Page 295 of Power Play

“I told her what she was to me.”

Bliss spoke for the first time. “Ryan—”

“I’m not giving you the details, B. I know you’re going to hear this shit, but it stays between the four of us. You’re a bystander.”

“I understand, Ry. I wasn’t asking for them.”

“Good.”

I connected the call to my truck and dropped my phone into the center console. Cade’s voice filled the cab while I backed out of the space.

“We’re headed to the ABC apartment,” he said. “Aura called Bliss. Charm’s there.”

“Then she has somewhere to go.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

He didn’t tell me to turn around. He didn’t remind me that Charm loved me, explain why she froze, or ask me to be patient with wounds her parents had spent a lifetime creating.

Cade was the only person who had known me during my life on the streets. He understood what loving Charm had cost me.

“I defended us and defended her,” I said as I pulled onto the street. “She kept her eyes on the ground while her daddy cut me off at the knees in front of her. She didn’t make a sound, so I bounced. Then she followed me and came into my apartment thinking she could apologize and make it disappear.”

“You warned her.”

“I fucking warned her, Cade.”

“I know.”

“I told her I was done fucking around. I told her I’d had enough and wasn’t playing by the Harlen rules anymore. I was going to play by mine, and she better not test me.” My hands tightened around the wheel. “She looked me in the fucking eye and promised she was mine.”

Cade’s silence gave me room to continue.

“She knew what that dinner could become. I told her before we ever walked inside that house. I told her I wasn’t going to sit there while her father decided whether I was good enough to touch his daughter.”

“He never intended to give you a chance,” Briggs said.

“No shit.”

“I’m saying Charm should have known that too.”

The certainty in his voice caught me off guard. Briggs usually found humor in a funeral procession, but none of it touched his voice now. He sat in Cade’s back seat, listened to me bleed, and made sure I knew he saw who had caused the wound.

I turned onto the highway toward Flint.

“The worst part is that I didn’t need her to fight him,” I said. “I didn’t need a big fucking speech. I never asked her to throw wine in his face or burn down the house on our way out. I asked her for one sentence. Dile que importo.”

Briggs translated for them. “Tell him I matter.”

Cade exhaled as Bliss whispered, “Fucking hell, Charm.”

Their reaction nearly made me miss the entrance ramp. I wrenched the wheel harder than necessary and forced my truck through the curve.

“Yeah.”

“She should’ve said it,” Briggs said.

Bliss remained quiet, and her silence meant more than if she defended me. She loved Charm. She should have been the first person explaining the fear, conditioning, and every reason Charm’s mouth stopped working in that room.