Page 100 of Ride or Die

This is Saint. You’re fine.

She pulled the hoodie tighter. “Coffee.”

He grunted disapprovingly and beat the eggs together in a bowl, his sleeves pushed up to the elbows.

She settled at the dining table with her coffee and crossed one leg over the other.

“So… about last night,” she started.

He stilled and glanced up from the skillet he’d poured the eggs into. “Which part?”

She huffed softly. There were a lot of parts. “Uh, mainly the stalker situation.” The eggs sizzled as they hit the heated metal.

“Your locks are changed. Aaron put a new SIM in your phone too. Everything else is the same. We’ll change it as often as needed.”

She raised her eyebrow.

His shrug was easy, and he smiled over his shoulder. “He knows a lot about technology.”

“And just had a spare SIM lying around? Don’t I have to open a new account or something? Not that I’m ungrateful—”

“Works fine.” He pulled the phone out of his jeans pocket and slid it along the table before going back to the stove.

“Thanks,” she said, turning it over. It was handled. Completely. Part of her wanted to say thank you and move on with her life, but a loud and insistent part said it was a trap.

Is that trauma talking or instinct?

Saint’s shoulders were loose as he made breakfast, and she watched his forearms flex as he cracked black pepper into the eggs.

“I just need to get some work stuff figured out.”

“Take your time.” He flashed her another soft smile before getting the bacon going.

“Did something—never mind.” She blinked and shook her head. She always felt weird the next morning after she had nightmares. He was probably just relieved to be awake.

He continued making breakfast.

She drafted and redrafted the same email, explaining she was sick, and then that she wanted to work from home. Finally, she just told Nico the truth. She needed the rest of the week off. She CC’d Candida at the last minute—something to add to the Gio file that HR wasn’t keeping. At least it was in writing, somewhere. Her finger hovered over the undo-send button until it timed out and the email sent with a low whoosh.

Nico knew who his brother was. He’d understand. You can’t pick your family.

Riley rubbed her breastbone. Wallowing helped no one.

She responded to Kristi’s text about the dark prince and her mom’s about how the “everything” was going. All the unknown-number messages were deleted. Gone.

It felt unreal, right along with the sun shining through the skylights and Cookie grinning up at her.

It should have been perfect.

Maybe it was.

A plate of eggs and bacon appeared in front of her, and Saint joined her at the table.

“Wow, thank you. This is a lot.” Her stomach rumbled, and she took small bites.

“I’ll eat what you don’t,” he said and stretched his legs out. It was probably the calmest she’d seen him. Not that he got upset, per se, but he got still. And yesterday had been… difficult.

This is too good to be true.