Chapter 132
I must have stood on that balcony for nearly ten minutes before I trusted my legs to move again. The city noise drifted up in warm, steady waves. Car horns. Music from two blocks over. Laughter echoing faintly between buildings. It all felt strangely normal considering something inside me had just shifted in a way I could not name yet.
Torin stayed behind me without crowding me. His chest brushed my back now and then when he breathed. His hands rested lightly on my hips as though he wanted to hold me tight but knew I needed space too.
“You sure you want to go back inside?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I don’t want to hide out here all day.”
He kissed the back of my shoulder. “I’m here.”
That was enough to get my feet moving.
When I stepped inside, the loft felt different. Not bad. Just…heavier in a way that meant everyone in the room knew something had cracked open. Jess stood near the counter wiping crumbs off the surface, a pointless task since there had been no crumbs to begin with. Rook had abandoned the pillow he had been using for his arm and sat upright, watching me with a quiet steadiness that reminded me he was still learning how to be someone’s brother. Reif and Tannin sat on the couch mid-argument about whether marshmallows belonged in cereal. Their voices dropped instantly when they saw me.
Great. The spotlight feeling. I swallowed and forced myself to keep walking.
“I’m okay,” I said to the room. “Really. Or I will be.”
Rook nodded like he knew exactly what that meant. Jess gave me one of those careful looks he used when he thought I might break but didn’t say a word.
I sat on the edge of the couch, the letter folded neatly in my hands. Tannin shifted closer, her expression softening. “If you need a distraction,” she said, “I can insult Rook’s haircut again. I have at least twenty prepared.”
Rook snorted. “You do not.”
“Oh, I do,” she said. “I keep a list.”
Reif leaned in. “Is this why you stare at him all the time?”
Tannin shoved his shoulder. “I stare at him because I can't believe someone that irritating gets to breathe the same air as me.”
Rook smirked. “Please. You stare because you like me.”
Tannin’s mouth fell open. “I do not like you.”
“You absolutely do,” Rook grunted.
Jess muttered, “Dear God,” and walked out.
I laughed. Not loud. Not wild. But real. The sound rose up from a place inside me that had been too tight for too long.
Torin sat beside me and draped an arm along the back of the couch. His fingers brushed the top of my shoulder in slow, soothing strokes. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I said. “Not all.”
He nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“I just…” I looked down at the letter in my hands. “I grew up thinking Skye was the only one stealing pieces of my life. Only one trying to keep me from you. Only one who…” I paused, anger flickering in my chest. “Turns out Dillon made sure of the rest.”
Torin’s jaw tightened. “Dillon was poison. You surviving him is a miracle.”
I closed my eyes for a second. “I keep trying to remember my mom. Anything. A voice. A smell. A touch. But all I have is that photo. She looks so much like me. Or I look like her. I do not know which direction it goes.”
“It goes both,” Torin said. “You and Rook have her in your faces. And you carry her in your heart, even if you do not remember her.”
That made something inside me tremble. Not break. Tremble.
Reif came to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of me. “Do you want to show me the picture?” he asked.
I nodded and handed it to him.
He studied it for a long moment. “Wow,” he said. “She was beautiful.”
“She was,” I said softly.
“You look like her,” he added.
My throat closed again, but I nodded.
Tannin leaned over to peek. “Yeah. She really does.”
Rook stood and walked over slowly, his bad arm close to his chest. He looked at the photo and something distant moved across his face. Pain. Loss. Recognition. Then he touched the corner of the picture with his fingertips.
“I remember her,” he said quietly. “Not everything. But enough. She loved you, Marlowe. She loved us both. She fought for us. Even when it got her thrown out.”
My breath stilled. “You never told me.”
“You never asked,” Rook said gently. “And the timing never felt right. But if you want to know anything, just ask.”
I nodded, because anything more would have broken me open in front of everyone.
Reif handed back the picture. “Do you feel…different?” he asked. “Now that you know the truth about her?”
“Not different,” I said. “Just…fuller. Like a puzzle piece I didn’t know I was missing finally clicked.”
Rook gave a slow nod. “Then that’s enough.”
We all sat there in a quiet circle of mismatched humanity. The ex-enforcer. The bar owner. The mechanic with emotional armor. The kid who finally came home. The man I loved. My brother. My future. My past. My family.
There was no thunderous shift. No revelation. Just a quiet settling. A quiet knowing. A quiet beginning of the next version of my life.
Torin pressed a soft kiss to my temple. “We will take whatever time you need,” he whispered. And for the first time in years, maybe longer, I believed him. I believed all of them. I believed myself.
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