Chapter 44 Rylie
Rylie
Iknew something was wrong before anyone said my name.
It was in the way the room shifted when I entered the café. Not silence—conversation kept going—but it thinned, stretched tight like fabric pulled too far. Laughter ended a beat too early. A chair scraped back when someone stood a little too quickly.
I told myself I was imagining it.
Trauma did that. Made you see a threat where there wasn’t one.
Still, I felt it.
The waitress—Molly, who’d known me since I was sixteen—hesitated before smiling. It wasn’t unkind. Just… careful.
“Morning, Rylie,” she said. “Usual?”
“Yes,” I replied, matching her tone. Polite. Light.
Normal.
I took a seat near the window. Trigger had argued about me coming into town, but I’d pushed back. I needed to feel human again. Needed to reclaim pieces of my life that weren’t wrapped in security protocols and whispered conversations.
For a few minutes, it almost worked.
Then I caught fragments.
“…not her fault, but—”
“…danger follows some people…”
“…Rangers brought it here…”
My stomach tightened.
I stared into my coffee, the surface trembling slightly—not from fear, I told myself, but anger.
This was my town. These were people who had waved at me from porches, brought casseroles when my mom was sick, and hugged me after they thought my engagement fell apart.
They didn’t know I was forced into that engagement.
I wasn’t a stranger.
So why did I suddenly feel like one?
The bell over the door jingled and the sheriff’s deputy stepped in. Not my dad—thank God—but someone new. He scanned the room, eyes landing on me before flicking away.
He didn’t approach.
That was worse.
I finished my coffee quickly and stood. As I passed one of the tables, a woman I’d grown up with—Claire—looked up at me. For a split second, her expression was open.
Then it closed.
“You okay?” she asked, voice soft but guarded.
“I’m fine,” I said.
She nodded. “That was… scary. What happened to you?”
There it was.
Not concern.
Context.
“I didn’t choose it,” I said gently.
She flushed. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I replied. And I did. Fear made people search for distance. For a reason.
For blame.
Outside, the air felt Colder.
I walked two blocks before my phone buzzed.
Trigger.
You good?
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering.
Yeah, I typed. Just grabbing groceries.
The lie sat heavy.
By the time I reached the market, it was worse. A man I didn’t recognize lingered too long at the end of an aisle. Another shopper turned her cart around when she saw me coming.
No one was cruel.
That was the most insidious part.
They were afraid around me. They must have thought the cartel would grab them if they got too close to me.
I paid and stepped back outside, hands shaking despite my best effort to steady them.
This was Thomas’s move.
Not chains.
Not walls.
Isolation.
I felt it settle into my bones like cold.
By the time I reached the truck, Trigger was there.
I hadn’t called him.
I hadn’t texted.
But he stood beside the driver’s door, jaw tight, eyes scanning the street before locking onto my face.
“You shouldn’t have come alone,” he said quietly.
That was all it took.
The composure I’d been clinging to cracked.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. Not loudly. Not hysterically. Just broken enough that it scared me. “I didn’t bring him here. I didn’t choose this.”
He stepped closer instantly, hands warm on my arms, grounding me before my knees could give.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
“They’re scared of me,” I whispered. “I can feel it.”
His jaw flexed. “They’re scared of him. They just don’t know where to put it.”
I looked up at him. “And how long before they decide I’m the problem?”
He didn’t answer right away.
That told me everything.
I swallowed hard. “This is what he wants, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Trigger said. “And we’re not giving it to him. Please don’t go anywhere without me.”
I nodded—but something inside me had already shifted.
Because now I understand the real danger.
Thomas wasn’t trying to take me.
He was trying to make me leave.