Page 292 of Power Play

My hand dropped.

Easton continued staring at me. His anger filled the room without him saying a word, and I knew it was directed at me. He knew Ryan and understood what it had cost him to walk into my parents’ house. He knew exactly what El Cuchillo meant when Ryan used the name himself.

“I tried,” I whispered.

Easton’s nostrils flared. For one horrible second, I thought he might tell me trying afterward didn’t count.

Maybe it didn’t.

He released a hard breath and dragged one hand over the back of his head. His anger remained, but something in his expression gave when he looked at my face.

“Oh, fucking shit, Charm.”

My body folded before he reached me.

Easton caught me beneath the arms and pulled me against his chest. The first sob tore out of me so violently that my knees gave, but he held me upright while Aura moved behind me. She wrapped both arms around my waist and pressed her cheek between my shoulder blades.

Easton’s hand settled against the back of my head. He was still angry. I felt it in the rigid line of his body and the way his teeth remained clenched above my hair, but his arms tightened around me anyway.

“Bliss and Cade are on their way,” he said, his voice rougher than usual. “Just breathe. We’ll talk once they get here.”

I tried.

Ryan’s key was gone. His name had disappeared from the group chat, and somewhere between Kimball Falls and Flint, the man I loved was carrying every piece of himself I had broken.

Aura held me tighter from behind while Easton kept me from falling.

For the first time in my life, there were no words capable of making what I had done look prettier. The empty place on my key ring held the brutal truth Ryan had finally forced me to face.

When he asked me to choose him, I had let him stand alone.

21

Ryan

The door closed, and I turned the deadbolt before Charm reached the stairs. My hand stayed wrapped around the lock as her sob broke apart in the hallway, muffled by the door and the blood pounding inside my ears.

For one second, my body forgot the decision my mind had already made. Every instinct I had turned toward that sound. I wanted to open the door, catch her before she fell, and pull her against my chest. I wanted to say the Spanish softly this time, tell her I was pissed and that she had fucking gutted me, but let her cry against my skin while I figured out how to forgive her.

I tightened my grip until the metal dug into my palm.

Her footsteps retreated toward the stairs until my apartment fell silent. I stood inside it listening as the woman I loved walked out of my life, and some vicious, ruined part of me waited for her to come back.

I wanted another knock and another plea. I wanted her to pound on the door until the hinges shook because holding it closed would prove I meant what I said.

She didn’t come back.

The outer stairwell door slammed below me. I lowered my forehead against the wood and closed my eyes.

“Chale,” I whispered, the word barely leaving my mouth.

My chest refused to expand. I dragged in a breath that caught halfway down and tried again, but the apartment felt too small to hold enough oxygen.

Her perfume still hung in the air. I could smell the cold she had brought inside and the sweetness that always clung to her hair. The books I had bought for the cabin remained stacked on the coffee table, the velvet-bound copy of Wuthering Heights catching the light from the lamp.

I stared at them until the edges blurred.

Then I slammed the side of my fist into the door.