“You’re very good at sifting through data. You might be able to find out.” He flinches and shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not?—”
“Are you for real?” I shake my head, but the movement makes the room sway again. I really need to rest. “Why would I want to help you?”
“Trust me, Roxy?—”
“I don’t trust you, Liam. I barely understand your motivation. Your father did something ten years ago? Fucking grow up and move on.” I stand up, bracing myself against the table. “The joke is on you. You bet on the wrong horse, but you still used me.”
“I’m sorry about that.” He hangs his head.
“Fuck you, Liam. I’m jobless. And I need to protect my sister, because if you don’t marry her, he will find someone else. So as it stands now, I might need to go back there to protect her. To marry to give her more time. You saying you’re sorry won’t fix that.”
He lets out a groan or a whimper, a sound infused with pain. “I fucking miscalculated.”
I sit back down, my legs giving in to my fatigue. “Should I feel sorry for you?”
He shakes his head. “Have you never wished to get back at your father?”
The question isn’t sharp or strategic. It’s tired.
It breaks something inside me. Until now, he’s beencontrolled, precise, intentional in every move. But this sounds older than the argument.
I don’t know what his father did. I don’t know the shape of the damage. I only know it left a mark deep enough to build a life around.
This beautiful, complicated man has been steered by revenge.
I grew up in a golden cage—ornate, suffocating, locked from the outside. Every rule chosen for me. Every future drafted in ink that wasn’t mine. I spent years dreaming of air. Of escape. Of freedom.
My prison was handed to me.
Liam’s? He built it himself. And he doesn’t seem to realize how carefully he’s sealed the door.
The anger in me doesn’t disappear. It can’t. He lied. He used us. He used me.
But beneath it, something quieter rises. Grief. Not for what he’s done.
For what he’s carrying.
“No,” I whisper, my voice thinner than I expect. “I never wanted to get back at him.” I hold his gaze even though it hurts. “The only thing I ever wanted was to be free.”
He closes his eyes.
I swallow around the lump in my throat. How can I be furious with the man and feel sorry for him at the same time?
It’s like, without me realizing it, I became attracted to more than his body. The thought shakes me to the core.
Instead of throwing him out to deal with the onslaught of emotions, I add, “A thirst for revenge would only keep me connected to him. I don’t want to give him so much power.”
Liam’s eyes widen for a brief moment, as if the concept surprises him. I can’t imagine how consuming his hatred must be since he’s harbored it for a decade.
“What can I do?” He sighs. It’s a heavy sigh, filled with pain, regret, desperation.
I ignore the hurt it elicits in my chest.
“You don’t know who you’re toying with. Stay away from the Locks.” I stand up and walk to the door. “All of us,” I say, before I open the door.
Suddenly, he’s beside me. He pushes the door shut with his palm. With his other hand, he nudges my chin up. Our eyes meet in a gaze ridden with pain and betrayal.
“I don’t think I can do that, Thunder.”
