“Deal with him,” Rafe says without looking away from me. It’s not a suggestion. It’s an execution order disguised as a sentence.
Kai snorts, a sharp exhale of dark amusement. “Julian already did,” he says. “He’s toothless now.”
Rafe’s lips curl, the faintest hint of pride darkening his eyes as he shifts his focus fully back to me. “Good boy.” The words hit like heat under my skin. Then, lower—“I’ll take care of it.”
Something in my chest cracks at that—Rafe promising violence like reassurance, murder like comfort. He presses his forehead to my temple, his breath warm against the side of my face, grounding me in a way nothing else can. His free hand comes up to cradle the back of my skull, fingers threading into my hair, holding me steady against him.
His voice drops into something quiet, something low and scalding and intimate enough to melt the panic at its roots. “I’m going to take this out now, little halo,” he murmurs. “But I need you to keep breathing. Understand?”
A tremor rolls through me, violent but contained under his hold. My nails dig into his sleeve again, weaker now, shaking. My eyes flutter shut for a second before I force them open—because he’s watching me, because I can’t look away from him when he speaks like that.
I nod—small, barely there, just the tiniest, most pathetic movements of my head. Anything bigger would break me in half.
Rafe’s stare holds mine—those storm-gray eyes locked on me like he’s the only solid thing in a world that’s collapsing. His hand stays firm behind my head, fingers threaded through my hair, thumb anchoring the back of my skull. And then—slowly, deliberately—he begins to pull the gun from my mouth. The metal slides against my tongue, my teeth, my lips, and every inch of its retreat makes my breath hitch until I’m trembling all over again. The second the barrel leaves my mouth, my jaw collapses forward and a broken, stuttering exhale falls out of me. My body sags—completely, utterly—like the gun was the only thing holding me upright. I fall into him—hard—like gravity snapped its fingers and decided I belonged there.
Rafe catches me instantly, one arm banding around my back, the other gripping under my thighs as he lifts me clean off the ground. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist and my arms loop around his shoulders with a strength I don’t remember having. My face presses into the side of his neck, tears soaking into his skin, my breath shaking so violently my ribs ache.
“That’s it,” Rafe murmurs, voice low and rough, vibrating through his chest into mine. “I’ve got you, Jules. I’mright here.”
The words unravel something deep in me—something that’s been knotted so tight I forgot it had edges. My fingers curl into his shirt as he starts walking, long strides carrying us across the compound like he’d walk through fire without blinking. The cold hits my back, then his door slams open, then warm air swallows us as he steps into his container.
Rafe’s place is darker, quieter, heavier than anywhere else in this compound. And the second we’re inside, he strides straight to the bed and sits down with me still in his lap, my legs locked around his waist, my forehead tucked under his jaw. He holds me tight, arms wrapped around me like he’s caging in the pieces that were spilling out.
I cling back tighter. So tight my fists shake as they twist into the fabric at his shoulders. My body curls in on itself against him, trembling uncontrollably. The sobs come silent now—no more screams, no more words—just raw, shaking cries that hollow my chest out from the inside.
Rafe presses his mouth to the side of my head, breathing me in like he’s memorizing the shape of my panic. One of his hands slides up my back, slow, steady, grounding. The other stays around my thighs, holding me wrapped around him like he’s not letting me go for anything. “I’ve got you,” he says again, quieter now, a growl softened into something lethal and tender all at once. “You’re safe. You hear me?”
I can’t answer. I just cling. Crying silently against his throat as if the sound might shatter me again.
26
RAFE
Iwake up to the sound of him breaking. It’s not a scream, not this time. It’s quieter—somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, shredded on the inhale, half-swallowed like he’s choking on something in the dream. The kind of sound that slices through a dark room like wire and knots itself around your spine before your body even knows it’s awake. I sit up instantly, breath held, heart locked in that space between fury and instinct. The sheets are twisted beside me. The air tastes like sweat and cold metal. And Julian—fuck. He’s not crying. He’s shaking.
His body twitches once, then again, harder this time—legs tangled, one arm flung across the mattress, fingers twitching against the sheets like he’s trying to find something that isn’t there. His face is locked in a grimace, mouth open just enough for the breath to rasp out, jaw tight, lashes fluttering like he’s trying to force himself awake but can’t claw his way to the surface. He always runs hot when he dreams—sweat slicking his neck, the scar on his lip redder, rawer, like his past burns brighter in sleep. I’ve seen the nightmares before. Not like this. Not this deep. Not this far gone.
“Julian,” I murmur, already leaning over, hand sliding up his back slow and firm, the way he likes, the way that usually brings him back to me. “Wake up, little halo. You’re dreaming. It’s not real.”
He flinches under my touch like I’m made of fire. His breath stutters, eyes snapping open—but he doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see anything. His gaze is glassed over, hollow,not blank or dazed, just utterly gone, as if the person behind it has been pulled out and replaced with something mechanical and wrong.
He moves like a puppet jerked by unfamiliar strings—limbs twitching in directions that don’t belong to him, movements sharp and purposeless yet driven by an intent that isn’t his own. I freeze, breath trapped in my throat, watching as he stumbles forward barefoot and shirtless, bruises dark and blooming across his thighs like fresh ink. He heads straight for the nightstand.
Straight for my gun.
“Julian,” I say again, lower now, already moving.
He doesn’t stop. He grabs the gun with shaking hands, but he’s not wild, not flailing. His grip is precise. His thumb brushes the grip like he’s calming it down. Then he turns, walks across the room like he’s sleepwalking through a ritual he’s already memorized. He stops in front of the mounted screen, taps it on, and for a second the room is dark again, quiet. The air stills. My body goes cold.
Then the screen lights up with the tape—the same fucking tape. The hotel room flickers into view, but the sound—his sound—starts playing before the image even fully fades in. And Julian, my Julian, my ruined, radiant, blood-slicked boy, lifts the gun and slides the barrel into his mouth.
“JULIAN.”
I’m across the room in an instant—no hesitation, no breath, just raw fucking movement. I’m behind him before the panic can fully root in my chest, one arm banding around his waist so tight I feel every fragile bone beneath his skin, the other hand clamping over his where it grips the gun. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t jerk. His body simply leans back into mine like this is where it was always meant to go, like muscle memory knows safety even when his mind is lost.
The safety is on. Thank fuck. But I don’t pull the gun away. I don’t rip it from his mouth like it’s poison. Because I know exactly what he’s doing.
Yesterday, the panic stopped when the gun was there. Yesterday, it grounded him—not in fear, but in control. In mine. The barrel wasn’t a threat then; it was a tether, a silencer for the storm raging inside him. And now, even asleep, even cracked open and hollowed out, he’s reaching for that same feeling again—trying to drown out the tape with something stronger, something that burns just right.
