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“So understand me when I tell you I’m not trying to wound you, but I will if protecting him requires it.” Cade’s voice remains dead calm. “If you don’t have the fight in you for this, cut the cord and let him heal. We’ve got him. We will make damn sure he survives you, and eventually, we’ll help him move on.”
My mouth trembles.
“Let him go,” Cade says.
“I can’t.”
The answer comes through another sob, immediate and absolute. “I can’t let him go.”
Cade nods once. He finally steps closer and places one hand between my shoulders. The contact isn’t gentle enough to mistake for absolution. It is solid, steady, and strong enough to hold me upright.
“Then fight.”
The word lands fierce and clean.
Cade’s hand presses harder against my back until my spine straightens beneath it. His eyes hold mine without sympathy, softness, or any space for me to turn fear into another reason Ryan should wait.
“Stand fucking straight, face this head-on, and fix it. Stop crying, stop asking why, and fight. We’ve got you, and we damn sure have him, but if you want my respect back, fight your ass off. Toughen the fuck up and show him.”
His hand leaves my back, but I remain standing.
Cade returns both hands to his pockets as he makes his way back inside. He looks exactly as furious as he did before, and I understand that nothing I say tonight will change how he sees me. There is no apology powerful enough to repair his respect or another promise capable of convincing any of these men that Ryan will be safe if he gives me his heart again.
I have to show them.
More importantly, I have to show Ryan.
I wipe the remaining tears from my face and draw one slow breath after another until my legs feel capable of carrying me. Briggs stays beside me while Easton and Rider loosen their hold, but none of them steps away completely.
When I can finally walk through the castle doors without turning toward the road and begging a vanished car to come back, the three remaining men Ryan left behind take me inside.
25
Ryan
Rider’s song plays from takeoff until the flight attendant tells me I have to remove my headphones for landing.
I restart it every time it ends. I don’t know whether repetition makes the words hurt less or drives them deeper, but somewhere over the dark stretch between Michigan and Milwaukee, I stop trying to decide. Rider understood what I couldn’t explain when he sent it. Love has never been the only requirement. Wanting Charm and being able to survive the way she loves me are two different things.
By the time the plane lands, every fucking word belongs beneath my skin.
I make it home before sunrise, drop my luggage beside the door, and drink enough mezcal to make sleep stronger than memory.
I check my phone even though I have no reason to expect anything. No call. No text. No message delivered through Briggs because Charm is afraid to approach me herself. I asked her to respect my boundary, and she is doing exactly that, but part of me already resents the silence I demanded. I can’t decide whether she is finally allowing my distance to remain mine or discovering her life is easier without me. I don’t know whether I will ever hear from her again.
Wuthering Heights lies open across my chest while I recite the chapter without looking at it. Catherine tells Nelly it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, then insists their souls are made of the same thing.
Heathcliff only hears the part that destroys him and leaves before she explains the rest.
I know the fucking chapter by heart, but alcohol keeps the pages from turning into Charm. Eventually, the words lose their shape and sleep takes me on the couch with one hand resting over the open book.
Four hours later, my phone vibrates against the floor beside the couch. Cade’s name fills the screen, and I answer because I promised I wouldn’t disappear this time.
“You alive?” he asks.
“Unfortunately.” I rub my eyes and yawn. “Got drunk on mezcal, fell asleep reading Wuthering Heights.”
“It is terrifying how well I know you.”
