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“I know.” Cade stepped back into the room and lowered his voice. “Everything is set for when the Harlens arrive. You stick to the plan and keep your hands to yourself.”
My fingers curled against the leather in my hands. “I don’t know if I could stop once I put my hands on him.”
Cade didn’t tell me I was wrong or ask me to make a promise neither of us would believe. He had killed a man to protect Bliss. Of everyone in my life, Cade understood how quickly control disappeared when someone threatened the person you loved.
“I left her,” I said. “I gave Lance everything he wanted when I walked away from Charm. I stayed gone no matter how much it killed me. I built a life far enough away from her knowing that motherfucker believed he had a hand in my decision, and he still came for blood.”
“I know.”
“He tried to take my career, my name, and every part of my life because I survived losing her and built something he couldn’t control.” I dropped the belt onto the bed and flexed my scarred hand. “Si me toca, lo acabo.”
Cade’s expression hardened. “What does that mean?”
“If he touches me, I’ll end him.”
“I won’t let it get that far.”
“Then why are we having this conversation?”
“Because I’ll let it go far enough that he finally gets the fucking message.” Cade stepped through the doorway. “Enjoy Charm tonight, Ry. Be as suspicious of how good it feels as you need to be. Just remember that you aren’t facing him alone this time—and more than us will be watching.”
“If I get the chance to bury him I will.
“He hits first, then bury him.”
I shake my head chuckling as he opened the door and glanced back. “Wear the jacket, or Bliss will blame me.”
I sigh and look at him. “She created a hostage itinerary with custom clothing. She lost the right to complain.”
“Charm created the itinerary.”
“That explains why it’s readable.”
Cade laughed as he left, and I stood in the center of the room with the truth he’d refused to make comfortable moving through my head. I could laugh with Charm without forgiving her. I could want her without trusting her. Both had been true downstairs, where one drink became several and the woman I’d spent fifteen months cutting out of myself sat beside me as though time had only carried her away long enough to change the color of her hair and the shape of her body.
The hour had felt too easy because Charm and I had always been easy when nobody else reached us. Inside our apartments and in any room where she could forget the rest of the world existed; we had been fucking incredible. The trouble began the second a door opened and loving me required her to survive whatever waited on the other side.
She loved me when it was quiet. She had wanted me when nobody watched and she had made me feel like the only man alive until claiming me required more courage than she could find, and then she’d left me standing in that study while her father reduced everything between us to a mistake she refused to defend.
For fifteen months, every memory of us ended there. I trained myself to see her lowered eyes whenever something better tried to surface. Lance’s satisfaction replaced the sound of her laughing in my bed. My own voice asking her to tell him I mattered drowned out every word she’d once given me in the dark. I forced the ending over everything good until wanting Charm became inseparable from what she had done.
Cade’s warning remained beneath those memories, dragging Lance out of the study and into the conference room waiting for me in Milwaukee. Walking away from Charm should’ve ended whatever war that man believed existed between us. Instead, he followed me into the life I built without her and tried to destroy that too. Tomorrow, Lance would walk into this castle believing money and Charm’s silence still gave him control over every room he entered. This time, I knew what he was capable of, my people knew where I stood, and every lie he told would be monitored and recorded.
I flexed my hand before forcing it open. Lance had already stood inside the worst moment of my relationship with Charm. He didn’t get to follow me into every good thing that came my way.
It still hadn’t given me closure.
The realization settled slowly enough that I had time to recognize how dangerous it was before it became impossible to ignore. Maybe I couldn’t bury Charm because I had never stopped living inside the same skull-shattering question.
What if?
What if there had been no lies, no hiding, and no bullshit waiting beyond every locked door? What if she had chosen me openly before I had to beg? What would we have been if I hadn’t spent our entire relationship dragging her toward something she only allowed herself to want in private?
I knew what loving Charm beneath the weight of her fear had cost me. I knew what leaving required. I had made the right decision even while understanding I might never find another connection that reached as deeply as hers. Nothing about one good hour changed her betrayal, restored my trust, or made handing her my heart safe.
It only showed me that I’d never experienced us without the chaos.
The wedding gave us three more days inside a place where everyone already knew our history. Charm couldn’t hide me here. I had nothing left to prove to Lance, KFU, or any other motherfucker who once believed he deserved an opinion about whether I belonged beside her. If Charm wanted the same thing, I could leave the past alone and stop fighting what felt natural long enough to answer the question that had followed me all the way to Milwaukee.
