Page 164 of Joker

I get this. I get the man under the patch. The one he keeps hidden behind locked doors and rough edges and a name no one else is allowed to touch.

I lift my head just enough to look at him fully, and whatever he sees in my face must hit him hard too, because his grip on me tightens immediately.

Not painful. Not controlling. Just certain. Possessive in the way he always is when he forgets to pretend he’s anything less than all in.

“Good,” I whisper, because it’s the only thing in me that feels true enough to say. “Because no one else gets to.”

His eyes darken instantly. That slow, dangerous heat rolls back through the room like it never left in the first place, and his hand slides from my neck down my spine until it settles low at my back, keeping me exactly where he wants me.

Exactly where I want to be.

The look he gives me after that should probably scare me. It doesn’t. It makes me feel treasured. Claimed in the most terrifyingly gentle way. Like he would tear the whole world apart before he ever let anyone take this from him. Take me from him.

And God help me, I think I’d let him.

I think I’d stand in the middle of the wreckage and let him pull me behind him while the whole world burned, just to stayright here where he’s looking at me like I’m something precious and dangerous all at once.

His mouth brushes mine once. Twice. Slow enough to hurt.

Then he presses his lips to my forehead and keeps them there for one quiet, endless second before murmuring, “Go to sleep, angel.”

The tenderness in it nearly undoes me. Because he sounds wrecked too. Like this got under his skin in places he didn’t plan for either. Like I’m not the only one lying here realizing this stopped being temporary somewhere along the way and neither of us knows how to go back now.

I settle against him again, my leg tangled with his, my hand spread flat over his chest where his heart keeps beating under my palm like a promise. And before sleep can fully pull me under, one last thought drifts through me, soft and beautiful and terrifying enough to leave a bruise.

I think I’m falling in love with a man the rest of the world only knows as Joker.

But in the dark, behind a locked door, with his arms around me and his real name still warm on my tongue.

I think I’m already in love with Travis.

I know something’s wrong before anybody says a damn word.

It starts as one of those tiny shifts you only catch if you’ve spent most of your life surviving rooms before they turn ugly.

The clubhouse feels…off.

Not loud. Not chaotic. Not dangerous in the obvious, immediate way.

Just tighter.

Too many brothers in the same place without the usual loose rhythm to it. Too much silence in the spaces where there should be background bullshit. Too many eyes cutting toward Logan’s office and then away again.

It’s barely after eight, and I’m already standing in the kitchen with a mug of coffee going cold in my hand while Raven sits at the table with Lexi in her lap helping her peel the wrapper off a cereal bar like the world hasn’t shifted under our feet overnight.

She’s wearing my sweatshirt again. Hair down. Sleep still soft around the edges of her face. No makeup. Bare feet tucked under the chair.

And Lexi’s got Bunny wedged under one arm while she argues with Raven about whether or not cereal bars count as “real breakfast.”

This.

This right here is exactly why the wrong kind of news hits harder than it should.

Because one second I’m looking at the two of them like they’re the only thing in the room worth seeing, and the next Logan appears in the kitchen doorway and says, “Joker.”

That’s it.

Just my name. But the tone of it tells me enough. I set the mug down without taking another drink.