Chapter Thirty Two

Jake

I had been in plenty of fights. I have seen men bleed out in front of me. I’ve taken hits that knocked the air from my lungs and left me flat on the ground. But nothing, nothing has ever gutted me like hearing Kyla beg in her sleep.

“Please stop, please stop.”

Her voice had ripped through the hospital room like shattered glass, and I swear my heart stopped beating. Watching her thrash, her face twisted in terror, broke something inside me that I didn’t even know could break. And when she woke, the pain in her eyes told me more than her words ever could.

She has been carrying hell inside her. This big secret just by herself and all I want to do is take the pain away. 

Now she’s in my arms, trembling so hard I can feel it down to my bones. Her tears soak my shirt, and every sob she lets out feels like a blade carving into me. She thinks she’s broken, but all I see is someone who’s fought battles no one should have to fight. She thinks she’s weak, but I can barely breathe just imagining what she’s endured.

Her words keep replaying in my head, I took it so Amina wouldn’t.

Jesus. She was a child, sacrificing herself to protect her sister. And the sick bastard who should have protected her was the one she needed protecting from.

I tighten my hold on her, like if I squeeze hard enough I can take the weight from her shoulders, erase the years of scars she hides. I want to tell her I’ll hunt down every ghost that haunts her, that I’ll burn the world before I let anyone hurt her again. But I know this isn’t about my rage. Right now, it’s about her.

“Kyla,” I whisper against her hair, “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

She looks up at me then, her eyes red rimmed, her face blotchy from crying. And still she’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Not because she’s perfect, but because she’s real. She is here, breaking apart in front of me, and trusting me to catch the pieces.

She doesn’t know what that does to me.

Her voice cracks as she says, “I’m broken, Jake. He broke me.”

I cup her face in my hands before she can turn away, forcing her to see what I see. “No,” I tell her, firm and unshaking. “You are not broken. You are surviving. Do you understand that? Surviving isn’t weakness it’s strength.”

Her eyes flicker, like she wants to believe me but doesn’t know how. I can almost hear the war raging inside her head his voice against mine, years of conditioning against the truth. And I know I’ll have to say it a thousand more times before it sinks in, but I don’t care. I’ll say it every day, every night, until she starts to see herself the way I see her.

She tells me about Amina, about how her sister thinks she was the favorite, how she’ll never understand what Kyla endured. And it makes my blood boil. Not at Amina because she’s been lied to, too but at the man who twisted both their realities. He left one sister feeling unloved and the other feeling broken beyond repair. He poisoned everything.

But I keep my voice steady for Kyla’s sake. “What you did for her it matters. Even if she never knows, even if she never forgives. You loved her enough to take the blows meant for her. That’s not something shameful, Kyla. That’s love in its purest form.”

Her sobs slow, her body sagging against me. She’s exhausted, wrung out. I shift slightly, adjusting her so she can rest her head against my chest. I keep stroking her hair, slow and gentle, the way I wish someone had done for her when she was a child. The way I’ll do for her now, if she lets me.

And God, I hope she lets me.

Because sitting here, holding her, I realize something I’ve been avoiding. I’m in too deep. She’s not just someone I care about. She’s not just someone I feel responsible for. She is everything, she always was everything to me.

The thought terrifies me almost as much as it steadies me.

I glance down at her, her lashes damp against her cheeks, her breathing uneven but starting to settle. My chest aches with the need to protect her, but deeper than that is the ache of wanting her to see herself really see herself. To know she’s not broken, not worthless, not invisible.

She shifts slightly, murmuring in her sleep, and my arms instinctively tighten around her. I whisper, even though she can’t hear me, “I’ll fight for you, Kyla. I swear it. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

I know this is just the beginning. Healing isn’t a straight path, and nightmares don’t disappear overnight. But I’ll sit through every scream, every tear, every silence if that’s what it takes. I’ll be the one who stays when she wakes up drenched in sweat and terrified.

I lean back in the chair, careful not to jostle her too much. My neck protests, my back aches, but I don’t care. I’m not moving. Not when she finally let herself fall apart in front of me. Not when she finally let someone in.

Her hand is still clutched in mine, small and shaking but anchored. I squeeze it gently, promising without words that I won’t let go.

The monitors hum softly, the hallway outside the door buzzes with distant hospital sounds, but in here, it’s just us. And for the first time since I met her, I think she might actually believe she isn’t alone.

And that’s enough to keep me right here until morning.