Page 49 of Grim’s Angel

I watch the motel exits across the camera feeds and fight the urge to run upstairs.

Grim agreed to bring me because he respected my choice. I respect the boundary that keeps me from becoming another threat his team must manage.

“Bypass accepted,” Lock says. “Open it.”

Metal scrapes over the comm.

Torch releases a breath. “We have drives, passports, paper contracts, and enough cash to explain why Rivers travels light.”

“Bring everything,” Grim says. “We process it at the clubhouse.”

“What about the brother?” Striker asks.

I open my eyes.

Grim answers without hesitation. “McKenna decides.”

An hour later, Alan sits at the clubhouse meeting table with Striker behind him and Grim at my side. His expensive jacket is wrinkled, and a bruise darkens his jaw from trying to shove past Striker.

For the first time in our lives, nobody in the room assumes he deserves more sympathy than I do.

“I was trying to save the house,” he says.

“You gambled the house.”

“I made one mistake.”

“You made hundreds of choices. You placed the bet, borrowed more, hid the debt, uploaded my photographs, advertised my virginity, and watched Mom and Dad pressure me into signing.”

His gaze darts toward Grim. “She agreed to the year.”

Grim begins to rise.

I place my hand on his arm. “Mine.”

He sits, though fury rolls from him.

I turn back to Alan. “You keep using my signature as if it erases everything you did to get it.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them take the house?”

“You were supposed to lose something of your own.”

The truth silences him.

“Mom is sick over this,” he says eventually.

He offers me the same weapon my family has used for years, sharpened on my guilt.

“Mom is upset because I stopped fixing your mistakes. That is different from being hurt by me.”

“So you choose him over your family?” Alan jerks his chin toward Grim.

I look at the man beside me.

Grim does not answer for me. He leaves the choice where it belongs.

“I choose myself,” I say. “Grim is the first person who showed me that choosing someone else doesn’t require surrendering myself to him.”