My head jerks toward her.

“Long story.” She chuckles.

One my brother likely knows.

“And the baby, how is he?”

She smiles wide this time, looking away. “With a dad and uncles like his? Guaranteed to be one of a fucking kind.” She laughs. “I’m almost terrified, but for now? He’s tiny and perfect.”

I meet her eyes and her lip twitches. “He has a beautiful and fitting name.” I haven’t had a chance to tell her that. “The raven and the phoenix.”

“And the wolf.” She grins. “I’m just waiting for that first person to clown so I can knock their teeth in,” she teases. “No more baby in here, even if it still kind of looks like it.”

Both of us laugh, but hers dries up quickly and she grows somber.

A heavy dose of tension begins to encase us, growing thicker and thicker the longer we stare at each other.

She squints. “I heard what happened.”

“I figured you would have.”

She nods and then shifts her entire body toward me. “You’ve thought about leaving.”

It’s not a question, so I don’t answer.

“Don’t do it, Brielle.” She’s not commanding but pleading cautiously, the ache in her tone clear as day. “If you go, he’ll find you and bring you back anyway. So just don’t do it.”

“Then maybe I should.” I sit back.

Her frown is instant. “Are you serious? You’d for real walk away from him?”

“Oh, that would be me doing the walking?” My eyes widen.

“Don’t act so blind like you don’t see why he’s doing this.”

Her choice of words is triggering and I jump off the bench, glaring at her. “Screw you, Raven.”

The click of a door sounds behind me, but I don’t look, not even when Raven holds up a hand to halt the watcher’s advance. Not once does she take her sturdy gaze from mine.

Questions rise in her eyes, but she doesn’t ask them, instead lowering her hand to her side.

I know she’s not angry with me, that she’s simply worried about Royce, and the last thing I want to do is pick a fight with her when I’m already fighting with enough people.

Her defenses fall. “I need your help, Brielle.”

A mix of emotions stir low inside me, and I swallow.

Pain blankets her features, the reason obvious.

Royce.

“He’s fucked-up,” she confirms my heart’s whispers with a broken one of her own. “And for the first fucking time, we can’t help him.”

Of course.

An ugly sense of self-pity creeps in before I can block it out. “So you come to me as a last resort.”

“Not last, Brielle. First. Only.” She steps toward me. “I’ve never seen him like this, and we’ve been through some shit. It doesn’t take much to recognize heartache from a Brayshaw.” She looks behind me, and I cut a quick glance over my shoulder to find Maddoc standing at the back door of the idling black Denali. “These boys, they self-destruct. Fuckin’ crash from the inside and by the time it’s on the out?” Her eyes come back to mine, and she shakes her head. “We need your help.”

I look to Maddoc, and he takes a single step forward, lowering his chin at me. I turn back to Raven.

“I understand, I do.” I grab my bag off of the bench. “And I know you understand exactly why I won’t. It’s like you said, he’ll only come for me once I’m gone. So maybe I should be?” I lift a shoulder. “My brother is only a call away.”

Her eyes narrow and just like that, she leaves.

Royce

“You self-sabotaging dumbass!”

I groan, opening my eyes when the trampoline wobbles beneath me.

Raven stands over me, glare heavy and eyes heated. “How many times do you think you can push a girl before she tumbles?”

“Mac already told me fuckhead’s here now, RaeRae.” My hands lift. “It’s almost over.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh my god. You called him.” She shakes her head “Royce, what the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“What’s the big fuckin’ deal?”

Her arm flies out. “Her fucking leaving with him, that’s what!”

“I’m giving her what she’s wanted from the beginning. News flash, RaeRae. It ain’t me.”

She scoffs, her palm slapping onto her forehead. “You really are an idiot.”

My lips tip up. “Never claimed I wasn’t. At least you see it now.”

“Don’t play your word games, they don’t work with me and you know it, and I know you. She leaves, and you will crash and burn. Hard.”

“I’m good with it.”

“Well, we aren’t.” She flashes. “Something fucks up with one of us and we all fuck up. Don’t do this.”

“Says the girl who blew up our fucking world, and more than once.”

“Did you not learn from that?!” she damn near screams, throwing a phone at my head.

“Fuck, RaeRae!” I push myself up, rubbing my skull.

“You’re a dumbass. Get up. Get your head out of your ass!”

“I failed her!” I shout, falling back against the netting. “I fucking failed her when I didn’t even know her, Raven. If that’s not a sure ass sign I’ll keep doing it, like I have several times now, I don’t know what is.”

Her features pull. “Are you talking about sending her to her aunt’s? Royce, that wasn’t on you.”

“Wasn’t it?” I argue. “We take people from shitty situations and help them out, offer them more, but what happens to the ones who don’t make it here? Or the ones like Brielle, who don’t even get a chance? We sent her away because we trusted it was better for her, and yeah, she didn’t get beat on with her aunt like she did with her parents, but it wasn’t fucking good.” I point toward the front of the house. “That girl’s had no one, for almost four fuckin’ years, not a soul to trust or body to hold on to. She was alone, in her house, in the dark, in her fucking mind. No friends, no family, other than a brother who was here, protecting mine while no one was around to protect her.” A humorless laugh scrapes past my lips. “How fucked is that?”

Raven offers a tight smile and small shrug. “You ever think maybe she was strong enough to handle all that by herself? That she didn’t need a hand to hold her, that she could make it on her own until it was time for her to... fall into the arms she was meant for?”

“What, mine?” I scoff and it burns in my throat. “Please. She’s everything I am, all that I’m not, and so much more. I could never be enough to deserve someone like her, and I refuse to steal her fucking light.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

I whip my head around to find Maddoc standing there, and he’s pissed. Fuming and damn near foaming at the mouth. He holds my gaze.

“You’re the reason we have what we have,” he snaps angrily, growing closer. “You believed in Raven first, led us into the thought of opening up to someone new. You saw something in Victoria we refused to until you convinced us to look deeper. When we break, you step up with a bottle and break with us. You don’t judge, you don’t push, and you don’t fucking run. If there was something in this life I couldn’t give Raven, I couldn’t live with that, but you’re stronger than I am, brother. If your girl for real loses her sight, you’ll find a way to make her see. No-fucking-body else will be able to give her that. You’re not her ruin, Royce, you’re her only fuckin’ recovery.”