Unfinished Puzzles & Broken Hearts
Sloane
Driving Cohen’s Porsche is like driving a velvet bullet. It’s powerful, precise, almost soundless.
But the silence inside the car is anything but luxurious.
It’s heavy. Pressurized. Thick with a kind of dread that fogs the windows from the inside out.
In the rearview mirror, all I see are shadows:
the dark outline of Cohen bent over the smaller, fragile shape of Grace. He’s listening to her breathe, stroking her hair, murmuring words I can’t make out—but I can feel them, humming through the air like a prayer.
By the time I pull into Dominic’s driveway, the porch lights are on.
I don’t even have to honk. The front door flies open before I’ve fully turned off the engine.
Nate and Dominic stand framed in the warm glow of the entryway like two sentries.
I cut the engine. The sudden absence of the motor’s purr rings in my ears.
I get out and open the back door.
Cohen is already climbing out with Grace in his arms.
She looks even smaller now, curled up against his chest, light brown hair a tangled curtain hiding her face.
“Holy shit,” Nate breathes, jogging down the steps. His green eyes are blown wide with shock.
“Gracie?”
He says her name with a familiar, worried softness.
Dominic doesn’t say a word.
He stays on the threshold, arms crossed over his chest, face as unreadable as carved stone. But his gaze is locked on Cohen. A quick, clinical assessment. Calculating damage.
Then, with one smooth movement, he steps aside and holds the door open.
We spill into the warm house.
“Couch,” Dominic orders, his low voice finally slicing through the spell.
Cohen lays her down carefully on the dark leather cushions.
Grace whimpers, a thin, confused sound, and fists her hands in Cohen’s T-shirt like it’s the only solid thing left in a spinning world.
“No… no, Dad, please…” she mumbles, eyes still shut, sweat beading on her forehead.
Cohen drops to his knees beside her, cradling her face in his hands. “Shhh, Gracie. Dad’s not here. It’s just me. You’re safe.”
She forces her eyes open the slightest bit. They’re glassy, unfocused, pupils disturbingly huge.
And then she breaks.
This time it’s not the quiet crying from the club. This is messy, full-body sobbing—ragged, hysterical, every breath hitching through her chest.
“I’m sorry, Co… I’m so sorry,” she chokes out, clutching his shirt. “I didn’t want to… he said I had to come, that there’d be important people there… I didn’t want to drink, but they gave me that glass and…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cohen cuts in, his voice cracking. “It doesn’t matter, it’s over.”
“No, it’s not over!” she screams, thrashing weakly. “You keep doing it! You keep taking the blame! I saw the papers, Co… they talk so much shit, they say you’re some manwhore… but… I don’t want you to keep carrying everything just to protect me.”
I freeze.
I’m standing near the cold, empty fireplace, Porsche keys biting into my palm, and the whole room tilts on its axis.
I glance at Nate. He’s gone white, rubbing both hands over his face like he’s trying to scrub this whole night away.
“Stop making everyone hate you to protect me…” Grace keeps repeating, her voice shredding into something raw and unbearable.
“I don’t give a damn, Gracie,” Cohen growls, and there’s so much ferocity in it that my skin prickles.
He grips her hands and presses them to his mouth.
“As long as I’m breathing, that’s how it’s gonna be.
I take the shit. All of it. I don’t care what they write, I don’t care about anything if you’re safe.
Got it? Look at me. You don’t get dragged into this. I already told you.”
Click.
In my head, the pieces of the puzzle start to move.
They slide into place with a deafening snap.
Every tabloid photo.
Women stumbling out of clubs with him at three a.m.
Sources whispering about wild parties and bad behavior.
They weren’t conquests.
Cohen isn’t some out-of-control playboy.
Cohen is a human shield.
He built himself a trash reputation and let the world cast him as the villain—the spoiled, reckless athlete—
just to pull attention away from someone else.
From his father.
Karl Becker. The mogul. The respectable one.
A man who uses his son as bait and his daughter as a bargaining chip.
And Cohen…
Cohen stands between them.
He takes the flashbulbs, the insults, the suspensions, the fines—anything—so his sister doesn’t end up in the same meat grinder.
My eyes burn.
I clap a hand over my mouth, stunned.
All the times I judged him.
All the times I talked down to him, told him to grow up, to stop acting like a child.
He never corrected me.
He never defended himself.
He just took it—my contempt, my assumptions—with that crooked little half-smile he’s learned to wear like armor.
You’re not your job. You’re wonderfully, completely yourself.
He saw me so clearly.
And I only ever saw the headlines.
Nate moves closer to the couch. He kneels on Grace’s other side.
His expression is something I’ve never seen on him before: tenderness wrapped around a core of barely contained rage.
“Hey, peanut,” he murmurs, low and steady. He brushes damp hair off her forehead, his fingers lingering a second against her pale skin. “Drink a little water, okay? I’m right here. Nobody’s touching you.”
Grace nods, visibly calmer at the sight of him—someone safe, familiar, a person who has always meant home.
She takes small sips from the glass Nate hands her, and he doesn’t look away from her face once, like he’s memorizing every breath.
Then Nate finally lifts his gaze to Cohen.
The softness disappears, replaced by the pain of someone who’s been shut out.
“You’re an idiot, Becker,” he says hoarsely.
Cohen looks up, hollowed out, eyes shadowed and red. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Nate’s voice goes sharp. “You’re a fucking idiot. You’re like a brother to me. You should’ve told me this shit. You should’ve told me Karl was… was taking it this far. We could’ve stopped him sooner.”
Cohen shakes his head, a bitter smile tugging at his mouth. “It was my mess, Nate. I didn’t want to drag you down with me.”
“I’m your manager and your best friend. The mess is literally my natural habitat.”
Nate gives his shoulder a rough shove—awkwardly macho, but it screams I’ve got you now. Then he adds, “You don’t have to give in to him anymore. Grace is of age now. He can’t use her as leverage. We’ll take care of her.”
Cohen nods, somewhere between dazed and grateful, watching Nate with a strange new light in his eyes.
Dominic pushes off the wall where he’s been a silent, looming shadow.
His gaze—cold, precise—locks on Cohen.
“The flash drive,” he says.
Two words.
Cohen goes rigid. He understands immediately.
“Dom, if I use that… the media will lose their minds. We’re done. Me and Grace—our name will be trashed forever.”
“Yes,” Dominic says, cutting him off. His tone is flat. Final. “But your father doesn’t know you don’t want to use it. His little game is over.”
He steps forward, presence filling the room.
The silence that follows is crushing.
Cohen looks at his sister. Then at Nate’s steady hand on her shoulder. Finally, back to Dominic.
Resignation drains from his eyes, replaced by something colder. Harder.
He nods once.
“Yeah. If he shows up again, we have something to hit back with now. Grace is here,” Cohen says quietly. “It’s over.”
Dominic tips his chin toward the stairs.
“Upstairs. Guest room.”
Cohen whispers a thank-you to Dom, then stands, scooping Grace into his arms like she weighs nothing. Nate pops up with him, falling into step at his side, ready to block the whole world if he has to.
At the bottom of the staircase, Cohen pauses.
He turns toward me.
I’m still by the fireplace, heart hammering painfully against my ribs.
Our eyes meet.
He looks wrecked—like someone who’s been walking on broken glass for years and has just now realized he can stop.
But there’s no shield there anymore. No sarcasm, no smirk.
He’s just looking at me. Bare. Real.
I want to run to him. I want to tell him I’m sorry, that I get it now, that I’m here. But this isn’t my moment.
Right now, he has to be a big brother.
So I give him the smallest nod, a wobbly smile. Go.
He returns it—almost imperceptibly—a silent promise, and heads upstairs.
I’m left alone with Dominic in the living room.
He stares at the space where the others disappeared, then pours himself a bourbon. He pours a second and hands it to me without asking.
“You knew,” I say, my voice coming out rough.
Dominic takes a sip. The amber liquid is gone in one swallow.
He turns to me. His gray eyes are impossible to read, but they’re not hostile.
Of course he knew.
The silence is his answer.
I nod, fingers tightening around the cool glass in my hands.