Chapter 34 WREN
WREN
“Hang up the phone, Wren.”
I drop it.
I don’t mean to. My hand just opens. The phone hits the hardwood and the call cuts out and I’m standing in my apartment staring at Tyler six feet away from me like I just walked into a nightmare I thought I’d ended.
I didn’t hear him come in behind me.
I was crying so hard from the Uber ride that I fumbled the lock twice before it gave.
I shoved the door open and reached for the light — and somewhere between my key turning and the door swinging shut, he was just there, sliding in behind me, his hand pressing the door closed at his back, the deadbolt clicking under his fingers.
“Tyler.” My voice comes out wrong. Too thin. Not mine. “Tyler, you need to leave.”
“You’re crying.”
“I—”
“Why are you crying, Wren?”
He moves closer. One step, then another, hands loose at his sides, head tilted, watching me the way you watch something small and skittish you don’t want to spook.
I have seen this exact face before.
I have lived with this exact face.
“You need to leave,” I say again. Steadier. “Right now. Get out of my apartment.”
“You’re crying, Wren.”
“I am leaving.”
“Did he hurt you?”
He . The way he says it turns my stomach.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is my business.”
“It is not.”
“Six months, Wren. Six months and you’re back here with someone else’s hands on you?” His jaw goes still and his eyes flatten out and the soft careful version of him slides somewhere I can’t reach. “You don’t get to decide we’re done.”
“I already did.”
“Wren—”
“It’s done, Tyler. You don’t get me. Not anymore.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
The phone is on the floor between us.
The screen lights up.
Jace.
He’s calling me back.
I just need to answer.
“Tyler.” I keep my voice as level as I can. “I’m going to pick up my phone and I’m going to leave.”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Sit down and we’ll talk.”
“No.”
“Wren—”
“I am not sitting down, Tyler. I am walking out of this apartment and I never want to see you again. Do you understand me?”
For a second I almost believe it might work.
“No.”
I lunge for the phone.
He gets there first.
His foot comes down on it hard enough I hear something inside the screen give, and then his hand is around my upper arm and he’s hauling me upright and away from the door in one motion, fingers digging right down to the bone.
“Don’t walk away from me—”
And something in me that’s been folded up small for too long just—snaps.
I don’t think.
I move.
The way Jace showed me on the floor of his apartment. Heel of my hand, not my fist.
My palm connects with Tyler’s nose and there’s a sound like cartilage giving and his grip is gone and—
He stumbles back. One hand to his nose. Blood already coming through his fingers.
“You fucking bitch—”
He’s coming at me again.
The lamp.
The lamp on my entry table is in my hand before I think about it. The base is heavy. The cord rips out of the wall when I swing it.
I hit him with everything I have.
He drops. Hard.
The lamp lands beside him, the shade rolling across my hardwood. Tyler’s on his side, eyes closed, blood pooling under his head and—
Run.
I run. Down the hall. Down the stairs, two at a time, breath coming in these awful jagged sobs, and my phone is gone, my phone is on the floor of my apartment and I can’t call Jace, I can’t call anyone, I just need to get out, I just need—
I hit the front door of the building with both hands and burst out onto the sidewalk. The night air slams into my face.
Tires. Screaming around the corner.
A black SUV comes off Court Street too fast and locks up in front of the building. The driver’s door flies open before the engine cuts.
It’s him.
It’s Jace.
“Wren—”
He’s running toward me like nothing else exists, and I run straight into him, and his arms close around me and half-lift me off the sidewalk. For one second I feel his whole body shake against mine before he locks it down.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
His hand cradles the back of my head, his mouth at my hair.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
And then I’m crying. Really crying, the crying that comes in waves you can’t stop, my face pressed into his shirt and my whole body shaking, barely holding together — but I’m here. I’m out. I’m with him, and his arms are the only thing keeping me upright.
“Where is he?”
His voice is rough.
“Upstairs. He’s not moving, Jace—I hit him with the lamp—”
His hands move over me — my face, my shoulders, my ribs — fast, not gentle, checking. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
Then he stops at my upper arm, where the dress doesn’t quite cover the marks already coming up.
Four fingerprints. Turning purple.
He goes still. I’ve only seen him this still once before.
His gaze lifts from the bruise to my face, and what I see there isn’t the man who held me in my parents’ kitchen tonight. Not the man who told me he was trying to protect me an hour ago.
This is someone else. This is the man Dawson goes to war with.
Tires again. Two more SUVs come off Court Street and stop hard behind his. Ryker is out before they’ve finished moving, three men in dark jackets behind him — and he takes one look at Jace’s face and something in his own changes.
“Jace.” Careful. Like he’s talking to someone standing on a ledge.
“He put his hands on her.” Jace isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s looking at the building. I feel the shift in him, his whole body going taut around me, already somewhere else. “He’s upstairs right now.”
“I know.”
“I’ve got it.” Quiet. Almost nothing. The worst thing I’ve ever heard him say.
And I feel it — the half-second before he goes, the muscle in his arms gathering to move me aside.
“Jace.” My hands fist in his shirt. “No. Please. Stay with me. Please don’t leave me right now.”
He goes rigid. His jaw works, the muscle in it jumping, and I can feel how hard it is — how much of him is still pointed at that door, how much it’s costing him to stand here instead. His breath comes ragged through his nose.
Ryker reads all of it in a second. He turns to the two men behind him. “Go.” Just that. They move past us toward the front door without breaking stride.
Then he steps in close to Jace — doesn’t touch him, just gets near, his voice dropping to something I can barely hear. “She needs you right here. Not up there.”
Whatever he says, it lands. I feel it go through Jace — the long, slow breath, the moment his body finally chooses the ground under his feet instead of the stairs. His arms come back around me, all the way, and his mouth drops to the top of my head.
“Okay,” he breathes into my hair. “Okay.” Then, lower, “I’m done, Ry. He’s been circling her for months. Make it stop.”
“I know. We’ve got it.”
I’m not really listening. I’ve got my face in his chest and his heartbeat going hard under my cheek and his hand spread wide between my shoulder blades, and that’s the only thing holding me together right now.
Whatever they’re saying, it’s happening somewhere above me, somewhere I don’t have to be.
He’s here. He’s not letting go. That’s all I have room for.
“We’re going home.”
He opens the passenger door of the SUV and eases me into it, then goes around to the driver’s side and climbs in. He doesn’t start the car. He turns toward me, his hand cupping the side of my face, and for a moment he just looks at me, like he’s making sure I’m still here.
“He’s never going to come near you again, Wren.” His voice is steady. A vow, not a promise. “Do you hear me? Never.”
I nod.
He just looks at me, long and quiet. His thumb moves once against my cheek.
He’s here. After all of it. After everything I said. He’s here.
And I went home alone tonight. Knowing better.
Knowing he never would have let me if I’d told him — which is exactly why I didn’t.
The same way I’d been getting around everything he put in place to keep me safe, because being protected had started to feel too much like being controlled.
And God knows what would have happened if he’d been even a few minutes later.
“Jace—” My voice cracks. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. I should have—”
“Don’t.” His thumb stops against my cheek. “Not now. You’re safe. You’re right here. That’s all that matters.”
“You came.”
“I was already coming back for you, Wren.”
I close my eyes.
He leans across the console and presses his mouth to my forehead and holds it there. Then he starts the car. His hand reaches across and settles on my thigh, and I wrap both arms around his forearm and hold on.