LOGINDominic’s POVTHREE MONTHS in, I knew what Tuesdays felt like.Tuesdays were the day after Monday, which meant they were the morning after Chloe had spent the evening with Lucian. She always texted me Tuesday morning — something small, nothing significant, just contact. *A photo of bad coffee. A complaint about her alarm. A line from something she’d read.*I always answered. I was always glad she texted.And I always spent the first hour of Tuesday morning feeling like someone had reached into my chest and rearranged things without asking.I knew this about myself. I’d known it going in…I’d said it at the warehouse table, and I’d said it in therapy, and I’d said it out loud to Chloe on the rooftop. I don’t do shared well. I don’t do trust well.What I hadn’t known was how it would feel physically. The tightness in my chest when I heard her key in her bag, getting ready to leave. The specific silence of my loft after she walked out the door. The way I’d stand at the window and watch th
Lucian’s POVThe therapist’s name was Dr. Sandra Osei, and she had the specific energy of someone who had heard everything and was genuinely not going to be surprised by anything we said.She had a warm office — plants, soft lighting, two couches arranged in an L-shape, a chair for her across from them. It looked like a place designed to make people comfortable enough to say difficult things. I noticed all of this in the first thirty seconds because noticing things was how I managed situations I wasn’t fully in control of.We arrived in the same car, which had been Chloe’s suggestion and was either a good idea or a recipe for a very tense fifteen-minute drive, depending on how you looked at it. Dominic had been quiet the whole way. Marcus had been measuring. I had been preparing questions in the back of my mind that I suspected the therapist would render irrelevant within the first ten minutes.Dr. Osei looked at all four of us settling onto the two couches — Chloe between me and Marc
Chloe’s POVMonday arrived.Lucian texted at eight AM: *Ready for this week?*I was standing in my kitchen in a robe, waiting for my coffee to finish, staring at the schedule on my phone like it was going to change between last night and this morning.Me: *Ask me again when I’ve had coffee.*Lucian: *Fair. See you tonight.*The schedule lived in a shared calendar — Lucian’s idea, Marcus’s implementation, Dominic’s reluctant acceptance. It looked clinical when I read it. *Monday evening with Lucian. Tuesday with Dominic. Wednesday with Lucian. Thursday with Dominic. Fridays and Sundays with Marcus. Saturdays all four.*In theory.Lucian came to my apartment Monday evening with groceries — he cooked, which I’d been warned was a thing he did when he wanted to focus somewhere with his hands. He made pasta from actual scratch, which took forty minutes to an hour and filled my apartment with a smell so good it almost made me forget the schedule felt slightly like homework.We talked while h
Marcus’s POVWe spent the weekend at my warehouse.Not romantically. I want to be clear about that. It was approximately as romantic as a project planning session, which is to say not at all, and was also the most honest thing we’d done since Chloe had shown up at the hotel two months ago with her notepad and her pros and cons list.Saturday morning I made breakfast — the proper kind, not the post-crisis kind and we sat at the table and I put a notepad in the center of it and said, “Logistics.”Chloe looked at the notepad. Then at me. “Right now?”“The sooner the better. Before the feelings get in the way of the planning.”“That’s very you,” Dominic said.“Yes,” I agreed. “That’s why I said it.”Lucian, to his credit, already had his own notes on his phone, which he set face-up on the table without being asked. “I made a list of questions on Tuesday,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for an appropriate time.”“Of course you did,” Chloe said, and she was smiling slightly despite herself. “O
Chloe’s POVI texted them on a Thursday morning.Me: *Can all three of you meet me tonight? Seven o’clock. The old firehouse on Clement Street.*The firehouse had come up once, weeks ago — Dominic had mentioned it as a building he’d considered for his studio before settling on his current loft. Rooftop access, good light, and the kind of open space that felt honest. I’d filed it without knowing why. Now I knew why.I needed somewhere that wasn’t any of their spaces. Neutral ground that was nobody’s territory, nobody’s home, nobody’s history. Just a place where we could all stand on equal ground.The replies came quickly, as they always did.Dominic: *Yeah. I’ll be there.*Lucian: *I’ll come straight from the hospital. Might be a few minutes late.*Marcus: *Confirmed.*I spent the day being terrified in a quiet, steady way. Not the spiral kind, that had burned itself out somewhere between Alina’s visit and this morning. This was the simpler fear of someone who had made a decision and w
Alina’s POVI called Ronan from the airport.He picked up on the first ring, which meant he’d been watching the flight tracker, which was deeply predictable and also quietly lovely.“How is she?” he asked.“Getting there,” I said. “She needed to hear it from someone who’d been through it. Not the advice version — the actual honest version.”“Did you give her the actual honest version?”“I told her I ran. That I sat in my father’s penthouse and tried to force myself back into a life that didn’t fit anymore. That I was terrified the whole time.” I found my gate and sat down. “I told her the truth. That brave isn’t the absence of fear — it’s doing it anyway.”A pause. “How did she take it?”“She’s still processing,” I said. “But she’s close. Closer than she was yesterday.” I leaned back. “She’s been holding herself to a version of me that I’ve never actually been. The idea that I just accepted everything smoothly and moved forward without falling apart.” A beat. “I don’t know where that
Alina’s POVThe compound felt different now—no longer just a safe place to stay but more like a stronghold getting ready for an attack. Security cameras were set up in every corner, solid barriers blocked the main entrances, and armed guards walked the compound in shifts.“We’ve upgraded everything
Ronan's POVMaddox looked like he wanted to argue, but he was too tired and in too much pain to say anything. He sank back against the pillows, frustration visible on his face.“We need to move her,” I decided firmly. “Back to the compound. It’s the only plac
Ronan’s POVThe guard went down hard—one good hit to the stomach, another to the head, and he collapsed, knocked out before he even hit the ground. I dragged him into a nearby storage closet, grabbed his radio, and disabled it. took no more than thirty seconds.But thirty seconds could mean Alina g
Alina's POVRonan stepped out of the shower. “That was close,” he said with a breath of relief.“Too close,” I replied, my body still shaking from the adrenaline rush. “He sensed something was off. He could feel it.”“But he didn&rsqu







