Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
I wake a few hours ahead of our gym session, creep out of the bedroom and head upstairs with one goal in mind, the Nespresso machine.
It’s still dark outside, right before dawn. Tranquil. The exact opposite of what used to be inside these walls.
As the water heats, I brace my hands on the counter and watch the black liquid spiral into my cup. Steam curls upward in thin ribbons.
The past two years slam into me, uninvited.
The first few months after we settled down here were the toughest.
Every day felt like a battle she was fighting alone. Nightmares dragged her from sleep. Anxiety followed her everywhere. She jumped at faces that seemed familiar and watched every car that slowed outside the house like it might be carrying the people who stole so much from her.
I hated all of it.
But what tore me apart was the silence.
The way she’d retreat behind walls I couldn’t reach. The way she’d lock every thought, every fear, every ounce of pain inside herself and carry it alone.
Cassidy had always been full of fire. Stubborn as hell, loud, quick with a sarcastic remark. She lit up every room she walked into without noticing.
The way she would retreat into herself, shutting down fully, it felt like she was afraid that if she let herself feel too much, she would implode.
She was living behind glass.
I’d see her staring out the window for hours, her eyes glued to something only she could see. Sometimes I would ask her what she was thinking and she would always forget, or that’s what she told me.
She wasn't pushing me away because she didn't love me, she was drowning.
At first, I fought it.
I crowded her. I tried to talk her through every bad day.
Every instinct I have is wired to step in, be the protector, the fixer.
All I wanted to do was fix it, to take it from her and carry it myself.
But healing doesn’t work that way and that would have set her back even more.
I was always there. One room or call away if she needed me.
The shift didn’t happen all at once.
I stayed close enough to touch, convinced that if I loved every piece of her, I could somehow pull her back to me.
Every wall she threw up, I never budged in my devotion to her.
That wasn’t what she needed.
So, I adjusted for her even when it tore me apart.
I gave her space, even when it gutted me to do it. Enough room to breathe but never far enough to think she was alone. I stopped forcing conversations and started patiently waiting on her to come to me.
Some days that meant sitting on opposite ends of the couch for hours or listening to her cry through the bathroom door.
Little by little, she began finding her way back to me.
Not all at once or some dramatic moment.
Small things like a laugh that lasted longer, a conversation that stretched past a few words, her reaching for my hand first.
Tiny victories.
Everyone deserves a person that will sit with them in the dark and be their strength even when they are falling apart.
Over that time, witnessing her fight through it only pulled me in deeper.
From the moment I saw her, I was hooked. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I do now.
Biding my time for the moment, she decided to fight her way back.
I knew she would. It didn’t matter how long it took.
It was in her. Even when she couldn’t see it yet.
The joint therapy sessions were the worst of it.
Sitting there while she talked through what was done to her, what part my father played in her abuse.
I learned how to stay still, even when it felt like I was suffocating.
How to keep my expression neutral while everything inside me shattered.
After I'd leave the room, the first thing I would seek out is the nearest trash can.
The guilt ate me alive, and I still have moments where it slinks back in.
I dealt with it the only way I could, move forward and heal; I started attending my own therapy sessions, writing everything down, and needing somewhere to get everything I was feeling out.
If I was going to be the man she needed, steady, reliable, and unshakeable, then I couldn’t afford to come apart.
The anger came with it, and it hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s intensified.
At my father, the man I believed him to be. At Alpha Chi. At everything connected to it.
Questions I still don’t have the answers to and probably never will.
I’ll never understand it because I would never do it.
I must make peace with that, and one day I will, but that isn’t today.
I used to think I had control over my life, and everything revolved around me, like the world worked the way I wanted it to.
Now I know better, I’ve seen what’s out there.
What people are capable of.
What monsters look like up close, and one of them used to tuck me in at night as a boy.
Then the gym happened for Cassidy.
Hours turned into routine. Routine turned into discipline.
And discipline turned into something else entirely.
I didn’t stop her; in fact, I encouraged it.
While she rebuilt herself to be stronger, faster, harder, I trained right beside her, working on my own goals.
Different battlefields. Same war. Both of us are armed with different weapons with the same goal.
Coding turned into something more; it became access, entry points, and patterns.
The kind of places people think are hidden.
You just have to know where to look, and once I found them, I haven’t stopped.
Trafficking rings. Networks. Movement. Names.
I track down the traffickers, map them out, and break them down bit by bit.
Turks and Caicos is just the start, preparing us for what comes next.
The dismantling of a system that thinks it’s untouchable and, ultimately, Cassidy getting her revenge.
I wish I could say I learned anatomy from a classroom.
Instead, I learned it while navigating the worst parts of the internet.
Years of tracking traffickers, reviewing evidence, and following digital trails exposed me to things most people have never seen, forcing me to understand the human body in ways I never wanted to.
The machine hisses softly, pulling me back to the present.
I grab the cup, but my mind drifts back down the stairs, to my wife.
Always her.
Because none of this means a damn thing if she doesn’t make it through the other side.
Soft footsteps sound behind me.
I don’t turn because I don’t have to.
Her arms slide around my waist, solid, as she presses herself into my back.
“Are you okay?” she murmurs, voice still raspy with sleep.
I let out a long breath, setting my cup down on the counter.
My hand comes up, covering hers where it rests against me, anchoring myself there for a second longer than I need to.
“Yeah,” I say, steadily, “I’ve got you.”
Her arms draw in just a little more, like she knows that wasn’t really an answer.
But she doesn’t push.
“I know,” she replies. “Just making sure you’ve got yourself, too.”
Then the moment passes.
“You’re up early,” she says, relaxed.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I reply, reaching for my coffee again.
“Gym?” she asks, as if it’s a question, even though we both know it’s not.
I glance at the clock.
“Yeah.”
Routine settles in.
She moves first, heading to our bedroom to get ready. I give myself another second to finish my coffee. Locking my thoughts back into place, I follow her.