9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
EMMA EASTON
The basement is dim, lit only by the soft glow of the monitors when I walk down there the next morning.
Jude’s on his side now, facing the wall. The sheets are twisted around his legs, damp with sweat. His shoulders rise and fall unevenly, breath catching every few seconds like his body keeps forgetting how to do it right. It’s been a few days since the rescue. And it’s still this bad.
Rafe stands closest to the monitors, arms crossed, completely still.
He’s watching the screen in a way that tells me he’s likely seen this sort of thing before.
Perhaps plenty of times. Micah leans against the wall a few feet away, jaw tight, eyes locked on his best friend. Heather is quietly observing beside me.
“The first week is the worst physically,” Rafe says, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Opioid withdrawal peaks around day three to five. Pain. Vomiting. Insomnia. Temperature swings. His body is trying to reset itself without the drug.”
As if on cue, Jude shifts on the screen, his hand dragging weakly across the mattress before curling into the sheets again.
My fingers twitch at my sides.
Rafe continues, “The meth is different, though. That’s psychological. Depression. Paranoia. Aggression. That part lasts longer.”
“Adriana mentioned that he already suffered meth withdrawal at Alexei’s,” Micah adds. “He didn’t do it when he was trapped with her because of its…physical effects. So I don’t think the meth is in his system anymore.”
My heart clenches. I know what that means. He didn’t want to feel aroused around her, because that’s what meth does. It can make people very sexual and make horrible decisions. Even while he was away from me…he never really forgot me.
Rafe exhales quietly. “Suboxone would help ease his opioid withdrawal symptoms.”
“He won’t take it,” Micah mutters. “I keep trying. He’s insane, because if someone offered me any kind of relief, I’d swallow it down immediately.”
“You would think,” Rafe says. “Either way, we can’t force it on him.”
My eyes snap to him. “We can try again.”
“If you push him too hard,” Rafe says evenly, finally turning toward me, “you reinforce the conditioning. He needs to choose for himself. You should know that, dear therapist.”
“I do.” I cross my arms, my mind spinning. “Okay. We have to recondition the response he has to me. Aside from the withdrawals, I’m his biggest immediate threat, so to speak. Right now, I equal pain to him because of what Alexei did. Pavlovian techniques, it seems.”
Micah sighs into his fist. “How do you think we could rewire his mind about you?”
I exhale slowly, trying to steady my voice.
“What Alexei did to him is pure conditioning. He took something good,” I wince.
“Something safe…and paired it with pain until Jude couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
” My fingers curl at my sides. “So we don’t force it out of him.
We replace it. Slowly. We reintroduce the trigger without the punishment, without the fear…
until his brain starts to understand that it’s not dangerous anymore.
” I swallow. “It has to be consistent. Or we risk breaking him even more.”
Rafe nods slowly. “Counter-conditioning.”
I don’t look away from him. “Exactly.”
“It’s not a simple process,” he says.
“I am aware.”
“He will lash out.”
“I know.”
“He will say things to you that are meant to push you away.”
My chest tightens. I think of his voice.
I want you gone.
I swallow it down. “I don’t care.”
Micah lets out a quiet, frustrated breath. “You should.”
I finally look at him. “Do you want him back or not?”
That hits him hard as his muscles lock. “Of course I do,” he mutters.
“Then let me do this.”
“We’ll likely have to alternate Emma, Micah, and, as much as you hate it, Adriana,” Rafe suggests. “She was all he knew for a while. They’ve bonded through this trauma.”
I steady my breath. “I know that, too.”
Heather shifts beside me, her voice softer. “Emma, please be careful. This is about you, too.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not.”
It used to be. It used to be about how I felt. I was always someone who prioritized being careful, and staying composed. But that version of me doesn’t exist right now.
“This is about him surviving this,” I say, turning to Micah. “And if I have to break myself to make that happen, then I will. We cried about it. Now, it’s time to change it. I’d do anything for him, and you know that.”
Micah closes his eyes briefly, as if that physically pains him to hear.
Rafe doesn’t react the same way. He just studies me, then nods. “Alright,” he says. “Then we do it right. Lead the way, therapist.”
I exhale, my shoulders loosening.
Micah shifts. “And what if he doesn’t respond to this?”
Rafe looks back at the screen. Jude has rolled onto his back now, his arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising unevenly. “Then we keep going,” he says. “Until he does. Eventually, he will.”
Micah pushes off the wall, coming to stand beside us. “I heard Nico get pretty pissed off early this morning. What was that about?”
My attention sharpens at that, my gaze flicking to Rafe.
He exhales slowly, like even explaining it is a strain.
“Upstairs, they’re trying to break into whatever files Adriana had.
But it’s not simple. Nothing about it is.
Everything’s layered. Redundant locks on top of more locks.
Adela can’t even access the actual content yet—just blurry thumbnails.
Enough to know what’s there…” His voice dips slightly.
“Not enough to access or erase it. Thankfully, though, these files seem to have backstage access to Alexei’s system.
Nolan wanted to be sure it could connect in the event he got into any legal trouble.
The moment we can break the flash drive, we can break into Alexei’s system. ”
My mind reels at how complicated it all sounds, and how I know I couldn’t have done any of this without them.
“We need to separate them,” he continues. “Nolan had files on Jude and Alexei both. If we touch the wrong thing, it could trigger a release protocol…or wipe everything completely.”
Micah lets out a quiet curse. “So one wrong move, and it all blows up. Our leverage could be gone, or we could just destroy Jude’s life?”
“Yeah.” Rafe’s tone is flat now. “And we don’t know how close we are to that line.”
Somewhere upstairs, a faint thud echoes, followed by the sharp scrape of something hitting the floor. Nico, frustrated, running out of patience. And time. Because Alexei is adamant.
Rafe doesn’t look away from the screen. “Best case, she gets in deep enough to isolate Jude’s files and erase them…while keeping everything that implicates Alexei intact.” A faint, tired smirk touches his mouth. “We’re working on it. Specifically, my darling wife is.”
Micah nods once, accepting it, his eyes drifting back to the screen.
“So when do we want to start this?” Heather asks quietly.
Rafe’s intense gaze clashes with mine. “Now.”
***
Micah walks in first, one hand near his weapon. I follow close behind him, and Rafe and Heather stay outside.
Jude is on the bed, chained, but not struggling.
That stillness is the first thing that makes me hesitate.
His head is angled slightly toward us, hair falling into his eyes like he hasn’t bothered to push it back in a while.
His breathing is shallow in a way that doesn’t match the calm of his body.
And his face…his face is too perceptive.
Micah notices. “Hey,” he says carefully. “We’re just here to check in.”
Jude doesn’t answer right away. His eyes move to Micah first, then slowly to me. Recognition flickers briefly across his face, followed immediately by discomfort. “Emma,” he says finally.
My throat tightens. My name shouldn’t sound like this in his mouth.
“Hey,” I manage anyway, stepping slightly forward without fully realizing I’ve done it.
That’s when I see the shift. His shoulders loosen.
His hands ease slightly against the sheets.
His breathing slows, as if in relief. Micah moves closer, but I feel something that has goosebumps breaking out over my arms. Jude’s pupils dilate, a predator locking in.
“Micah,” I say quickly.
He glances at me. “What?”
“Get back—” But I don’t get to finish, because Jude moves.
His wrists jerk against the chain, and I realize too late that he didn’t just relax—he created slack while pretending to be calm.
The chain gives just enough, and he surges off the bed in a violent motion, and I barely have time to register Jude snatching Micah, slamming him into the wall beside the bed.
The impact echoes through the room, and Micah grunts as air leaves him.
Jude slams his fist into Micah’s jaw, dropping him to his knees.
“Micah!” I shout, instinctively rushing forward.
But Jude doesn’t even look at him. He is already turning. Already choosing.
Me.
My stomach drops so hard that it feels like I’ve stepped off a cliff. And I freeze in my tracks.
“Jude—stop!” Micah winces as he tries to recover, but he stumbles, just enough that it costs him time.
Jude ignores him completely. And that’s when I realize that he’s holding a gun.
No, no, shit...
His eyes lock onto mine, and for a split second, I see him again. Not the volatile version of him in front of me, but the one I know underneath all of this. The one I keep trying to reach. But it fractures, and he flinches, tearing his gaze away from mine like it physically hurts him to look at me.
“Jude!” Micah snaps behind him, but it’s already happening.
Jude’s arm is shaking as he lifts it. Not at us.
At himself.
The barrel presses against his temple, and for a moment, the entire room disappears except for that image—the man I love standing there, about to fucking kill himself.
My breath stops. “Don’t—” I whisper. “Jude, please, s—stop.”
His jaw tightens, his breathing breaking apart.
I’m scared. I’m scared.