Chapter 24 Reva
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REVA
I’m about to run away, which is ridiculous because I’m a grown ass woman and can walk out any door I want to.
Nash doesn’t take his hands off me. He can tell I’m about to bolt. Instead, his fingers dance along my skin like he’s memorizing the way I feel. Anchoring me against his bed so that he can keep me from leaving.
Like he already knows I’m about to do something he won’t like. I don’t move. Don’t push him away. Don’t pull him closer.
I just sit there, his shirt hanging off me, his hands still on my body, my mind racing in ten different directions at once.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he says quietly.
I let out a humorless breath. “You gave me a lot to think about.”
“I gave you answers.”
“You gave me pieces.”
“That’s all there is right now.”
I shake my head, looking away from him, from the bed, from everything that suddenly feels too small to contain what’s happening inside my chest.
“That’s not enough,” I say, softer now. “It’s never enough.”
It wasn’t enough that my family, the first people to love me, were gone. It wasn’t enough that I survived. It won’t be enough until he’s dead and I know I’m safe.
Silence stretches between us, full and heavy. Then Nash moves.
Just enough that his hands slide from my waist to my hips, then up—slow, deliberate—until they settle at my ribs, thumbs brushing lightly beneath the edge of his shirt.
“You don’t know what enough looks like yet,” he says.
“I know what I lost.”
His grip tightens. “I’m not talking about the past.”
“I am. That’s all I have left.”
The words come out sharper than I intend, but I don’t take them back. I can’t.
Because that’s the problem.
Everything in me is still there. Still standing in that house. Still hearing—
I swallow hard, cutting the thought off before it can take shape. Don’t go there.
“You asked me what I want,” I say, dragging my gaze back to his. “You asked me that earlier.”
“I remember.”
“I told you. I want him dead. I gave you the answer.”
There it is. No hesitation. No softening. No pretending. Just the truth. It sits between us, sharp and unyielding.
Nash doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. Doesn’t try to correct me or soften the edges. He just studies me. Long enough that I start to feel it under my skin.
“That’s not all you want,” he says finally. “I told you that you needed time to process, but if you’re not willing to drop it…if you’re determined to have this conversation now, we can.”
My jaw tightens. “You don’t get to tell me what I want.”
“I get to tell you when you’re lying to yourself. Call you out on the hypocrisy that you’re using to keep everyone else out.”
God, I want to hit him.
“You think this is a game?” I snap. “You think this is me being dramatic or impulsive or—what? Acting out?”
“I think,” he says, voice low, “that you’ve built your entire life around one outcome, and you haven’t thought about what happens after. Or if that outcome isn’t what you truly need or want.”
“There is no after.”
“There is,” he says, stepping closer now, forcing me to tilt my chin up to keep eye contact. “You just don’t want to see it yet.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You will.”
The certainty in his tone makes something in my chest twist, because part of me believes him. And I hate that.
“You don’t understand,” I say, quieter now, the fight bleeding out just enough to leave something raw underneath. “You didn’t see it. You weren’t there.”
“No,” he agrees.
The acknowledgement throws me. There’s no argument, no deflection. Just—truth.
“I wasn’t,” he says. “But I’ve seen enough like it to know what it leaves behind. The chaos and the damage. But you can’t live there. In the worst moments of your life. It will destroy you.”
His hand lifts, slower this time, more deliberate, brushing a strand of hair back from my face. His knuckles graze my cheek, and the touch is lighter than anything he’s given me so far.
Careful. Like he knows exactly where the cracks are and doesn’t want to press too hard.
“You’re not wrong for wanting him dead,” he says quietly.
Something low in my chest turns over. No one has ever said that to me. They’ve told me to move on. To let it go. To live my life. To forget.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I whisper.
“I’m not deciding anything,” he says. “I’m acknowledging the truth.”
My throat tightens. Don’t let this matter.
“You’re also not ready for what it takes,” he adds. “What it is going to cost you. What it will steal from you. The pieces of your soul that you can’t get back.”
There it is. The shift—back to control. Back to distance.
“I don’t need to be ready,” I say, even though my voice isn’t as steady as it was a minute ago. “I just need the opportunity.”
“And you think you have it?”
“I’ll make it.” No matter what it takes.
His gaze sharpens. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Maybe.” The word slips out before I can stop it. Before I can dress it up or soften it or pretend I care more about that outcome than I do.
Because right now—I don’t.
“And you’re okay with that?” he asks.
I hold his gaze and snap the rubber band on my wrist, refusing the blink at the sting. “Yes.”
The silence that follows is different. It’s not heavy or tense, but something quieter. More dangerous.
Nash exhales slowly, his hand sliding from my face to the back of my neck, fingers curling there, holding me in place—not forcing, just…grounding.
“Well, I’m not,” he says.
The words are low. Rougher than anything he’s said so far.
Why? I don’t ask. Don’t give him the opening.
But he must see it anyway, because his hand finds my fingers, still snapping the rubber band methodically against my wrist, and curls around them, slow, deliberate.
“You don’t get to decide you’re disposable,” he continues. “Not in my house. Not under my watch.”
“I’m not yours to—”
His grip tightens, not enough to hurt, but enough to halt the flow of speech.
“I don’t need you to be mine,” he says, voice dropping. “I just need you alive. Fighting. Pushing. Giving me everything I didn’t think I could have.”
That—that does something. Something I don’t want to examine too closely. Because it feels too much like—care.
And I don’t trust that. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust myself to stay if I start believing any of this.
So I do the only thing I know how to do. I push back.
“Then maybe you should help me,” I say, quieter now but no less sharp. “Maybe you should stop protecting him and start protecting me.” I know I’m asking too much. I know that what I’m asking is going to destroy this tentative thread between us. But I still ask.
Because his refusal means that I can’t trust him. Any of them. And I need that extremely painful reminder.
His eyes darken. “That’s not what I’m doing, Reva.”
“That’s sure as shit what it feels like.”
“That’s because you’re only looking at one piece of the board and refusing to see the others.”
“I’m looking at the only piece that matters.”
“No,” he says. “You’re looking at the one that hurts the most rather than the ones that can put you back together again.”
For a second, neither of us moves. The space between us tightens, stretched thin with everything neither of us is saying.
I hover, caught in a moment of indecision. I want him, and I’m mad at him. Possibly—probably—undeniable and unreasonably so. None of that seems to matter where he and my body are concerned, though.
His gaze drops to my mouth, slow, deliberate, like he’s already decided how this is going to go, and every nerve sparks to life. He’s just waiting for me to stop pretending I haven’t and get with the program.
“You’re angry,” he murmurs, voice low, roughened just enough to drag against my nerves. “Good.”
My breath catches. “Why is that good?”
“Because it keeps you honest.”
“And this?” I challenge, even as my voice thins, betraying me. I gesture between us. “What does acting on this keep me?”
His thumb presses once on the hollow at the base of my throat.
“Close.”
And then his mouth is on mine. Hard. Urgent.
Certain.
It steals the breath right out of me, his hand tightening just enough to hold me there as his other slides along my side, pulling me closer until there’s no space left between us at all.
I should push him away, settle all of this Deacon stuff. Force him to either help me or let me leave. Because those are the only two options.
I don’t.
My fingers curl into his shirt instead, gripping, anchoring on to something solid while everything else slips.
I make a little sound, and his mouth slows, moves more softly against mine, more sweetly. He angles his head and takes his time, not chasing anything, not demanding—just claiming what’s already his.
It’s no less devastating for the tenderness.
That thought should piss me off. It doesn’t. It makes something low in my stomach tighten instead. I’m not accustomed to sweetness.
I shift closer without thinking, my body responding before my brain can catch up, and his hand slides from my side to my hip, fingers digging in just enough to make me feel it.
I kiss him back harder.
There it is. The edge. The push. The part of me that doesn’t know how to do anything without going all in.
His grip tightens in response, one hand still at my neck, the other dragging up under the hem of his shirt where it hangs on me, fingers brushing bare skin in a way that makes my breath hitch.
“Yeah,” he mutters, low enough that it feels like it belongs to me more than the room. “That’s what I thought.”
Heat spikes sharp and immediate, cutting through everything else—anger, frustration, the weight of everything he just told me—and for a second, I hate how easy it is to get lost in this.
To not think. To not feel anything except him.
His mouth shifts, trailing just enough to the corner of mine, then down—slow, deliberate—along my jaw, stopping just below my ear.
“You don’t get to shut down on me and pretend this isn’t happening,” he says, voice rough against my skin. “Not after that.”
“I’m not—”