Page 110 of Requiem
Heather’s fingers pause briefly against my scalp. “Micah…”
“Seeing him at dinner tonight…” I shake my head slowly. “I forgot what he looked like when he was actually present.”
Heather studies me with those impossibly beautiful eyes that somehow never judge anything they see. “You’ve been carrying him for a long time,” she says gently.
A humorless laugh leaves me. “Yeah, well. He carried me, too.”
And that’s the part nobody ever really understands. People see the addiction, the fights, and the headlines. But they don’t see two people keeping each other alive through sheer will and love. Jude was there during so many ugly parts of my life. Overdose scares, blackouts, and self-destructive spirals where I was trying to escape my own fucking head.
And somehow, even while he was drowning too, he never let me sink alone.
“He used to drag me into the shower when I got too fucked up,” I whisper, staring somewhere past her shoulder now. “Made coffee at three in the morning because he knew I’d crash hard if I mixed too much shit together. Stayed awake because he thought if he slept, I’d stop breathing.”
Heather’s eyes water.
“And now?” I swallow thickly. “Now I look at him, and he still apologizes for being a burden. After all of this time.”
“Trauma rewires people,” she says quietly.
“Yeah.” I nod once. “I know that.”
I think about the way Jude kissed Emma downstairs, and how he stopped himself from staying with her because he was still trying to protect her from himself.
“He’s fighting,” I say softly. “So hard that it would be the most epic devastation of my life if he didn’t make it out of this.”
Heather smiles faintly then, her thumb brushing beneath my eye before I even realize it’s wet. “You’re fighting, too.”
That almost knocks the breath out of me, because the woman says it so simply. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her closer until my forehead presses against her stomach. She immediately folds around me, fingers threading through my hair again while the room settles into silence. Safe silence. The kind I never thought I’d have.
“I love you,” I tell her quietly. The words come so easily now.
Her breath catches softly above me. “I love you too, Micah.”
I close my eyes. Tomorrow is going to be hell. We all know it.
Chapter thirty
JUDE GRAVES
Even if we’ve gone over the plan a thousand times, it still feels like everything could fall apart at any second. And I’m really fucking hoping it doesn’t. I didn’t fight back enough against Nolan, and because of that, Alexei happened. I didn’t stand up once I had Emma back in my life. I was a fucking coward who was desperate not to feel the discomfort of withdrawal who ended up just feeling the pain of torture.
I’m never letting anyone control me again. I’m never letting anyone scare me into shrinking myself again. Fuck that. I don’t give a damn if Alexei releases everything on me at this event. I’d rather be behind bars for the rest of my life than ever be someone’s attack dog. Because even if I was in prison…I’d still be free. The motherfucker believes that the added public pressure will sway me?
Laughable.
Adela and Nico managed to break through most of Alexei’s systems, and now they’re working on combining his files with Nolan’s into a single secure folder. If it works, it changeseverything.
That folder is sitting on a flash drive in Rafe’s pocket. They’d be able to scrub my involvement entirely, leaving only Alexei’s sins behind. Sins that he fucking forced upon me.
Every time they start talking about encryption or routing or whatever the hell else they do, I can barely keep up without feeling a headache coming on. But I trust them. I have to.
Emma shifts beside me, tense, even though she’s obviously trying not to show it.
I glance up into the rearview mirror, catching Rafe’s icy gaze for a brief second before he turns his attention back to the road. He’s driving Emma and me while everyone else follows in a van behind. Adela made it clear we don’t leave Heather or Adriana alone at the cabin. Not tonight. Not with Alexei’s men still moving. So everyone’s involved in this in one way or another, whether we like it or not.
The car slows beneath a canopy of gold light and falling snow.
And for a moment, I just stare through the tinted window at the building ahead of us, my pulse thudding beneath my ribs as memories start to crawl their way back under my skin.
