29. Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
MICAH PRESCOTT
Yesterday went really well after our breakfast talk. I have to admit that it’s weird seeing Jude not so hateful toward Adriana. But I get it. A lot has happened between them that I’ll never truly understand. None of us will, honestly. Just like no one will understand the bond that he and I have.
Dinner feels strangely normal tonight. The cabin is warm from the oven and the fireplace, low light spilling across the dining room while snow drifts steadily outside the windows.
For a moment, it almost feels like we’re all just friends trapped in a winter cabin instead of people preparing to walk straight into hell tomorrow.
I sit beside Heather near the end of the table, one arm draped over the back of her chair while she steals vegetables off my plate like she always does.
Honestly, out of all of the things my girlfriend could steal off my plate, I’m not complaining that it’s vegetables.
Even if she keeps telling me how important fiber is for our diets. My cute nurse.
Across from us, Adela is halfway turned toward her laptop even while eating, her attention splitting between the screen and Nico, who keeps trying to distract her by sliding pieces of chicken onto her plate every time she forgets to eat.
“You’re going to pass out from caffeine poisoning before we even get to the party,” he mutters.
Without looking up, she reaches over and smacks his arm. “I’m busy saving all of your lives.”
“Hot,” he replies immediately.
Kieran groans from beside them. He seems to always be fed up with Adela, Nico, and Rafe. But he’d still die for any of them.
Rafe sits near the center of the table, relaxed as always, one ankle hooked over the opposite knee. He drinks his wine slowly while watching everyone with that same unreadable calm that somehow makes him seem even more dangerous. I don’t know how.
And Jude is sitting beside Emma with one hand resting against his thigh while she talks quietly to Adriana across the table.
His dark hair keeps falling into his face, still slightly damp from his shower earlier, and every so often Emma reaches over without thinking and brushes the strands back from his hazel eyes.
Every single time she touches him, I see him steady a little more.
It might not be anything crazy, but it’s just enough that I notice.
Adela finally exhales sharply through her nose and pushes her laptop farther onto the table. “Okay,” she says. “Good news.”
That gets everyone’s attention immediately.
Her blue eyes flick toward Rafe first, then Jude. “We’re close.”
“How close?” Emma asks carefully.
Adela taps something on the keyboard, pulling up lines of encrypted code I don’t even pretend to understand. “Close enough that I’m finally willing to be optimistic.”
Nico leans forward, elbows resting on the table. “The system’s layered like a paranoid psychopath built it.” A beat. “Which…he did. But we’ve isolated most of the trigger pathways now.”
Rafe’s gaze sharpens. “And?”
“And,” Adela says, “if we’re right, we may be able to force Nolan and Alexei’s files into one branch without collapsing the archive. And, hopefully, deleting everything about Jude during the transfer.”
Silence drops over the table, but it’s careful.
Because none of us wants to get our hopes up.
This could very easily go wrong, and my best friend will spend the rest of his life in prison after enduring literal fucking hell.
He doesn’t deserve that, and I’ll fight like hell to make sure that doesn’t happen.
I’ll kidnap him and move to a different country, honestly.
He will not die in prison. I think Emma and Heather also feel the same. We would relocate to somewhere tropical where nobody knows who he is.
I glance toward Jude automatically, noting that he hasn’t moved, but something shifts behind his eyes.
Rafe seems to notice it too.
The look that passes between them lasts maybe half a second, but it’s enough for my stomach to tighten. There’s something there that they’ve discussed privately.
Jude gives the smallest nod.
Rafe leans back afterward, expression unreadable again.
And I know immediately that there’s a layer to tomorrow nobody else fully knows about yet. Emma notices the exchange, too. I can tell because her eyes darted between them briefly before looking back down at her plate, choosing not to ask.
Whatever it is, Jude looks steadier knowing it.
Adriana breaks the tension first, pushing her wineglass across the table. “So,” she says dryly, “what I’m hearing is that we either expose a criminal empire tomorrow…or die horribly.”
Heather points at her with her fork. “See, I’m not liking the catastrophizing. Not one bit.”
Adriana blinks once. “I think this situation has earned catastrophizing rights.”
A rough laugh escapes Jude unexpectedly, catching all of us off guard. He notices immediately, shaking his head once. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know how you’re laughing right now,” Emma says firmly. “I’m struggling to hold down this food right now.”
His eyes drift toward her then, and the entire room seems to fade around them for a moment.
I know exactly what I’m looking at.
Jude’s in love with her in a way that finally outweighs his instinct to destroy himself.
And maybe that’s what saved him. Or maybe it’s what’s making him so fucking dangerous now.
Because when a demon has spent years with one foot in hell, nothing is more terrifying than having a reason to claw back out.
I’ve watched the fucker kill people. Brutally.
He has an anger at his core that is honestly terrifying.
Rafe clears his throat lightly, pulling everyone back to the present. “Tomorrow requires precision,” he says calmly. “No improvisation unless absolutely necessary.”
Kieran rubs a hand down his face. “I still hate this plan.”
“You hate every plan,” Adela replies.
“Because most plans are terrible. And we escape because of luck.”
“Comforting,” Heather mutters.
The conversation keeps moving after that, drifting between strategy and exhaustion and half-hearted attempts at humor, but underneath all of it, I can feel the pressure building. Because this might be the last normal dinner we ever get.
***
Heather slips her hand into mine while we help clean up the last few dishes. “You okay?” she asks quietly.
I glance toward the basement door automatically. Jude’s standing there with Emma, both of them half-shadowed beneath the dim light near the staircase. He’s listening while she says something quiet to him, his head lowered slightly toward her like she’s the only thing in the room.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Just thinking.”
Heather follows my line of sight, and her expression softens instantly.
Jude reaches up slowly, brushing his knuckles along Emma’s jaw. The movement is careful, like he’s still aware of every inch of himself around her. Emma tilts her face into his hand anyway.
And Christ, that observation hits me harder than I thought.
Because a month ago, I genuinely thought he was going to die.
Either from the drugs or Alexei or his own mind finally collapsing under everything that had been done to him.
I still remember the phone call from him when he threatened me and sounded like he was fucking drowning.
I still remember the sound of Emma crying whenever I’d hold her until she fell asleep.
I still remember seeing him in Moscow for the first time and barely recognizing my best friend…
But now he’s standing in front of the woman he loves, looking at her like he wants to live long enough to deserve her. And I’m so goddamn grateful for that.
Emma smiles faintly at something he says, and then she leans up, kissing him softly.
Jude freezes before melting into it, kissing her back slowly and intimately.
Heather squeezes my hand gently. “He’s doing better.”
“Yeah,” I murmur.
Jude pulls away first. I notice that, too. He presses his forehead briefly against Emma’s before stepping back toward the basement door, and even from across the room, I can see the conflict written all over him. Wanting to stay with her. Still terrified of himself anyway.
Emma notices it too because she reaches for his hand one last time before letting him go. “I love you,” she whispers.
He studies her for a long second. “I love you, too.” Then he nods once and disappears downstairs, the basement door closing behind him.
Emma stands there for a second longer, staring at the closed door. And suddenly, she looks exhausted. Like she’s carrying the weight of keeping someone tethered to the world with her bare fucking hands.
Heather lets go of me and walks over to her, pulling her into a hug without saying a word.
Emma almost collapses into her arms.
I swallow hard and move closer, rubbing the back of my neck. “Hey.”
Emma pulls back, brushing quickly at her eyes before she can fully start crying. “Hey.”
“You okay?” I ask quietly.
A shaky laugh leaves her. “I don’t know if any of us are doing good.”
“No,” I admit. “Probably not.”
I glance once toward the basement door again before looking back at her. “But him?” I say softly. “I haven’t seen him fight this hard to stay alive in years.”
Emma’s eyes shine again, but this time she smiles through it. “I just want him safe,” she whispers.
“I know.”
Heather rubs slow circles against Emma’s back. “And he wants the same thing for you. For all of us.”
“Yeah,” I add, pulling her into a hug. “We stay alive tomorrow. No other option.”
***
Heather closes the bedroom door behind us, shutting out the quiet noise of the others talking downstairs.
For a second, neither of us says anything.
She moves to turn on the bedside lamp, pouring warm light over the blankets.
And suddenly the exhaustion hits me all at once. And she watches it happen immediately.
“Hey,” she murmurs, stepping closer.
I exhale through my nose and drag both hands down my face. “I’m so tired.”
“I know.”
I sit down heavily on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on my knees, while I stare at the floorboards for a second too long. Heather moves between my legs without hesitation, her hands sliding gently into my hair. Her touch is careful because she already knows I’m hanging on by a thread tonight.
“I still can’t believe my best friend is fucking alive right now,” I admit quietly.
Heather’s fingers pause briefly against my scalp. “Micah…”
“Seeing him at dinner tonight…” I shake my head slowly. “I forgot what he looked like when he was actually present.”
Heather studies me with those impossibly beautiful eyes that somehow never judge anything they see. “You’ve been carrying him for a long time,” she says gently.
A humorless laugh leaves me. “Yeah, well. He carried me, too.”
And that’s the part nobody ever really understands.
People see the addiction, the fights, and the headlines.
But they don’t see two people keeping each other alive through sheer will and love.
Jude was there during so many ugly parts of my life.
Overdose scares, blackouts, and self-destructive spirals where I was trying to escape my own fucking head.
And somehow, even while he was drowning too, he never let me sink alone.
“He used to drag me into the shower when I got too fucked up,” I whisper, staring somewhere past her shoulder now. “Made coffee at three in the morning because he knew I’d crash hard if I mixed too much shit together. Stayed awake because he thought if he slept, I’d stop breathing.”
Heather’s eyes water.
“And now?” I swallow thickly. “Now I look at him, and he still apologizes for being a burden. After all of this time.”
“Trauma rewires people,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.” I nod once. “I know that.”
I think about the way Jude kissed Emma downstairs, and how he stopped himself from staying with her because he was still trying to protect her from himself.
“He’s fighting,” I say softly. “So hard that it would be the most epic devastation of my life if he didn’t make it out of this.”
Heather smiles faintly then, her thumb brushing beneath my eye before I even realize it’s wet. “You’re fighting, too.”
That almost knocks the breath out of me, because the woman says it so simply.
I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her closer until my forehead presses against her stomach.
She immediately folds around me, fingers threading through my hair again while the room settles into silence.
Safe silence. The kind I never thought I’d have.
“I love you,” I tell her quietly. The words come so easily now.
Her breath catches softly above me. “I love you too, Micah.”
I close my eyes. Tomorrow is going to be hell. We all know it.