24. Nora
NORA
Istand in the doorway long after the SUV disappears down the road.
The morning air is cool against my bare legs, but I barely feel it. My fingers stay wrapped around the edge of the door, like I need something solid to keep me upright while dust settles slowly behind the tires that carried Stryker and Lena away from my house.
No, in this moment it doesn’t feel like my house all over again. This is once again just the house I inherited because a dead woman with more cruelty than maternal instinct apparently decided to leave me one final complication.
My chest feels hollow in a way I don’t know how to fix.
For a few seconds I genuinely cannot move.
The yard looks the same as it did an hour ago.
Same pale winter sunlight. Same uneven grass.
Same chalk marks still fading along the walkway from where Paxton drew dinosaur tracks two days ago.
Nothing outside has changed, but something fundamental inside the house has cracked wide open and I have no idea how to pretend otherwise.
Behind me, Paxton taps my arm.
I turn immediately because his touch cuts through the fog faster than anything else could. His eyes move past me toward the empty driveway before coming back to my face.
Why did Lena go so fast? He’d clearly been too asleep to really know what was going on during the initial goodbyes.
My throat tightens so hard it hurts. I close the door carefully before crouching in front of him so my face and hands are both easy for him to see.
She went home with Stryker. They had things to do today.
Paxton frowns. Are they coming back later?
The question hits directly against the part of me currently trying not to collapse. I don’t know. That’s the honest answer.
I don’t know if I can let them. I don’t know if I can tell them to stay away. I don’t know if I’m furious enough or scared enough or in love enough for any one feeling to win out over the others.
Instead I smile. The lie feels automatic in a way that makes me hate myself instantly. I do not know yet. Maybe another day.
Paxton studies me too closely. He’s five, not oblivious. Sometimes I think adults forget the difference.
Are you sad? he signs.
My eyes burn immediately.
I shake my head once before forcing my hands to move steadily. I am having a hard morning. That is not your job to fix.
His little face softens in that serious way he gets sometimes, too much empathy in too small a body.
I can hug you.
That nearly does it. That nearly breaks me right there in the hallway while wearing Stryker’s shirt and feeling Viper’s absence and Blade’s ghost still lingering on my periphery.
I open my arms and let him step into me. He wraps himself around my neck tightly while I press my face into his messy hair. For several seconds I let myself hold him too hard because he is the only thing in this entire world that has ever made complete sense to me.
Then I make myself loosen my grip.
Thank you, I sign when he steps back. That helped me.
He nods, satisfied by his helpfulness, before glancing toward the living room.
Can I watch dinosaurs?
Normally I don’t like starting the day with television. Today, normal feels laughably far away.
Yes. You can watch one dinosaur show while I take a shower.
His whole face brightens instantly. I set him up on the couch with a blanket, cut fruit, crackers, and his water bottle, even though it isn’t breakfast so much as emotional triage in snack form.
He accepts it without complaint, already focused on the television.
I make sure subtitles are on, even though he mostly follows the visuals when he’s sleepy.
Still, routine matters. Access matters. I check the locks twice before going upstairs.
The second I reach the bathroom and close the door behind me, whatever thin thread has been holding me together finally snaps.
I don’t even make it into the shower first.
I fold forward with one hand braced against the sink and the other pressed over my mouth because Paxton cannot hear me, but the habit of hiding grief from him is older than logic.
My shoulders shake so hard I can barely breathe through it.
Tears hit the sink basin in uneven drops while I stare down at the drain and try to force air into my lungs.
It doesn’t work. For years I’ve prided myself on control.
Not because it made me stronger in some pretty inspirational way, but because lack of control costs too much.
Crying doesn’t pay rent. Panic doesn’t lower tuition.
Falling apart doesn’t make dinner or keep a fever down or argue with insurance companies or explain to teachers why your child deserves patience instead of pity.
So I don’t fall apart, except now I am.
I strip out of Stryker’s shirt with shaking hands and climb into the shower before I can look at myself in the mirror too closely. Hot water hits my skin almost painfully, and I stand under it while everything I’ve been refusing to feel since that hallway conversation rips through me all at once.
Weapons. Smuggling. Bratva. Cartel. Vegas Mafia remnants. Torture rooms. Trafficking operations. Women rescued from holding sites because apparently the nightmare that took Valentina is still alive and moving.
And I let those men into my house. Into Paxton’s life. Into my bed.
In less than a month, I gave them keys to pieces of me I haven’t let anyone touch in six years.
I press both hands against the tile and lower my head beneath the spray.
“Idiot,” I whisper.
The word disappears under the water.
I replay every moment through the new truth, and it all changes shape in ugly little ways.
Stryker scanning rooms constantly was not just protective father instinct. Viper watching exits and reading people too closely was not just social intelligence. Blade showing up with medical calm and a violence-adjacent quietness was not just being a doctor who’d seen too much.
They were dangerous men moving through my house as carefully as possible, so I wouldn’t notice the full shape of them.
Except I did notice.
That might be the worst part.
Somewhere in my body, I knew they were dangerous from the beginning.
I knew it on the side of the interstate when three men from the worst night of my life stepped back into my world and my fear refused to fully form.
I knew it when Stryker ripped apart my hallway floor after Paxton got hurt.
I knew it when Viper showed up in the storm because my lights might flicker.
I knew it when Blade looked at every bruise and scraped knee like pain was something he knew intimately enough to respect.
I just called it protection because that felt safer.
Maybe that’s what makes me stupid.
The fact that I wanted their lies to be true, because the life forming around them felt so good I stopped asking hard enough questions.
I scrub shampoo through my hair too aggressively, eyes burning all over again.
Paxton loves them. Lena loves him. I love Lena.
I might love…
No. Focus on the kids.
That should make this easier to solve, but it does the opposite.
Every practical instinct I have says I should be packing right now.
Clothes in duffel bags. Documents from the kitchen drawer.
Cash from the envelope hidden in the laundry room.
I should drive until Black Rock disappears behind me and keep going until no motorcycle club president, treasurer, or medic can casually show up on my porch with coffee again.
That is what a responsible mother would do, right? But every time I try picturing it, my chest revolts. I picture Paxton’s face if I tell him he can’t see Lena again.
The way he looks at Blade when Blade signs to him like communication is worth slowing the whole world down for.
The way Viper makes him laugh so hard his shoulders shake.
The way Stryker crouches in front of him and signs with clumsy, careful hands, because effort matters more than fluency right now.
Taking Paxton away from them doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like another kind of harm, and that terrifies me, because if the safest choice feels cruel, then what am I supposed to trust?
I rinse conditioner from my hair while crying again, quieter now, but not better. My thoughts keep circling the same awful circle, no matter how many ways I try to redirect them.
They lied.
They saved women.
They brought violence near my son.
They learned sign for him.
They are criminals.
They are the only men besides Paxton who have made this house feel alive.
They are exactly the kind of risk I built my entire adult life to avoid.
I love them.
The thought comes so bluntly I actually stop moving. Water runs down my face, but for a few seconds I can’t tell what is shower and what is tears.
No. Absolutely not.
I don’t get to use that word yet. Not when I’m furious. Not when my entire life just cracked open. Not when I don’t know whether I can trust the men I apparently handed my heart to while pretending I was still deciding.
But the word remains anyway. Ugly in its timing. Impossible to shove back fully.
I love them.
And all three of them lied to me. I turn the water hotter until my skin stings.
By the time I finally shut it off, the bathroom mirror is completely fogged and my eyes feel swollen enough that no amount of cold water is going to fix them.
I wrap myself in a towel and sit on the closed toilet lid for several minutes doing nothing but breathing, because going downstairs means becoming functional again.
Paxton is downstairs. Paxton needs breakfast. Paxton needs his mother to know what the hell she’s doing. Unfortunately, she does not.
I eventually force myself up and wipe steam from the mirror with my hand. The woman staring back at me looks wrecked. Blonde hair darkened with water. Red nose. Bare shoulders. Eyes too bright and too tired at the same time.
I brush my teeth because it’s something to do. Then I get dressed in leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that belongs only to me, because wearing anything of theirs right now feels like reopening a wound on purpose.
I’m towel-drying my hair when something downstairs lights up blue. The glow reflects faintly against the hallway wall before I even fully register what I’m seeing. Then the smart speaker in the living room makes its activation chime.
I stop with the towel still in my hands. For several seconds I stand completely still, listening. The house is silent. Paxton can’t trigger it by voice. I didn’t say anything.
The speaker gives another soft tone like it’s waiting for a command. A strange chill moves down the back of my neck. Then nothing happens.
I stare toward it longer than necessary. That was weird. Probably a glitch.
The house is old. The internet drops constantly. The speaker came from a discount bin two years ago and occasionally thinks television dialogue is talking to it even when no one is speaking.
I shove the thought aside with everything else I don’t have room to process and head downstairs.