My family wanted me at home. I wanted to get back to work. To feel in control again.
Don put it bluntly: “You’re choosing a death sentence and calling it purpose.”
But the real breaking point wasn’t his warning. It was waking in the middle of the night to find my dad—the most stoic man I know—holding my hand and crying. I’d never seen him shed a tear, yet there he was sitting in the dim hospital light, his shoulders shaking with silent, pained sobs he didn’t know I could see.
My fault.
The guilt of hurting him… of hurting my family broke me. I vowed then never to put them through that again.
There’s a rustle of movement before Don’s face fills the screen. He smiles in that serious way he has.
“How were the first weeks back in the saddle?” he asks, cutting straight through the small talk.
“Fine. I’m following the rules.”
“Rules are imposed. Guardrails are the tools you chose,” he says, like there’s a massive difference.
“Either way—blocker apps, alarms, caffeine limits… feel like I’m wearing an ankle monitor.”
“You are your own keeper.” Don leans closer to his camera. “You’re rewiring years of habit. That takes time. Give yourself grace.” He pauses, his eyes narrowing as if he can see rightthrough me. “You seem agitated. What’s the real weight on your mind?”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. The rasp of my beard against my palm is the only thing that feels solid right now.
“I’ve met someone. Rayne.” Her name is like a secret I’m finally allowed to say out loud to someone other than Neo. I tell him about that first night, how hard it was to walk away, and how none of what I felt faded when I saw her again. “For the first time in my life, a woman is a higher priority than the grind. She’s important to me.”
He offers a slow, encouraging nod, letting the admission breathe.
“It means I have to tell her about Washington,” I continue, the words feeling like lead on my tongue. “She needs to know what she’s stepping into. But I’m scared as hell that she’ll look at me the same way my family does.”
“What way is that?”
“Like I’m made of glass. Like I could collapse again. That’s what happened,” I snap out, the anger pointed inward. “I worked myself into the fucking ICU. How is Rayne supposed to feel like she can count on me when I couldn’t even count on myself to function at a desk job?”
“Being reliable doesn’t mean being indestructible,” Don says, meeting my gaze. “You’re a man, Dakarai, not a machine. You pushed yourself to a superhuman limit until your system could no longer operate. That’s not a character failure. It’s biology. That’s why you’ve set boundaries.”
I get it on an intellectual level, but… “It’s a lot to lay on someone.”
“And you don’t think Rayne will want that?”
I rub the back of my neck where I store my tension. “I know she won’t judge me. Rayne’s open and caring. But between the insomnia and my breakdown, I’m worried she might think it’sher responsibility to hold me together. She deserves better than that.”
Don gives me that penetrating look, the one that warns he’s about to give me something to think about. “Inviting someone who matters to see the blueprint—what you’ve survived and what you’re building now—isn’t a burden. That’s intimacy. That’s honesty. And if Rayne is the woman you say she is, she’ll want to know the whole man. Not just the polished version.”
We discuss that some more, then set an appointment for next week. When the screen goes black, I sit there, letting Don’s words settle like a drizzle after a storm.
The shadow of my confession still looms, but the wire in my gut isn’t cutting quite as deep. Don always gives me perspective—a way of looking at the same issue and seeing something different. Something not as bad as the way I framed it in my mind.
I have the logistics for the weekend handled. Every contingency, every “what if” of this secret getaway has been vetted and neutralized. I know how to mitigate political risk, how to strategize and direct the desired outcome.
That doesn’t work with emotions. I can’t project-plan the truth. It’s messy. But if Luna is trusting herself to spend this weekend figuring out how she feels, then maybe I can trust that I don’t have to be perfect or polished—that the man I am now is enough.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rayne
“We’re gonna miss you,” Symone says, her eyes shimmering as she lifts her cup of punch in a farewell toast.
“I’m going to miss you all, too.”
