“Sure, the amount Cain calls you, you know you have to tell her about him, and the family business.” Mason looks at me andsmiles. “You’re in now, welcome to the Crawford family again.” He takes a step closer to me, and this time I do feel a little worried about it. “If he forgives you, we forgive you. It’s the number one rule, and he should tell you, but he won’t not yet anyway, so I’m telling you. Have faith in the family, no matter what's happening, have faith in us, in Hayden. That man won’t let you fall.”
All I can do is nod, and he walks away from me, and I feel Hayden lean in closer to me, and whispers so no one can hear. “Have faith in me.” He kisses my cheek and nods to Declan. “See you later.”
I turn to watch him walk out, and for the first time in years I feel so much lighter, and the dark feeling inside is fading and light is coming through it.
Twenty-Eight
Hayden
The door clicks shutbehind me, I make my way down the steps, the gravel crunching under my boots as Declan follows without a word. We don’t talk as I unlock the truck and climb in.
I can still feel her kiss on my lips, I’ve wanted to kiss her again since prom, that was the kiss I remember. I’ve kissed her since she’s come back, but they were out of anger, this one was what I wanted. The hunger I’ve been holding back.
“You think you can really put all this behind you?” Declan asks after a moment.
I stare out at the dark road ahead.Put it behind me?
The courtroom. The months inside. The scars on my body, and she hasn’t even seen the ones on my back. The weight of betrayal, and the years I spent building walls just so I wouldn’t have to remember what it felt like to need her. To trust her.
I inhale slowly, eyes still on the road.
“I love her,” I finally say. “If I want her in my life... I have to. I either find a way to live with it, or I lose her for good. And I can't do that again.”
Declan nods, not saying anything at first. “Alright. If she’s what you want, we’ve got your back. All of us. Hers too.”
I glance at him, my jaw tightening. There’s no judgment in his face. Just quiet loyalty. Our family is built on two things, loyalty and faith in each other.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He shrugs like it's nothing. But it’s everything, because she not only betrayed me, but she also betrayed them too.
The road ahead blurs in the headlights, trees lining both sides like shadows watching us pass. The silence gives me room to breathe, to think.
I can’t stop thinking about her lips trembling just before I kissed her. The way she didn’t push me away. She leaned into it, into me, like she'd been waiting years for that one moment.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white.
What if this is all just temporary? What if she breaks me again?
I want to believe her. God, I do. But every time I get close to trusting her, my brain flashes back to the cold courtroom, to the feeling of those cuffs digging into my wrists, the echo of a verdict I’ll never forget,“Guilty.”
That word tattooed itself across my fucking soul.
She said she had no choice. She told me the truth,finally. About her mother, about the threats, about the blackmail that drove a knife into my back and twisted it without warning.
But knowing why doesn’t erase the scars it left.
It doesn’t undo the prison nights where I didn’t know if I’d see morning.
Doesn’t undo the hatred I swallowed every damn day, trying not to remember how much I used to love her voice. Her laugh. Her everything.
And now here I am, heart racing from the taste of her mouth on mine like we were still those two kids in the treehouse, dreaming about a life we never got to live.
I shake my head, jaw tight.
“Scared?” Declan asks, surprising me.
I glance at him, and he just raises an eyebrow like he already knows the answer.
