74. Micah
SEVENTY-FOUR
MICAH
Knox comes back downstairs with murder on his face.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to.
He sat in the living room for forty minutes while Sage sobbed into his chest, his arms wrapped around her like a fortress, his jaw locked so tight I could hear his teeth grinding from across the room.
He held her while she shook and choked and said things between sobs that I’ll never unhear.
“He said I was easy, he said none of it was real, that it was just fun. An orgy—”
Knox held her through every word, absorbing her hurt.
When she finally went quiet, passed out from exhaustion, he lifted her off the couch and carried her upstairs to the bedroom without a word. I heard the door close. The creak of the mattress. Then nothing.
Now he’s at the bottom of the stairs, and every line of his body says the same thing.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
Knox looks at me. “We beat the shit out of Eli. That’s what we do.”
He starts toward the front door. I’m on my feet and in his path before I’ve made the conscious decision to move.
“No. Knox, stop.”
“Move, Micah. He made Fury cry.”
“Calm the fuck down for a second—”
“I am calm. This is me calm.” His voice is low and lethal.
“He stood in a room and told her she was nothing. He looked her in the eye and said she was easy. I’m going to find him and I’m going to make him explain what part of that was necessary, and if his explanation isn’t good enough, I’m going to break his hands and shove them so far up his ass he chokes on his own fingers. ”
“Okay. But if you hurt him, you could do more harm than good. Sage could end up hurt by your actions.” I put both hands on his chest. It’s like trying to stop a landslide with your palms, but he pauses. “I know you don’t want that.”
He relaxes slightly, letting out a slow breath. I lower my hands.
“There has to be an explanation,” I continue, raking a hand through my hair. “You know Eli. You know how he operates—he pushes people away. That’s what this is. He’s trying to protect her by driving her away.”
“I don’t care why he did it. I care that she just cried herself to sleep. All because a man she trusted—with her body, Micah—with her body and her heart decided to obliterate her confidence. He tore her apart.”
“He didn’t do it because he’s cruel. He did it because he thinks it’s the only way to keep her alive.”
Knox’s mouth is set in a brutal line, but I can see the flashing uncertainty under it. He’s not sure. He wants to believe it. But he’s not sure.
“If she’s alive but hates herself, what’s the fucking point?”
“You’re right,” I say. “And we’re going to deal with it. But not with you walking into his classroom and putting him through a wall.” I look him dead in the eye. “We need to talk to the others. All of us. Together.”
Knox stares at me for a long beat. The muscles in his arms are cording, his hands curled at his sides.
“I need a drink,” he mutters. “If I’m not going to punch someone in the face, I need a drink. A fucking stiff one.”
He goes to the kitchen. I hear the cabinet open, the clink of a glass, the pour. Then the quiet gasp of a man gulping down liquor to stop himself from burning down the world.
I sigh and pull out my phone to call Holden.
He picks up on the second ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Sage is home. She’s a mess. Something happened with Eli and Odin after you left the club.
” I give him the short version—Odin’s offer to relocate her, Sage refusing, and then Eli stepping in and tearing her apart.
I keep it factual. Clinical. Because if I let the emotion into my voice, I’ll sound like Knox, and one of us needs to be thinking straight.
The silence on Holden’s end is worse than yelling.
“He said she was easy? Fun?” Holden asks, seething.
“That was one of the highlights. He also said we were just passing her around. Called the whole thing a phase. Asked her if she seriously thought we’d all live together in some happily-ever-after orgy.”
More silence. A breath. “I’m on my way.”
He hangs up.
I text Milo next, keeping it brief.
Me
Come to Holden’s when you can. Sage needs us. Eli fucked up bad.
Three dots appear immediately.
Milo
20 min. Should I steal a dog?
Me
I’m not ruling it out, but I think having you as a murder puppy will do for now.
Knox comes back from the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey. He sits on the couch, takes a pull, and sets it on the coffee table with a thud.
“If the others can’t think of a way to fix this,” he says, “my plan is a go.”
“Noted.”
We wait.
The house is quiet above us. I keep listening for Sage—movement, crying, anything—but there’s nothing. Either she’s sleeping or she’s lying in the dark staring at the ceiling, and I don’t know which is worse.
I think about Eli. About the version of him that crouched in front of Sage on this couch five days ago and told her she wasn’t alone.
And then I think about the version that stood in Odin’s back room and called her easy.
My chest cracks open.
Oh, Eli. What have you done?
Eli and I have a complicated relationship. I wouldn’t call us lovers by any stretch of the word. But I would call us more than friends. Fellow inmates in a prison of our own design. And because I know him almost as well as I know myself, I also know what he’s doing right now.
He’s not celebrating. He’s not relieved. He is in a dark room somewhere, punishing himself for his actions.
I want to call him. I want to tear him to shreds. But that’s not how this works. Eli always runs first. Sometimes, he comes back. Other times, he doesn’t.
The front door opens and Holden comes through it. He obviously walked straight out of the station to be here—the chain from his badge visible at the neck of his button-down, the leather of his shoulder holster showing where his jacket hangs open. He shuts the door behind him.
“Where is she?” he asks.
“Sleeping,” I say.
He nods. I can see the pull in him—the need to go upstairs, put eyes on her, confirm she’s breathing and whole. But he holds.
“Eli planned this,” he says, jaw tight. “Probably planned it with Odin before we even walked in there today. He waited until we were gone. Dismissed us specifically so we wouldn’t be there to counter it.”
“Planned an operation against our girl,” Knox says, and the temperature in the room drops.
“We need to talk to him,” I say. “Find out where his head’s at. I want to believe he’s just trying to keep her safe. But . . .”
“Stay.” Holden grabs his keys from the counter. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“Maybe it should be me,” I say, standing. “I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’m willing—”
“No.” Holden looks at me. Not unkind, but immovable. “You’re too worked up. Both of you are. If it’s me, we don’t have any history that’ll stir up more shit. I can talk to him straight.”
I let it go. Holden’s right. I’m pissed, but I’m not steady—and Holden is never anything but. He can talk Eli off a ledge, or throw him off it, but either way it’ll get handled.
He leaves without finishing the conversation, and Knox and I sit in seething silence. About five minutes later, the front door bangs open and Milo explodes into the house.
“Kitten! My love!” He’s got a grocery bag in one hand and his jacket half off. “I came as fast as I could! I may have run several red lights and I think I left the store without paying for the—”
“Milo,” Knox warns.
“—candle, which technically makes me a shoplifter, but that’s a problem for future Milo who is a much more responsible—”
“Milo.” Me this time. “She’s sleeping. Keep it down.”
He freezes mid-stride reading the room.
“How bad?” he asks, quieter now.
“Bad,” I say. “Eli told her—”
There’s a creak on the stairs.
We all turn.
Sage is standing at the bottom step. She’s wearing one of Holden’s T-shirts—it falls to mid-thigh on her—and her hair is tangled. Her eyes are swollen and there are pillow creases on her cheek. She looks wrecked.
“I’m awake,” she says, her voice rough. “You don’t have to tiptoe.”
“Was it Milo?” I ask. “You want me to hit him?”
“No! I was awake before he—” She stops and looks around the room. “Where’s Holden?”
Knox and I exchange a glance.
“He just left,” I say carefully. “He went to talk to Eli.”
A shadow passes behind her eyes before she nods. “Okay.” She comes the rest of the way down the stairs, moving slow, like gravity has gotten heavier since this morning.
“Do you need anything?” I ask. “Water? Food?”
“I brought ice cream,” Milo says, holding up the grocery bag. “The fancy brand. And chocolate pretzels. And a candle that the lady at the store said promotes emotional healing, which I think is bullshit but it smells nice and—”
“I could use a hug,” Sage says.
Milo drops the bag where he stands, the ice cream splattering open. He crosses the room in three strides and wraps himself around her—full body, arms tight, face buried in her hair—and she sinks into him with a shudder, her hands fisting the back of his shirt.
“I’ve got you, kitten,” he murmurs. “I’m here. Always yours.”
She holds on. Breathes. Then she lifts her head from his chest and looks over his shoulder at me and Knox.
“I want a hug from all of you,” she says quietly. “Please. I just need to feel—I need to feel like I’m not what he said I am.”
Knox moves first. He comes up behind her and folds both of them into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head, and the size of him around the two of them is like shelter made of muscle.
I step in next, finding the space at her side, my arm around her waist, my forehead against her temple as I inhale the salt and sugar of her skin.
Milo whispers something obscene and sweet in her ear, and she laughs, barely, but it’s a laugh.
Knox kisses the top of her head. His lips linger, and then he looks down at her like he wants to punch the world for ever hurting her.
I run my hand down her back, slow and careful, mapping every vertebra, every tremble, every place where she’s fighting to stay here in this room with us instead of falling back into that numb, empty space Eli shoved her into.
“I love you, Sage,” I say, because it’s the only weapon I have against the things Eli said.
As soon as I do, Milo echoes me. “Love you, kitten, more than anything. Even more than actual kittens.”
Knox’s voice is a growl in her hair. “You are everything, Fury. To me. To all of us.”
Sage lifts her face from the circle of arms and looks at each of us in turn with a focus that makes my heart stutter.
I know what she’s about to do before she does it—because I’ve watched her need build like this before, watched her reach for something to drown out pain with pleasure the way some people chase shots with fire.
This is how she finds her footing again.
By seeking the center, by taking control of the thing that was just taken from her.
“Don’t stop touching me,” she whispers, shifting back just enough to fit her palm to the back of Milo’s neck and kiss him hard and full on the lips.
He reacts instantly, kissing her back, hands fanning up into her hair like he might get lost there.
She pulls away, gasping, and turns to face Knox.
He’s standing so close behind her they’re already touching everywhere, so she just tilts her chin and lets herself collapse into his arms. He doesn’t catch her so much as absorb her, bending down and wrapping every inch of himself around her.
His lips graze her temple, then her cheek, then her mouth—a kiss without rush or violence, just pure, molten need.
When he breaks away, there’s a tremble in his jaw I’ve never seen before.
Her hands are everywhere—curled in Milo’s shirt, splayed flat on Knox’s chest, then reaching for me.
I step in, close the circle around her, and she catches my face with both hands and kisses me like she’s desperate, like my mouth is a life raft.
She’s at the edge, needing us not as comfort, but as proof of something Eli just tried to break.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are wet. Her mouth is bruised pink from kissing all three of us. She’s shaking with need, and I lean in and kiss her again, slower this time, and I let the kiss say what I can’t fit into words.
You are not easy. You are not just fun. You are not what he called you. You are ours and we are yours and the only thing he got right was that we love you.
She makes a sound against my mouth—half-sob, half-moan—and her hands come up to fist in my shirt.
“Off,” she breathes. “All of it. I want you. All of you. Please.”
Milo is already moving. He’s the fastest of the three of us at most things, and clothes coming off is one of them. He peels his T-shirt over his head and tosses it somewhere, then his hands are on the hem of Sage’s shirt and he stops there, looking at her.
“You sure, kitten?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me again.”
“Yes.”