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“I told you. I want you to bring back to me what you took. Today, please. I want us to sit down, face-to-face, and resolve this.”

“I’m not stupid,” I said softly. “Meeting you for anything is the exact wrong thing for me to do.”

There was a pause, then the soft, disappointed sigh I’d learned to hate. “Brielle. You’re making this so much harder and more dramatic than it needs to be.”

Instead of speaking to him further, I ended the call. Before I lost my nerve and gave in to what he wanted.

The trembling started almost immediately, and I tried to breathe through it. “I almost said yes,” I blurted. “I almost agreed to meet him.”

“I know,” he said, and there was no trace of scorn or condemnation. If anything, looking at him now, I thought he might see more than I wanted him to see.

I curled my hands together. “He makes it sound so reasonable. Like it’s for my own good or like it would be worse for everyone if I don’t do what he wanted.”

“I think I should call Ethan. He needs to know, and I’m pretty sure he expected something.”

“Yes.” I sounded as weak as I felt. I hated feeling and being so fucking helpless.

He put the call on speaker.

“Dane? Everything good?”

“She just got a call from Sutton.” Dane explained the call, then waited for the lawyer to respond.

“He’s escalating.” Ethan sounded like he was thinking through all kinds of scenarios. “Which suggests he might be more desperate than anything else. We might be overthinking this.”

“I’m not following.” Dane’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“Let me worry about that,” Ethan said. “From now on, Brielle, you don’t answer any call you don’t recognize. If you do get caught on one, hang up. If you absolutely cannot avoid saying something to him, refer him to Lana. Lana can handle it from there. Don’t say anything else. Just Lana’s name. Don’t even worry about her phone number.”

“I can do that.” I looked at Dane for confirmation I was doing the right thing. He nodded and gave me a small, encouraging smile.

“Neither of you leaves the compound,” Ethan said. “Get comfortable. Tell Knuckles to expect a call from me.”

“We got it,” Dane answered for us both. I found I needed the break from making all the decisions right now. Mainly because I thought I might be shit at making my own decisions. Likely because I never had.

When I met his gaze, Dane didn’t look at me unkindly. Instead, he held out his hand to me. A truce of sorts, maybe. I hesitated. Then I placed my hand in his.

Chapter Eight

Dane

Brielle’s hand felt soft and cool in mine. She trembled slightly and her eyes glistened with tears she refused to let fall. Rather than move right away, she sat there, breathing through whatever emotions she’d worked through. For a very long time, we sat there, not speaking. I got strange looks from the old ladies as they moved through the common room, but no one approached us.

Though she didn’t say anything or move much, Brielle clung to my hand. She got up once to go to the bathroom. I took the moment to get us sandwiches and drinks so that when she returned, she could eat. Still, she stayed silent. Once she finished eating, her hand found mine again, and she continued to sit in silence looking everywhere but at me. I suppose she had a lot to think about.

“I need some air,” she finally said, and her voice seemed devoid of emotion, which felt worse than if she’d broken down and screamed, or thrown her phone across the room. Or punched a fucking wall. She pulled her hand free from mine and walked toward the back of the building toward the courtyard exit.

I watched her go. The soft gray T-shirt she wore hung loose on her small frame, the drawstring sweats cinched tight at her waist. I followed, knowing she didn’t need to be alone right now. I might not be the best company for her, but I had a driving need to somehow take this from her. Because Ethan was right. No matter how much I didn’t want him to be. Brielle was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her only crime was caving to pressure too much for her to bear on her own.

Though it was only about six in the evening, the courtyard was almost fully dark this late in autumn, lit only by the dim lights lining in staggered intervals along the paths leading from building to building. The moon cutting through the camo netting overhead gave some lighting but cast strange shadow patterns across the yard. Brielle sat on the far bench, arms wrapped around herself, looking up at the canopy of camouflage covering as much of the courtyard as possible. She didn’t turn when I approached, so I sat on the same bench but on the opposite end.

She tensed, probably waiting for the questions about Sutton, about the call, about what she was going to do now that he’d found her. Every conversation we’d had since she pulled up to the gate had been about the worst thing that ever happened to either of us. So, I decided we needed a break from the bullshit so I could get to know the real woman beneath the persona I’d always imagined. Because I knew I’d been dead fucking wrong.

“My name’s not really Dane, you know.”

That got her to look at me. In the scattered light, her eyes were dark and slightly confused. “What?”

“Well, technically, it’s my legal name now, but it’s not the name on my birth certificate.”