s your fault. This would’ve never happened if you hadn’t gone down those stairs.
That voice used to live in my head, relentlessly.
Until everything went quiet. Not peace, just numb.
I let the waves crash over me, never fighting them, never caring if they pulled me under.
I swallow against the lump in my throat.
Tyler never let me stay there.
Not when I pushed him away with every sharp word. Not when I lashed out with every cruel edge I could find, hoping he would give up and finally leave.
He stayed through it all. The nightmares, the panic attacks, and even the long drawn-out silence that would last for days.
He stayed.
My hold tightens even more around the railing.
The gym flashes through my mind.
The heavy bag under my fists.
The sound of every impact ricocheting off the walls as I drove every ounce of anger, grief and helplessness into it. I chased exhaustion in the hope of making everything fade away.
Until my arms gave out and I collapsed to the floor, letting everything I’d been holding inside finally break free.
Tyler didn’t come to me.
He didn’t stop me.
He just watched.
Because he understood something most people don’t.
No one saves you.
You claw your own way back with bleeding hands and sheer will.
All someone else can do is stay.
Piece by piece, I built something new out of what they tried to destroy.
I didn’t survive just to live.
At some point, without realizing it, I stopped trying to put myself back together.
I was going to mold myself into a weapon, something lethal, so I’d never feel that kind of helplessness again.
I needed to take back my power and pick these motherfuckers off one by one.
But first, I had to make myself ready.
The evil of human trafficking is everywhere.
Hidden. Protected. Thriving.
The only way I knew how to fight it was to rip pieces of it out with my bare hands.
No matter the cost.
Tyler saw it too.
He didn’t shy away or try to stop me.
He adapted.
While I trained my body, he trained his mind by teaching himself how to break into places no one’s supposed to reach.
The dark web.
Trafficking networks.
He finds them, maps them out, and focuses on the ones rooted in Turks and Caicos.
Together we started hunting, with each step refining me, preparing me for the vengeance I’ve been quietly building for two years against the ones who thought I’d never come back.
The door slides open and bare feet pad over the wood, unhurried.
Then warmth flows through me. Tyler’s arms wrap around me from behind, solid and unyielding. I go willingly as he draws me back against his chest, lifting me slightly until my breath catches and my heart stumbles.
“Hey,” he whispers against my neck, his voice rough, weighted from everything he doesn’t say out loud.
The blood coating me doesn’t faze him, he’s showing me without telling me that he sees the destruction in me and I’m still worth loving, every single part of me.
I let myself fall into it. Into him.
The darkness recedes a little more, retreating beneath the steady weight of Tyler’s presence.
“You checked out on me,” he adds attentively.
“I’m right here,” I confess.
His arms draw me closer, as if he knows that’s only part of the truth.
“I know, I just like having you closer.”
I tilt my head slightly, just enough to give him better access to my neck. His lips find the spot just below my jaw, and a shiver works its way through me.
“Careful,” I murmur, a hint of need threading through my voice. “You’ll distract me.”
A quiet huff of amusement. “You caught me.”
I let my hands come up, resting over his forearms where they’re locked around me, feeling the strength there.
For a moment, I don’t feel like I’m standing on the edge of something dark.
I only feel love.
Of who I was, who I became and who I am.
Then my gaze drifts back out into the night.
The mission. The names. The blood that is still owed.
His hands find my waist, firm and possessive, and in one fluid motion, he lifts me off my feet and into his arms.
“Tyler.”
My words falter as my body presses fully into his, heat sparking through the thin space between us.
“Mm,” he hums low in my ear, already guiding us back inside the house. “Let me take care of you.”
The way he says it, rough, certain, sends a delicious flutter between my legs.
“You don’t have to,” I murmur softly, but there’s no real fight in it.
“I know.” His grip shifts, one arm tightening under my thighs, the other tucking me closer against his chest. “I want to.”
My breath stutters.
My arms slide around his neck without thought, pulling just a little closer, my lips brushing near his jaw as he carries me inside.
“Easy there,” I whisper, the hint of a smile ghosting my mouth. “You’re getting a little controlling.”
He chuckles.
“You like being told what to do,” he counters back.
His head dips, burying his face into the curve of my neck, and inhales deeply.
I curl my fingers into the damp hair at the nape of his neck.
“Depends on who is doing the telling,” I breathe.
The door slides closed behind us with a soft click, sealing out the night.
But I barely register it. Right now, it’s just him and the way he holds me like I’m something worth protecting.
I surrender the control I cling to, letting him take over as he opens a door that does not lead to our bedroom.
We descend the stairs, and the second Tyler’s feet reach the bottom, he flips a switch. Neon strobes erupt to life, flooding the room with pulses of electric color and unveiling everything that had been concealed.