Page 155 of Hard Bargain

Silence.

“You want me to get him?” Cassian asked.

The answer rose so fast it made him dizzy. Because god—yes. Yes, he wanted to drive to Los Angeles, walk through whatever door Knox was hiding behind, put him over his shoulder, and bring him back where he belonged. The image formed with terrifying clarity—Knox struggling, furious, breathless in his grip. Alive and within reach and his again.

It frightened him how right it felt. How complete.

“No,” he said at last.

The word was the hardest thing he’d ever said.

He walked to the window, gaze unfocused on the street below. His reflection stared back from the glass, silent and lethal. The kind of calm men learned to fear. “I want the brother’s address,” he said. “And I want eyes on Knox. At all times.”

“Dom…”

“No one touches him.” His voice dropped. “No one approaches him. I want to know who he sees. Where he goes. Whether he’s alone.”

Cassian was quiet for a beat. “You’re taking this well.”

Dominic ended the call.

Knox wanted space.

Fine.

He could have it. He could breathe LA air, sit in his brother’s house, and convince himself he’d made the right choice. He could lie awake in a stranger’s spare room and tell himself that distance would dull whatever burned between them.

Dominic would give him exactly enough rope to realize he was wrong.

He rested his forehead against the glass. Knox’s letter was still in his hand. “You stupid, frightened boy,” he whispered to the empty loft. “You can run. But I’m bringing you home.”

It wasn’t hope or a plea.

It was a promise.

Chapter 41

Knox

Four weeks in LA, and Knox had memorized the grocery store two blocks from Jacob and Liam’s home. He knew which aisle the cereal was in without checking the signs. He knew the cashier with the purple hair worked mornings. He knew the parking lot filled up fastest on Saturdays after ten.

He didn’t need anything. He was there anyway.

He stood in front of the refrigerators, staring at rows of drinks he wasn’t going to buy. Standing under the fluorescent lights of aisle nine was easier than sitting in Jacob’s living room, where laughter drifted in from the kitchen, toys ended up underfoot, and life moved forward without hesitation. Knox didn’t know where to insert himself into something that steady.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, making his heart kick hard enough to hurt.

He didn’t need to check. Four weeks without a word had burned that lesson deep enough. Dominic wasn’t calling, or texting. He’d taken Knox’s request for space and honored it with a silence so complete it felt less like respect and more like punishment.

Knox’s hand moved before his pride could stop it. He dragged the phone out and stared at the screen. Weather alert.

Of course.

The adrenaline drained out of him as fast as it had come, leaving behind something sour and familiar: disgust at himself. At the pathetic Pavlovian response his body had to a vibrating phone, and the way every cell in him was waiting to be summoned by a man he’d chosen to leave.

You asked for this.

You did this to yourself.