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“You didn’t belong there,” I continue. “You weren’t fighting like someone who wanted it. You were fighting like someone who had no choice.” The memory of it sits heavy. “And then you lost to Declan, and instead of being pissed or trying to prove something, you just accepted it,” I add. “That’s not normal in a place like that.”

I tighten my jaw slightly. “So I watched,” I say, not sugarcoating it, not pretending it was anything else. “At first, to figure out what was going on, and then,” I pause because this is the part that doesn’t make sense. “Then I couldn’t stop.”

The admission sits between us, quiet but solid.

“You can call it whatever you want,” I finish, my voice lower now, more certain, “But I’m not walking away from you. Not when I know what you’re dealing with, and definitely not when someone tried to kill you.”

Chapter 18

Jaxon

The second the word leaves his mouth, everything clicks into place so fast it almost makes me dizzy. I snap my head toward him. Instant regret. My vision blurs for a second, the movement too fast, my body not ready for it, but I don’t care, because now I know.

“It was you,” I say, my voice rough but sharper now, cutting through the haze. “I knew I was being watched. I felt it.” Anger spikes. It’s hot and immediate.

“Fuck my life, you’re my stalker.”

“Yes.”

One word. No hesitation. No denial.

I stare at him, trying to process how casually he just admitted that, how he didn’t even try to soften it or explain it away, and something in my chest twists hard.

“Turn around,” I snap, my voice gaining strength even if my body doesn’t. “Take me home. I’m not staying with you.”

My hand moves toward the door handle on instinct, even though I know I’m not in any shape to actually do anything about it, even though just sitting upright is already pushing it.

He just keeps driving out of the city.

“I’m serious, Conor,” I add, my breathing picking up again, frustration bleeding into something sharper. “You don’t get to just insert yourself into my life and—” I cut myself off, jaw tightening. “Take me home.”

“I can’t do that, Jaxon.”

I hear the faint creak of leather under his grip on the steering wheel, like he’s holding himself tighter than he wants to admit, like he already knows where this is going and isn’t backing down anyway.

“And why not?” I shoot back, my voice rough but sharp. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah,” he fires back immediately, no hesitation, no softening, “and you ended up in the hospital for almost four days. You didn’t even wake up for the first one.”

The words burn, and something in me snaps. I’ve held it in. Kept my mouth shut about what happened. Told myself it didn’t matter, that it wouldn’t change anything, that saying it out loud wouldn’t fix a damn thing. But that statement he just made, that pushes it too far and pisses me off.

“It’s your fucking fault this happened to me in the first place,” I force out, trying to raise my voice even though my throat protests hard enough to make it burn. “If you hadn’t gone all hero at the fights, I would have been fine.”

The words come faster now, fueled by anger more than sense.

“I would have taken the fourth fight and gone the fuck home.”

I see it. The reaction. He jerks back slightly in his seat, like I actually hit him, like the words hit harder than anything physical could have, his grip on the wheel tightening before he forces it to loosen again. Good. Maybe now he gets it. Maybe now he understands that whatever this is, whatever he thinks he’s doing, made it worse.

He doesn’t say anything. Not a single fucking word. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t defend himself, doesn’t even look at me. He just keeps driving. And somehow that’s worse.

Because at least if he fought back, I’d have something to push against, something to hold onto, but this silence just sits there, heavy and unmoving. It’s like nothing I said mattered enough for him to respond. Fine, if that’s how he wants it. I don’t say anything either. I’ll call an Uber when we get to wherever the fuck we’re going.

We pass through large iron gates, the metalwork intricate, a Celtic knot wrapped around an “M” at the center, and I catch it in a glance, my mind automatically registering the detail even though I don’t want to care.

The driveway stretches out ahead of us, long and perfectly paved, lined with trees that look like they’ve been placed there with intention rather than grown naturally. It’s beautiful, and I hate that I notice.

I hate that part of me wants to take it in, to appreciate it the way I would have once, back when things were different, back when I let myself think about a future that looked nothing like the life I ended up with.