Layla

She knew he saw her the second she walked into The Hollow. Johnny always saw her.

But tonight, his gaze didn’t linger.

No nod. No smirk. No recognition of the woman who’d once had him pinned to motel beds and biting down moans in her car like he couldn’t survive a night without her. No—tonight, he was looking at her.

That girl.

Layla’s heel caught in the warped floorboard near the door, making her stumble half a second—but she recovered fast, smoothing a hand down the front of her jeans and lifting her chin. She could feel eyes on her. Men who remembered what she used to be. Women who still hated her for it. And Alli—the fresh-faced bartender with innocent curves and barely-legal charm—who didn’t even glance up.

Layla hated her for that.

She sauntered toward Johnny, every step deliberate, hips swaying like she hadn’t lost a damn thing. Like she didn’t already feel the shift in the air—the change that came in whispers and stares and that haunted look Johnny gave the bar now. Gave her.

“Start without me?” she purred, slipping onto the stool beside him and draping her hand across his shoulder like she had a right to be there. Like she still belonged.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t even turn to look at her.

“You weren’t invited,” he said, voice low and flat, his eyes never leaving the drink in front of him.

She let the words slide off her like oil on silk. Pretended they didn’t bruise. “Cute. You must really be in your feelings tonight.”

Nothing.

Not even a twitch of his lip.

Layla’s hand gripped his bicep tighter, her nails grazing just enough to leave a mark. She leaned in, her perfume thick in the space between them, floral and expensive. “What’s her name again?”

That did it. His jaw ticked.

Layla smirked. “Oh right. Alli. The one who thinks you’re just a brooding stray who needs rescuing. Let me guess—she asks if you’re okay when you don’t talk. She smiles like she sees something soft under all that ash.”

Johnny took a slow sip of his drink. “You done?”

“Oh baby, I haven’t even started,” she hissed, her voice sharp now. “She’s eighteen. You’re a walking red flag. You think she’s ready for what comes with you?”

He finally turned to her. The look he gave was cold. Clean. Like ice scraped over skin.

“She’s not yours to talk about.”

“No,” Layla snapped. “But you were mine. Did you forget that?”

His silence cut deeper than she wanted to admit. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t confirm it. He just sat there, letting her unravel.

“You were mine,” she said again, softer now, more venom under the surface. “You crawled into my bed, into my life, and made it impossible to breathe without you. You’d show up reeking of smoke and guilt and I’d still take you in. Don’t pretend like it didn’t mean something.”

His eyes searched hers for a long second, something flickering deep inside. Regret maybe. Or just disgust.

“I was never yours,” he said, low and even. “You just got there first.”

The world tilted.

Layla’s fingers slipped from his arm. Her throat tightened, but she didn’t show it. Wouldn’t.

“You’re a liar,” she spat.

Johnny stood. Just stood. And already she felt her power fading, her hold on him slipping like sand through her fingers.

He didn’t look at her again. Just moved down the bar, away from the heat of her and into the fire of that girl’s smile.

Alli didn’t look surprised when he approached. Didn’t look scared either. She just poured him a fresh drink and leaned in slightly, like he wasn’t still marked by another woman’s lipstick, another woman’s war.

Layla watched them from her stool, heat crawling under her skin like a rash she couldn’t scratch. Alli laughed softly at something Johnny said, and he smiled.

Actually smiled.

Layla couldn’t breathe.

She turned her body away, trying to mask the way her hands were shaking, fingers digging into her thigh to keep from doing something reckless. She reached into her purse, pulled out her phone, and fired off a text to her husband.

Still out. Don’t wait up.

He wouldn’t reply. He never did. Their marriage had become nothing more than a polite agreement to co-exist and lie convincingly when necessary.

But Johnny? Johnny was never supposed to be a lie.

He was supposed to be hers.

She took another long look at the bar, at the way Alli’s eyes sparkled, at the soft flush on her cheeks. The bitch didn’t even know what she was getting herself into. She didn’t know the shadows Johnny came with, the things he did when he snapped, the way he’d vanish for days and come back with blood on his knuckles and silence in his soul.

He would ruin her.

Layla should’ve felt pity. Instead, she felt rage.

Johnny might be turning his back now, but Layla knew him—all of him. His darkness, his hunger, the way he needed chaos like other people needed air. And if that little blonde thought she could tame him, she was dumber than she looked.

Fine. Let him run.

Let him play sweet with her for now.

But Layla had learned how to survive long before Johnny came along. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to stand by and watch him build something real with someone else. Not when she still tasted his name in her mouth like it belonged there.

Not when she knew exactly how to burn it all to the ground.