Page 180 of Deacon

Matty nodded. “I agree.” His own anger had settled into something colder. “I’m disgusted with him too. He brought this on himself. I’ll tell him. You don’t have to deal with him.”

The decision didn’t bring peace. It brought an end to the argument I had been having with myself about Dad for longer than I realized. I turned to Jackson. He had barely moved while Matty and I talked, as if he still expected some part of this truth to make me look at him differently. “Where is Jade now?”

His face softened immediately. “Safe and sound at Evan’s.”

The breath left me in a shaky rush. She was safe. Really safe. Whatever else had broken overnight, I could survive it with my daughter alive.

The front door opened, and all three of us jerked toward the sound before Jade came barreling into the apartment.

“Mom!” Her voice cracked. “Evan said Crude Jude kidnapped you!”

She made it three steps before getting a full look at me. Her eyes dropped to the sling, the bruises, my split lip, and she stopped so abruptly her shoes squeaked against the floor.

I held out my good arm. “Come here, baby. I need a hug.”

That was all it took. Jade flew across the rest of the room and folded herself against my side. The impact hurt enough to steal my breath, but I tightened my arm around her anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out into my robe. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know, Mom.”

“Oh, honey.” I pressed my face into her hair, breathing in shampoo and my child and every ordinary thing I had been terrified I would never get back. “None of this is your fault. Not one part of it.”

Jackson came closer and ran one steady hand down Jade’s back. “It’s all good now, baby girl,” he murmured. “We’re all here. Everybody’s safe.”

She sniffed hard but refused to let go. Evan swept in behind her carrying a bakery box and a drink carrier, his expression making it clear he had appointed himself commander of the emotional recovery whether anybody had asked for one or not. “I would like it noted,” he announced as he headed for the table, “that I brought emergency donuts, muffins, and coffee because trauma is hard and I am the only one here with any vision.”

Jackson looked over Jade’s head at him and managed a smirk. “Guess we won’t be having a quiet morning.”

Evan set the food down with offended dignity. “Quiet mornings are wildly overrated and frankly suspicious.”

Jade finally pulled back far enough to wipe her face. “He’s right. Quiet mornings are where bad decisions and oatmeal live.”

Jackson looked from her to Evan. “Is this really going to be my life now?”

Jade answered immediately. “Yes.”

Evan pointed a muffin at him. “And you are going to love it,” he added. Something warm loosened inside me.

The truth about Dad still sat in the room, too sharp to touch again yet. My body hurt. Mason was dead. Jude was dead. Jackson and I had seventeen years we could never get back, and Jade had just learned how quickly someone she trusted could use that trust against her.

None of that vanished because Evan brought donuts, but Jade was pressed against my good side. Jackson’s hand rested warm on my knee. Matty had moved close enough that his shoulder nearly touched the couch, and Evan was already unpacking breakfast like feeding us was a military operation.

The room was full, and this time I let that be enough. I closed my eyes against the weight of exhaustion and listened to the people I loved moving around me until their voices blurred into something safe. Sleep came slowly, without a hand at my throat or a locked door waiting on the other side of it.

48

Lila

By the next afternoon, the apartment had settled into the kind of quiet that came after fear had finally run out of fresh places to land. Peace felt too generous a word for it. What we had was softer and more fragile, everyone breathing again while some part of us still listened for the next thing to break.

I was propped on the couch with pillows bracing my bad side, my sling making me feel half mummified and wholly annoyed. Blue had checked me one last time before going home and left strict instructions about keeping still, taking my pills on schedule, and avoiding anything stupid.

Jackson had apparently heard all of that as a sacred oath.

He had spent the afternoon hovering with all the subtlety of a surveillance drone. Water appeared before I knew I wanted it. Pillows got adjusted whenever I shifted. If I glanced toward the kitchen, he was already asking what I needed. I had stopped fighting him somewhere around the third glass of water, partly because exhaustion had stripped the argument out of me and partly because letting him care for me felt better than I wanted to admit.

He stood in the kitchen now with coffee in one hand, his attention technically on nothing in particular and actually on me. I was about to tell him the world would survive if he blinked when someone knocked.

Every line of his body changed. The mug hit the counter, and he was already moving by the time I said, “Jackson,” quietly enough to remind him this was still my apartment and not an active combat zone.