Page 126 of Deacon

I looked down at the table. “He came over yesterday.”

Evan went still in that quick, attentive way he had when the joke stopped being the point.

“He came over to talk, to finally tell me the rest of what he was keeping from me about why he left.” My thumb rubbed the edge of Mason’s application. “He was just telling me when Matty showed up.”

Blue’s face fell because she knew Matty well enough to imagine the collision. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “He came in already angry, already acting like he had the right to charge into my apartment and start demanding things.”

Evan muttered something under his breath that was probably accurate and certainly unkind. I kept going. “Then he saw Jackson there and everything went straight to hell.”

Blue leaned in, her attention fully on me now. “What happened?”

A short, bitter laugh escaped me. “What always happens when the men in my life decide to turn every room into a power struggle?”

That got Evan’s full attention, and I told them the rest. Matty storming in. Jackson refusing to back down. Me standing between two angry men while the argument climbed until Jade walked straight into it.

Blue’s hand flattened against the table, dread already building. Evan’s face lost every trace of humor before I even reached the worst part.

“No.” The word came out almost under his breath. He knew from my face that whatever came next was worse.

Then I told them what Matty had called her.

The silence that followed was ugly. Evan’s outrage arrived first. “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting straighter, “he said what to her?”

I nodded once, jaw tightening all over again. Evan’s mouth fell open. “That man is lucky Deacon only hit him once, because I personally would have folded a metal chair over his back and then demanded applause like I was in a wrestling ring.”

A laugh slipped out despite everything. Blue shook her head. “Evan.”

“No, I’m serious. Talking to my gemstone like that? Absolutely not.”

Under all the glittering nonsense Evan used to make the world entertaining, he loved Jade completely. That hit me harder than the joke.

Blue reached across the table and touched my wrist. “How did Jade take it?”

“She went pale,” I said quietly. “Jackson was across the room almost before I registered he’d moved. He punched Matty. Hard. That knocked some sense into him, he tried to apologize, but realized it was too little too late. He left. Then Jackson went straight to Jade and held her.” The memory of Jade folding against him still tightened my throat. “And she let him.”

Blue’s expression softened, understanding exactly why the embrace mattered more than Matty’s apology. “That matters.”

“It does,” I admitted, because Jade choosing Jackson for comfort had said more than either of them knew how to say aloud.

Evan leaned back with a long breath. “Well. Your brother owes that girl approximately ten thousand apologies and one expensive dessert.”

“At least.” I could think of several additions, but none of them would undo what Jade had heard.

Blue waited until some of the anger had settled before asking, “Before Matty got there, did what Deacon said clear things up between you two?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure, It was pretty bad. I wasn’t expecting to learn what he had to say. It definitely changed my world view on things from back then.”

The truth of that sat heavier than I wanted. Jackson had told me enough to show the danger he had been in: a club moving women, kids, guns, drugs, and cops helping protect it. I could understand why a nineteen-year-old boy who thought he had been spotted overhearing that would panic, especially knowing my father was deputy chief.

But the question circling me hadn’t changed. Why hadn’t he gone to Dad? Why hadn’t he trusted the man who had helped raise him to protect me and help clean up whatever Jackson had stumbled into?

Evan watched me for a long moment. “Do you think you could forgive him?”

That was the question I kept avoiding, and Evan knew it. I stared at the floor plan pinned to the wall without seeing any of it. “I don’t know,” I said finally. “Some days I think maybe I could understand it. Other days I just want to shake him until every secret falls out of him and then be furious all over again.” I let out a breath, the admission already escaping farther than I intended. “He keeps looking at me like he’s already decided I’m still his, and part of me wants to slam every door I have left just to prove he doesn’t get to do that.”

Neither of them spoke, and their silence told me I had said more than I meant to.