Kai’s brows lift so high they nearly disappear into his hairline. “Huh.”
Julian just blinks. Then mutters, “Okay but… are we gonna unpack the whole daddy issues pyramid scheme later or like—?”
I shove his shoulder lightly. He winces. But he laughs—cracked, painful, perfect.
He’s alive and that’s the only fucking miracle I need.
33
JULIAN
It’s been a few days. Long enough for the color to crawl back into my skin, for my legs to stop shaking every time I sit up too fast, for Kai to stop hovering with a scalpel and a death threat every time I so much as breathe funny. I’m fine now. More or less. My head’s clearer, my lungs work again, and my heart, that little traitorous bastard, remembered how to beat in rhythm.
But Rafe hasn’t looked away from me once. Since I opened my eyes and called him pretty through a poisoned haze, he’s been watching—not just protective, but possessive, like if I flicker wrong or vanish even a fraction, he’ll burn the entire compound down to find where I slipped through the cracks.
And I’m using it. Oh, I’m using it.
A naked shoulder when I walk past him. A slow stretch mid-conversation, shirt riding up just enough to bare the bruises he left like signatures on my skin. A shower in broad daylight with the door wide open and the water turned cold so every inch of me puckers and glistens when I step out and lean in the doorway like sin made flesh.
He falls for it every time. His jaw tightens. His pupils drag across me slow and heavy like a bullet wound. His hands flex as though he’s weighing whether to fuck me senseless or lock me in a room for my own safety. It’s perfect.
But right now, I’m not teasing.
Right now I’m outside, barefoot on the cracked concrete of the courtyard because it’s too hot inside and Kai banned fans for “kicking up allergens,” whatever the fuck thatmeans. The heat hums off the metal walls in waves. My skin is slick. My shirt is off. I’m stretched out under the half-shadow of a hanging tarp, phone in hand.
And I’m watching it.
The video.
The one that ruined my fucking life.
It starts the same way it always does—my laugh, loud and raw and a little breathless. Then a hand in my hair. The camera angle shifts. His voice. My moan. Skin against skin.
I should turn it off. I always say I will.
But I don’t.
I watch—not because I miss it, not because I want to relive it, but because I need to look that ghost in the face and not flinch. I need to see what they used against me. What he let happen. The man I thought I loved. The captain I thought would save me. The man who said I’ll protect you with one hand while he filmed us with the other.
I’m not crying. I’m not shaking. I’m just sweating under the sun, mouth tight, teeth gritted, breathing slow while I watch myself be used like a secret someone never planned to keep.
The worst part isn’t the way I look at him. It’s the way I reach for him—trusting, open, mine.
And now? He’s a smear of blood under someone’s boot.
I don’t hear him coming. I never hear him coming. But I feel it—that shift in the air, that hush of gravity. The heat itself starts to coil inward when he gets close, like the ground forgets it’s allowed to stay stable. I don’t even need to look up to know it’s him.
Still, I do.
Rafe stands over me, eyes locked on the screen in my hand, expression carved from something older and darker than violence. He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t growl. Doesn’t demand I shut it off. He just moves.
And then I’m off the ground.
“Hey—!” I bark, laughing mid-word as he yanks me off the tarp and throws me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. The phone nearly slips from my hand—nearly—but I clamp down fast, clutching it with a breathless wheeze. “You maniac, warn a guy!”
Rafe doesn’t answer. He doesn’t carry me inside or drag me into the dark. Instead, he walks beside the container, stepping under the narrow patch of shadow cast by the outer wall—the only sliver of cool air in this heat-slick hell—before he stops and lowers me gently to the ground. Then he twists me, one hand firm on my waist, the other curledaround the back of my neck, turning me until we’re chest to chest, heartbeat slamming against heartbeat.
And he kisses me.
