69. Sage
SIXTY-NINE
SAGE
Holden’s house smells like him.
I don’t know why that surprises me—it’s his house, of course it smells like him—but there’s something about walking through the front door and being hit with it that makes my chest go tight.
Cedar and soap, like the leather of his work jacket absorbed into the walls.
It’s clean. Organized. The kind of space that says a man lives here alone.
The entryway opens into a living room with hardwood floors and a big couch that is simple but looks like the most comfortable thing on earth.
There’s a fireplace with a mantel that has a painting of a landscape above and a handful of well-chosen knick-knacks along the surface—nothing personal.
No photos. But it’s decorated and it’s nice.
When I look to the left there’s a kitchen with an island counter and pots hanging above it, knives on a magnetic strip along the wall. There are stairs going up.
“It’s not much,” Holden says, and the fact that he sounds almost self-conscious makes me want to wrap my arms around him and not let go.
“It’s perfect,” I say, because it is.
The others file in behind us, and the house absorbs them.
Knox sets my bag down by the stairs and does an immediate perimeter check—windows, back door, sight lines—because Knox can’t exist in a space without assessing its weaknesses first. Milo wanders into the kitchen and opens the fridge with the familiarity of a man who’s already decided this is his domain.
“Holy shit, Holden. Do you meal prep?” he calls out. “Look at all this. You have containers. You have protein. You have, look at this, little bags of carrot sticks.”
“I’m starting to think he’s not really a cop,” Micah deadpans, leaning against the kitchen island. “He’s an undercover event planner.”
“Oh my God, no, he’s the dad,” Milo says, head in the fridge. “It’s all seltzer water and three kinds of cheese and very, very fancy mustard.”
Holden just rolls his eyes and sighs. “Eat whatever you want. If you want something I don’t have, there’s a grocery store two blocks east.”
“Perfect. I’ll go tomorrow. But tonight we order in.” Milo’s already pulling out his phone, scrolling through delivery apps with the focused intensity I imagine he usually reserves for forging suicide notes. “Pizza? Thai? There’s a place that does—”
“Pizza,” Knox and I say at the same time.
Milo grins. “Democracy at work. Eli? Micah?”
“Whatever’s fine,” Eli says from the doorway, where he’s leaning with his arms crossed, scanning the space with an expression I can’t read. Not disapproval. More like recalibration. Maybe dread.
Micah drops onto the couch, tests the cushions, and nods approvingly. “This couch is incredible.”
“It’s twelve years old,” Holden says.
“Exactly. It’s been broken in perfectly. Like a good pair of boots.” Micah stretches out, arms behind his head, and for a second he looks so at ease that I almost forget why we’re here—that someone hung a noose in my living room and wrote my death in block letters on a piece of paper.
But that isn’t something you get to forget for too long.
Holden catches me standing in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around myself. He doesn’t say anything. He puts a hand on my lower back and guides me toward the stairs.
“Come on. I’ll show you the bedroom.”
His bedroom is at the end of the upstairs hall.
It’s sparse—a king-sized bed with a navy comforter, a dresser, nightstands on either side.
One with a lamp and a book he’s halfway through.
There’s a bathroom through a door on the right, tile floor, a tub that looks deep enough to drown in.
The window faces the backyard, and through it I can see the last light catching the tops of the trees.
“Towels are in the cabinet,” he says, dropping my bag on the end of the bed. “Extra blankets in the closet. Lock works.” He taps the bedroom door handle. “If you need space, use it. No one comes in without knocking.”
I look at him—at this man who bought a house for a family he never built, who keeps it clean and maintained and ready, like part of him never stopped believing they might still show up—and the tenderness of it nearly takes my knees out.
“Thank you,” I say. It’s not enough, but it’s all I’ve got.
He nods once, the way he does, and heads back downstairs.
I sit on the edge of his bed. The mattress is firm. The comforter smells like his laundry detergent—clean and unscented, practical, no-nonsense. I press my face into the pillow and breathe him in and let myself have thirty seconds of falling apart.
Thirty seconds. That’s the deal I make with myself.
Thirty seconds to shake and go small and let the fear do what it wants.
Then I get up, wash my face, and go back downstairs, because there are five men in this house who moved their lives to protect mine, and I’m not going to sit in a bedroom and crumble.
Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.
I get up. Wash my face. Look at myself in the mirror.
“You’re not going to be a victim, Sage. Not again. Never again.”
My reflection seems stern, so I nod at myself and go back downstairs.
The pizza arrives twenty minutes later, and we eat in the living room with the TV on, numbing out while we fill our bellies.
Holden sits on the floor with his back against the couch, plate balanced on his knee.
Knox takes an armchair, which creaks ominously under his weight.
Milo and Micah are on the couch with me between them, and Eli sits on the coffee table.
Milo eats three slices in the time it takes me to finish one, then steals the crust off my plate when he thinks I’m not looking.
“I saw that.”
“It was going to waste.”
“I was saving it.”
“Nobody saves the crust, kitten. That’s psychopath behavior.”
“Says the guy who forges suicide notes as a side hustle.”
“Touché.” He leans over and kisses my temple, his lips warm and smelling like cheese and garlic. “Eat more. You barely had anything today.”
“I had ice cream.”
“Ice cream isn’t a meal.”
“Knox bought it for me. Are you saying Knox made a bad decision?”
Milo looks at Knox. Knox looks at Milo with the energy of a man who could snap him like a breadstick and is calmly considering it. Milo looks back at me.
“I stand corrected.”
The laughter that ripples through the room is warm, and I hold onto it.
After the pizza is demolished and the boxes are taken out to the trash, the energy in the room shifts. Not toward anything heavy—quieter. The adrenaline of the day bleeding off and leaving tired people behind.
Micah is the first one to pull me in. He doesn’t make a thing of it, just hooks his arm around my waist when I stand up to clear plates and tugs me back down onto the couch, into his lap.
“Nope,” he says. “Sit.”
“I was going to—”
“Sit, baby girl. We’ve got it.” He wraps both arms around me from behind, his chin finding the curve of my shoulder, and the tension I’ve been carrying in my spine starts to dissolve.
His hands are warm on my stomach, thumbs tracing slow circles through my shirt, and when he presses his lips to the side of my neck I shiver and relax into him.
“How are you doing?” he murmurs. “For real.”
“Scared,” I admit, because lying to Micah is impossible and pointless. “But better here. With you guys.”
He hums against my skin and holds me tighter.
Knox collects the plates without being asked, moving through the room with a quiet efficiency, and on his way back from the kitchen he pauses by the couch.
He bends—all that height folding down like a drawbridge—and cups my face in one hand, pressing a kiss to my forehead that’s so gentle it makes my throat close.
“Safe now, Fury,” he says.
My eyes suddenly sting.
He straightens and disappears back into the kitchen, and Milo immediately drops into the space beside me, throwing his arm across the back of the couch and pressing close to my other side.
“Scoot over, Micah. I need access.”
“You have the whole couch.”
“I need this specific square foot of couch. It’s prime real estate. Move your elbow.”
They jostle around me until I’m sandwiched between them, laughing despite everything. Milo catches my chin and kisses me—quick, sweet, the kind of kiss that’s less about heat and more about reminding me he’s there. Then he rests his forehead against mine.
“You need anything, kitten?”
“I’m happy right here.”
“Good enough for now.” He kisses the tip of my nose and settles back, arm around my shoulder, fingers playing with the ends of my hair.
Eli has been watching from the coffee table the whole time, and where the others have folded into me, he hasn’t moved.
When our eyes meet, something in his face is shut in a way it hasn’t been since before the club.
He stands and crouches in front of me—hands on his own knees this time, not mine—and looks straight at me.
“We’re going to figure out who did it,” he says. “We’ll keep you safe.” It’s steady. It’s a promise. But there’s a wall behind it, and I feel the wall go up even as he says the words.
I reach for him, the way I have multiple times now, fingers finding his hair. For a second he leans into it—helpless, hungry—and then he catches himself and pulls back. Stands. The retreat is so deliberate it’s almost violent, and the loss of him is a cold spot in a warm room.
I’m not the only one who notices. Micah’s arms tighten around me once, almost imperceptibly. Milo stops playing with my hair.
“Maybe we should just see what’s on TV,” he suggests, grabbing the remote.
We sit and watch for a while, some show about home renovations that doesn’t require much brain power.
Then Knox returns from the kitchen and I reach for him as he passes, catching his hand, pulling him close enough to press my mouth to his knuckles.
He holds the contact for a beat, the heel of his thumb pressing into my palm, and something passes between us that doesn’t need words.
He drops a kiss on my head then moves to sit back in his armchair. I nestle myself back into Micah and Milo, the three of us folded into each other in a way that could go somewhere fast if anyone let it. I let out a low hum of satisfaction as Milo’s fingers go back to brushing through my hair.
“I love it when you purr, kitten,” he whispers, just as his mouth finds the spot below my ear. My breath hitches, and his hand slides from my hair to my neck, fingers tracing my collarbone. Micah’s grip on my waist tightens at the same time, his lips moving up to the curve of my jaw. I moan.
“That’s enough.”
Holden’s voice cuts through the haze like cold water. I open my eyes and he’s leaning in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, watching us with an expression that’s a mix of fondness and authority.
“We’re just—” Milo starts.
“I know what you’re just. And she needs sleep, not a five-man pileup.” He pushes off the door frame and crosses to the couch, extending his hand to me. “Come on, wildcat. Bath and bed.”
“I’m fine,” I protest, even as my body screams otherwise—the soreness from last night is still lingering, along with the emotional whiplash of the day. If I’m honest, my bones feel like concrete.
I look at the others. Micah gives me a small nod. Milo releases me with an exaggerated sigh. Even Eli tips his chin toward Holden, an unspoken go.
I take Holden’s hand. He pulls me to my feet with the effortless strength I’ll never get used to and tucks me against his side.
“Say goodnight, boys. She’s done for the day.”
“Goodnight, kitten.” Milo blows me a kiss.
“Sleep well, baby girl.”
Knox raises two fingers from the armchair. Eli watches us go.
Holden walks me upstairs with his hand on the small of my back, guiding me into the bedroom and shutting the door with a soft click. The room is dim—just the nightstand lamp—and the bed is turned down, my pajamas already laid out.
“You did this?” I ask.
“Sit.” Holden doesn’t answer. Just points at the bed. Then he disappears into the bathroom. I hear the faucet turn, water hitting the tub, and a minute later he comes back.
“Bath’s running. I put out towels and some of my body wash—it’s not exactly lavender and rose petals, but it’ll do.” He crouches to untie my shoes, working the laces, precise, unhurried. “There’s a robe on the door. Take your time. Relax. Call out if you need anything. I’ll be downstairs.”
He starts to stand.
“Don’t go.”
My voice comes out small. I didn’t want that to happen, but it does anyway. Holden stops, one hand still on my ankle, and looks up at me.
“Please don’t leave me alone tonight.” My voice is steady, mostly, but the edges are raw. “I know you think I need rest. And I do. But I—” I swallow. “I don’t want to close my eyes in a room by myself right now. I keep seeing it. The rope. The threat. Please?”
His expression softens, and he straightens slowly.
“Okay, wildcat. I’ll stay.”
He takes my hand and walks me into the bathroom, where the tub is filling with hot water, steam curling toward the ceiling. He leaves the door open—not wide, just enough that the bedroom light bleeds in—and sits on the closed toilet lid while I undress.
There’s nothing sexual about it. Not yet.
I pull my shirt over my head and step out of my jeans and he watches with a steady, grounding presence that makes me feel less like I’m being looked at and more like I’m being held.
When I lower myself into the water, the heat hits every sore muscle and I hiss through my teeth, sinking until it’s up to my shoulders.
“Good?” he asks.
“So good.”
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and we sit in the steam and quiet.
The water laps against the sides of the tub.
Downstairs, I can hear the muffled voices of the others—Milo’s laugh, the low rumble of Knox, the cadence of what might be Eli on the phone.
Sounds of a house that’s full. Of people who are here because of me.
“Holden?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me some more about your dreams. The ones you had before the darkness got in.”