Page 81 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"He controlled the money first. Every purchase, every receipt, accounted for and questioned if it didn't add up exactly right. Then it was who I spent time with, one friend at a time, until there wasn't anybody left who'd notice if something was wrong. He never raised a hand to me. He didn't need to. He just made himself the only safe option in every room I was ever in, until I stopped remembering there used to be other rooms."

The courtroom stays quiet enough that I can hear my own voice more clearly than I want to, and I keep going anyway, because stopping now feels more dangerous than finishing.

"Nine years of that teaches your body things your mind never agrees to. I still flinch sometimes at things that don't deserve it. That's not about Rafe Montgomery. That's about what Derek built, one small decision at a time, until I didn't recognize the walls closing in until I was already living inside them."

I don't look at Derek when I say it. I don't need to see his face to know exactly what it's doing.

Closing arguments come and go faster than I expect, Bennett's voice smaller now, like the morning already spent whatever conviction he'd walked in with, and Priya steady and unhurried in a way that makes every word land twice as hard for how little effort it seems to cost her.

Judge Marsh calls a short recess before her ruling, and the twenty minutes I spend in the hallway outside feel longer than the last five weeks combined. I don't see Rafe until I turn toward the water fountain and find him sitting three rows back in the gallery, alone, elbows on his knees, watching me with an expression that doesn't ask for anything at all. He came anyway, quiet and careful, exactly as invisible as Priya needed him to be, and still here, the whole time, close enough to matter.

He doesn't come over. He just holds my eyes a moment, gives me the smallest nod, the kind that means whatever happens next, I'm not doing it alone, and it's enough to get me back through those doors when the bailiff calls us in.

Judge Marsh doesn't make us wait once she's back on the bench.

"This court finds that the mother, Jenna Walsh, shall retain full physical and legal custody of the minor children, effective immediately." She lets that settle before continuing. "Mr. Walsh is granted limited, supervised visitation, contingent on continued compliance with the terms outlined in this order, including completion of the counseling program previously mandated by this court. Any violation of these terms will be grounds for immediate review."

The words take a second to land, longer than they should, like my whole body needs an extra beat to believe something this large is actually true. Then Priya's hand closes over mine under the table, warm and certain, and I understand I'm not imagining it. I won.

It isn't the clean ending some part of me wanted, Derek erased entirely and gone from our lives the way a bad dream fades once you're fully awake. He's still there, on the edges, leashed instead of removed, a limited and supervised presence I'll have to keep making room for regardless of how much I'd rather not. But it's real. It's more than I let myself hope for on the drive in this morning, and after nine years of learning to expect less, that difference matters more than I know how to explain to anyone who hasn't lived it.

I turn to find Rafe already looking at me from the gallery, and for just a second the whole courtroom disappears down to the two of us and the five weeks of careful distance finally allowed to close.

Then I look across the room at Derek, and whatever relief I'm holding onto goes cold in my chest.

He isn't angry. That's what scares me. He's perfectly composed, jaw set, eyes steady on mine with something patient and unbothered underneath, like a man who thinks the game isn't actually over. It's the same look he used to give me across our kitchen table right before he decided to let something go, except I know now he never actually let anything go. He just waited for a better time to pick it back up.

He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. Whatever this ruling says on paper, his face already says this isn't over.

40

RAFE

Four days after the ruling, and I still haven't slept through a single one of them.

I tell myself it's just the adjustment, the strange comedown after five weeks of bracing for a hit that never actually landed, but that's a lie I stopped believing by the second night. It isn't relief keeping me up. It's Bennett's voice, smooth and patient, laying out exactly what I am to a judge like he'd rehearsed it in a mirror. He called me unvetted, unaccounted for, a documented history of combat trauma with no formal role in those children's lives and no obligation to answer for how it might resurface under stress.

We won. Jenna has her kids, full custody, Derek leashed down to supervised visits he has to earn back one compliant month at a time. It should feel like the ending. Instead it feels like a verdict on the wrong defendant, one nobody bothered to read out loud because everyone else in that courtroom already knew the actual outcome that mattered.

I run inventory twice a day now instead of once, alphabetize invoices Jenna already alphabetized, find reasons to be anywhere in this building that isn't near enough to my own thoughts to hear them clearly. None of it works. Bennett's words don't fade the way I keep expecting them to. They just get quieter and more permanent, settling into the same place that old voice has always lived, the one that never fully left no matter how many good months I stacked on top of it.

I keep a legal pad on the desk in the office, the same habit I've leaned on since the day Priya first called with the hearing date, and I catch myself reaching for it three separate times, stopping each time with the pen an inch off the page because whatever I'm building isn't a plan. It's an exit disguised as a plan, careful language dressed up to make retreat sound more responsible than it actually is. I close the notebook each time without writing anything down, because some part of me still knows the difference even while the rest of me keeps arguing past it.

Gunny finds me in the brewhouse on the fourth night, running a hose over equipment that was already clean an hour ago.

"You're going to wear a hole in that steel."

"Making sure it's ready for tomorrow."

"It was ready two hours ago. So were you, up until you weren't." He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with the particular patience of a man who's had this exact conversation with me before and isn't in a hurry to have it badly again. "Talk to me."

"Nothing to talk about. Case is closed, Jenna's got her kids, everybody's safe."

"Everybody except you, apparently." He lets that sit a second. "You've had that same look since the hearing. Like you're running numbers you're pretty sure you already know the ending of."

"I'm not doing math."

"You're always doing math, Rafe. It's your whole personality." He shakes his head, not unkindly. "What's the number this time?"