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The atmosphere in the room changes under my eyes, it becomes charged, thick.

“And even then…” I whisper, shaking my head, as if I don’t understand my own past, “even after I left, I still answered every call. No matter the hour. I still sent them money, even when I barely had enough to eat.”

My lips press together, but the words keep coming, pouring out of me.

“I knew what they were doing with it. I knew. And I still did it.”

By the time I fall silent, the room is holding its breath.

Sierra is crying in Nick’s arms. Every single one of the guys have tears in their eyes—even Colt. They’re all staring at me like they’ve just been punched in the gut and can’t quite recover.

And I’m not ashamed. Not of my past, not of the truth, not of the scars.

I don’t regret telling them.

If anything, I feel lighter. Heard. Safe.

“Fucking hell,” Colt mutters, his voice rough, filled with a dangerous thread.

“I can’t believe people like that exist,” Kai adds under his breath, shaking his head slowly.

“You’re so fucking strong, Thalia,” Nick says, tightening his arms around Sierra as she continues to sob against him.

“Thalia,” Theo starts quietly.

I turn to him immediately. I already know what’s going through his mind. He trusted me with pieces of his truth, and I didn’t trust him with mine.

But it wasn’t distrust. It was survival. A fragile, desperate hope that silence could bury everything that happened to me.

“I kept thinking that if I never spoke about it again, it would stay where it belongs—in the past,” I say before he can voice the thought.

His expression morphs instantly, the tension in his features softening as understanding settles into his eyes.

“Those fucking people are sick,” Aiden growls, his jaw clenched so tightly it ticks.

Voices begin to overlap—anger, disbelief, fragments of curses—but Sierra suddenly pulls away from Nick and crosses the room toward me. She doesn’t say a word. She just wraps her arms around me with a force that nearly knocks the air from my lungs, breaking into sobs against my shoulder.

The moment her warmth surrounds me, my composure collapses. I cling to her and let the tears come—raw, deep, unstoppable.

For the last time in my life, I allow myself to cry for my past. Cry to wash it out of me. Cry to release all the memories and every ounce of pain that has been buried inside my bones for years.

Time blurs. I don’t know how long I stay like that, holding her as if she’s the only thing keeping me alive.

And when the storm finally begins to pass, when the weight inside my chest starts to loosen just enough for me to breathe again, I slowly pull back, lifting my head from her shoulder and drawing in a shaky breath.

The room feels different now—silent. Not suffocating. Grounded.

That’s when my eyes drift instinctively toward the doorway.

And there… arms crossed over his chest, posture rigid, face carved in an unreadable stone, his green eyes piercing and impenetrable—stands Ethan.

I fall still all over again.

Not from shock. Not from panic.

A deeper feeling.

Because now I know what he heard.