Page 29 of Trade It All

She flinches anyway. It’s small. Barely there. But I feel it like it’s my own skin reacting. My jaw tightens, something shifting deeper, something darker, something that settles instead of flaring, and that’s what makes it worse. I drag my thumb just beneath the mark, slow, controlled, like I can erase it if I’m careful enough. I can’t. I know that. But I don’t stop. My hand moves to her lip,my finger brushing it just enough to check, to see, to confirm what I already know.

Her breath catches. Sharp. Involuntary. And that’s it. That’s the last thing holding me back. My hand slides to the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair, and I pull her into me without thinking, without asking, without giving either of us time to question it.

Her body hits my chest. I wrap my arm around her, holding her against me, not crushing, not hurting, but firm enough that there’s no space left between us, no room for anything else to get in. I need to feel her. I need to know she’s here. Because if I don’t—if I let even an inch of space open up—I’m going back upstairs.

And I won’t stop at a warning.

Her body trembles against mine, subtle at first, then stronger, her breath uneven where it presses against my chest, and something in me tightens further, not with restraint this time, but with something that feels dangerously close to breaking.

I lower my head, pressing my jaw against the top of hers, my hand tightening slightly in her hair just to anchor myself. Just to hold on.

“Never again, Baby,” I murmur into her hair, the words low, rough, pulled from somewhere deeper than I let myself think about.

My eyes stay open. Locked on nothing. Red still bleeding through everything I see. But my hold on her doesn’t loosen. Not even a fraction.

Chapter 11

Maddie

“Neveragain,Baby.”

The words settle over me before I understand them, before I can even think about what they mean or why they feel the way they do. They don’t ask for permission. They don’t explain themselves. They just… wrap around me, low and rough against my hair, and something in my chest gives in a way that feels almost as overwhelming as everything that came before it.

He came.

When I heard his voice in the hallway—when I was slipping out of Tyler’s bedroom, trying to get to the door without being seen—I thought I was imagining it. My head had been pounding, my thoughts scattered, the music too loud, everything too much. It would have made sense that I filled in something that wasn’t there.

But he’s here. His arms around me like this isn’t something he had to think about before doing. Why would Luka bring him? Why is he here? The questions don’t stop, but they don’t matter either, not enough to make me move, not enough to make me step away from him when every part of me feels like it’s finally found something to hold onto. I don’t want to let go. That realization settles slowly. My hands press more firmly into his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric like I need something solid beneath them—something that won’t shift or disappear if I loosen my grip.

There’s noise somewhere behind us.

A voice.Luka. I know it’s him without fully hearing the words, his tone cutting through the space around us, but it doesn’t reach me the way it should. Everything feels muted at the edges, like I’m wrapped too tightly in this moment to let anything else fully break through.

My head throbs, a steady pulse that makes it harder to focus, harder to pull myself out of where I am. Pressed against Dean. Held in a way that doesn’t feel temporary. I lean back just enough to breathe, just enough to pull my face from his chest, and turn toward Luka’s voice. The second he sees me, something in his expression shifts.

It’s not subtle. It’s immediate. Dark. His eyes move over my face, taking in more than I want him to see—more than I’m ready for anyone to see—and something low leaves him,something sharp and angry that I don’t fully understand but feel anyway.

The words come out in Italian. I don’t need to know exactly what they mean to understand them. I see it in his face. In the way his jaw tightens. In the way his shoulders square like he’s already made a decision. He steps forward, reaching for me, his hand closing in on my arm like he’s going to pull me away from Dean, like that’s the obvious next step.

“I’m taking you home,” he says, his voice firm now, controlled in a way that leaves no room for argument. “We’ll get Addy, and I’ll call Doc.”

The refusal comes before I can think it through. “No.”

I turn toward him fully, the movement pulling me slightly out of Dean’s hold, even though I don’t really leave it. His hands adjust instead, settling on my shoulders, steadying me in a way that keeps me from tipping too far in any direction. I feel it without looking at him. The weight of it. The quiet insistence that I’m not falling apart—Not while he’s holding on.

“No, Luka… you can’t tell Addy.” Saying her name does something to my chest. It tightens—not in fear. Something worse.

Luka exhales, the sound heavy, already carrying the answer I don’t want him to give. “I’m not lying to her, Maddie.”

“I’m not asking you to lie,” I say quickly, the words tangling as I try to keep them steady, to keep them from unraveling intosomething I won’t be able to pull back. “Just… don’t tell her you came here tonight.”

Don’t tell her what he did. Don’t make me watch her face when she realizes. Because I know exactly what I’ll see. Addy doesn’t hide anything when it comes to the people she loves. I’ve seen it a hundred times—the way her eyes soften, the way her whole expression shifts when she’s worried, when she’s hurting for someone else. And I can’t…I can’t be the reason that look is on her face. Not like this. Not where she looks at me and sees something broken. Not where she tries to be careful with me, like I’m something fragile that might crack if she presses too hard. My throat tightens, the thought sitting there heavier than anything else in this moment.

“I just…” I shake my head slightly, my voice dropping, softer now, thinner in a way I can’t quite fix. “I don’t want her to look at me like that.”

The words feel small compared to what they’re trying to hold. But Luka hears it anyway.

“Where are you going to go?” he asks, and there’s something heavier in his voice now, something that doesn’t push but doesn’t give either. “Are you going to be safe?”