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Pepper swallows. “Did you hurt people?” The question is quiet.

I answer it as it deserves. “Yes.”

Ezra closes his eyes.

I keep my gaze on Pepper. “I told myself there were worse men than me in that room. Sometimes that was true. Sometimes it was just the lie I needed so I could look at myself long enough to get through the night.”

Her scent shifts, peppermint and rosemary seeped in fear. She’s scared. She should be.

“I need you to understand something,” I say.

Pepper glances at Ezra. Ezra’s expression is still, but his hand is solid in hers now.

“I wouldn’t let Hammer near Ezra,” I say. “I joined because I thought if I became useful enough and dangerous enough, then the world would leave Ezra alone.”

“And did it?” Pepper asks.

“For a while.” The words scrape my throat.

“You were never really safe,” she says.

“No.”

Ezra’s thumb moves over her knuckles. “Theo knew that before he had words for it.”

I breathe through the bite of memory. “Before I aged out, I was terrified they would move Ezra to a different facility or a different county. We had already been separated twice for a few weeks. Both times he came back thinner and bruised.”

Pepper’s eyes fill. The sight nearly undoes me.

“I had no legal claim. I had nothing adults recognized as a reason to keep us together.” The bite scar at my shoulder burns beneath my shirt. “So I offered him the only thing I had.”

Pepper’s gaze drops to my shoulder, then Ezra’s collar. “The bond.”

“Yes.”

Ezra looks at me. His face has gone tender in the way that still feels like mercy after all these years.

“I loved him. I loved him so much that every road without him looked like the end of the world. A bite bond gave me legal rights. It was the only way to make what we were legitimate. I knew it wouldn’t force him to stay if he wanted to leave me later.” My voice roughens. “But I thought it would give us a road out.”

Pepper’s breath catches.

“I offered it as safety,” I say. “As proof there was an us when every paper in the world said there wasn’t.”

Ezra whispers, “It was safety. The most I’ve ever known.”

I look at him. His eyes are wet.

“It was,” Ezra says again. “It was young and some out of fear, but it was safety.”

The words destroy me and rebuild me all at once.

Pepper’s voice is soft when she asks, “Did you ever use the bond to control him?”

“No.” The answer comes from both of us at the same time because that truth has no hesitation in it. Then I make myself add the harder truth. “But I was afraid enough to think keeping him alive gave me the right to protect him at all cost.”

Pepper’s lashes lower. She is thinking, and I give her the space to process. The old me would have filled the room with rules before she could choose. The alpha Hammer raised wants to say pack, mine, danger, let me handle it. That man is loud inside me. He has my voice when fear gets bad. I refuse to let him speak for me now.

Pepper looks up. “Are you going to tell me to leave because the Saints have come back?”