“Keep away from me!” she snarls, teeth bared, animalistic and unhinged.
“It’s okay, Kyla. It’s just me… you remember me, don’t you?” I keep my steps measured, slow enough not to startle, fast enough to reach her before she spirals. I hold her gaze, silently begging for recognition.
“You’re not him,” she spits. “Don’t you dare fucking lie to me.” Her voice is wild, venom coursing through every syllable. I expect this. I’ve seen what being hunted by monsters does—how it rewires every instinct into survival.
Her stare flicks past me, locking onto Nell. Fury erupts behind her eyes.
“Who isshe?”
“Hi Kyla,” Nell offers, voice soft, eyes full of empathy. “I’ve heard so much about you—”
I want to stop her. I should’ve stopped her. Putting these two women in the same house, without warning, was a mistake.
“Get the fuck out of my house! Fuck off!” Kyla screams, voice shredding at the edges. She’s drowning in it—panic, confusion, rage—and we’re just another set of shadows on the walls to her.
It’s not Nell’s fault. She doesn’t know—how could she? I never explained what it looks like, what it feels like, when someone survives the rings after years of abuse.
“Nell, go back to the kitchen,” I say quietly but firmly. “Trust me—you don’t want to see this.”
She doesn’t budge. Of course she doesn’t. Stubborn to the bone.
“Get her out of my house!” Kyla screams, lunging like some wild thing that’s long forgotten what it means to be touched gently.
God. What they’ve done to her.
“Kyla, calm down.” My voice hardens as I catch her, pulling her tight against my chest. She thrashes, furious, brittle. “You’re safe now. No one’s coming for you. Not here.”
Nell hesitates. Her gaze darts between us—between the wreckage of one woman and the wrecked memory of another. She sees it. The fragility. And she retreats, quietly, into the kitchen.
It’ll be easier when Talia gets here. Managing both of them… it’ll tear me in half. And I still have to keep my cover in the inner ring—keep playing loyal, keep whispering into the dark until I can get close enough to gut the Broker from the inside out.
“You fucking left me there to die!” Kyla screams, and the words hit harder than fists. No warning. No mercy.
She doesn’t know what it cost me. Doesn’t see the miles I bled chasing dead leads and false promises, trying to bring her home. Yes—I’ve changed. I’m not who I was. I’ve made peace with the fact that maybe marriage wasn’t right for us. That doesn’t mean the love vanished.
She deserves safety. A reset. A life not marked by cages or screams. One day, she’ll understand. She’ll see that I didn’t move on to abandon her—I moved forward to find a version of peace we were never going to build together. But she can still be happy. And I’ll make sure of it.
“I never left you, Kyla. I’ve been searching for you all this time,” I say, though I doubt she hears me through the storm raging inside her.
“You haven’t.” Her voice fractures, collapsing into quiet sobs as she slumps into my chest. I tighten my arms around her, letting her shake against me. “You don’t understand what they did to me.”
“I do,” I whisper. “I know exactly what they did. But you’re safe now. They can’t touch you here.”
Eventually, the Valium eases her into sleep. Her breathing steadies, face softened in a way that breaks my heart more than her screams ever could. I slip out of the room and return to Nell.
She’s in the kitchen, wiping down counters in frantic little circles—nowhere close to my standard, but she’s trying.
“She okay?” she asks without turning. She knows I’m there by the shift in the air, by the way I stand behind her, closeenough to taste her silence. I run my fingers through the golden curls spilling down her back and watch her breath hitch.
“She’s sleeping. It’s going to be like this for a while.”
“It’s messed up, you know. I’m in your bed, and your wife’s down the hall in mine.”
“More messed up than you sleeping with the man you tried to kidnap?”
“Tried?” Nell turns, smirking. “We both know I had you wrapped around my finger the second we met.”
“Sure, trouble. Whatever helps you sleep at night.” I brush her hair aside, letting it fall like silk over her shoulder as I press soft kisses to the curve of her neck, halting her half-hearted scrubbing.
