تسجيل الدخولMarcus’s POVThe alert came at 2:47 AM.I was already awake — I was always already awake, sitting in my truck across from the hotel with cold coffee and my laptop open, running a passive scan on the building’s entry points. Not because I expected something. Just because not watching felt wrong.The motion sensor I’d clipped to the hotel’s side entrance pinged first. Then the lobby camera feed I’d tapped through a contact at the security company showed two men walking in. Unhurried. Heads down. Dressed like they belonged.They didn’t belong.I knew it the way you know things after years of reading people in places where being wrong gets people killed. The way they moved — measured, deliberate, checking angles without looking like they were checking angles. One of them had his right hand loose at his side, just slightly away from his body. Ready.I was already out of the truck.I hit the g
Chloe’s POVShe picked up on the second ring, which meant she’d been near her phone. She was always near her phone when she was worried, and she’d been worried about me for months.“Chloe? Baby, it’s late.”“I know. Sorry. I just—” I pulled a pillow into my lap. “I needed to hear your voice.”A small pause. The kind that meant she was setting something down, giving me her full attention. “What’s wrong?”“Nothing’s wrong. I’m okay. I’m safe.” That part was true, at least. “I just have something on my mind.”“Tell me.”I leaned back against the headboard and stared at the water stain on the ceiling tiles. Funny how hotel rooms always had one.“I’ve been seeing someone,” I started.Her whole energy changed in an instant. I could feel it through the phone — the warm
Chloe’s POVThe hotel room smelled like lemon cleaner and recycled air. The bed had too many pillows, the TV remote was bolted to the nightstand, and the heating system made a faint ticking sound every few minutes.I’d been lying on top of the covers for forty minutes trying to logic my way through the most illogical situation of my life.I had a notepad. Real, physical paper, because something about this problem felt too big for a phone screen. I’d drawn a line down the middle — Pros on one side, Cons on the other — and I’d been staring at it long enough that the words had started to blur.The cons were easy to write. Society. Judgment. Logistics. The fact that I’d once told Alina this exact situation was crazy, and now the universe had apparently filed that under things to prove wrong. The fear that it would implode and I’d lose all three of them. The fear that I’d lose myself trying to be enough for
Chloe’s POVWhen I opened Lucian’s door and found all three of them standing in the hallway, my first instinct was to close it again.I didn’t. But I thought about it.“Is someone dead?” I asked.“No one’s dead,” Lucian said. He was the calmest, which tracked. “Can we come in?”I stepped back and let them in. They filed into the living room and arranged themselves — Lucian on the armchair, Marcus near the window, Dominic leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Like they’d choreographed it. Which, knowing Lucian, they probably had.I sat on the couch, tucked my feet under me, and waited.“We talked,” Lucian began.“I can see that.”“Without fighting,” Marcus added.I looked at Dominic. He raised one shoulder. “Mostly.”“We think the way things are going isn’t working,&rd
Lucian’s POVThe coffee shop was Marcus’s idea — neutral ground, he’d said. Which I found ironic given that Marcus had never once been neutral about anything in his life since I've known him.Still, I showed up. Because someone had to be the adult, and it clearly wasn’t going to be either of them.I arrived first and ordered a black coffee and a table in the corner. Marcus came in two minutes later, already scanning the room like he expected an ambush. And Dominic rolled up five minutes after that, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet.They acknowledged each other the way two dogs acknowledge each other in a small yard — tense, measuring, not quite growling.This was going to be fantastic.I waited until they both had drinks in front of them before I started. “I’m going to say something, and I need both of you to hear it before anyone responds.”“Good
Dominic’s POVI pulled up outside her office building at five-thirty, engine idling, sunglasses on, telling myself I wasn’t nervous.I wasn’t nervous. I was just early.Okay, I was nervous.The plan was simple. Pick Chloe up from her last in-person day before her new leave started, grab food, go back to my loft. Easy. Normal. No reason for my stomach to be doing whatever it was currently doing.Then I saw her.She came through the glass doors laughing. Head thrown back, hand on her chest, the way she laughed when something actually got her. And beside her was some guy in a fitted button-down and neat slacks, grinning like he’d said the funniest thing in the world. Young. Good-looking in a clean, harmless kind of way. He was leaning slightly toward her — not inappropriately, not obviously, just close enough to make my jaw tighten.I stepped out of the truck.Chloe spotted me and her smile shifted slightly. Not guilty. Just surprised. “Dominic. You’re early.”“Traffic was light.” I look
Alina’s POVI couldn’t sleep.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Ronan’s face hovering inches from mine, felt the ghost of his almost-kiss burning on my lips. The way he’d pulled back, that careful mask sliding into place like armor—it kept replaying in my mind over and over.So when I heard the lo
Alina’s POVI made it to my room before the tears hit me. Not the calm kind that you can brush away and pretend never happened, but the ugly type—choking, gasping sobs that came from the very depths of my heart. It felt as if I’d been holding so much pain for so long that I finally broke under its
By early afternoon, I was desperate for any kind of normal interaction. I finally found him in the garage, completely focused on fixing his bike, an act that I recognized as a way to avoid dealing with everything else.“Maddox,” I called softly, approaching him as if he were a frightened animal. “C
Alina’s POVTwenty-four hours after Maddox left, the compound felt like it was holding its breath.No one had heard from him. His phone went straight to voicemail. The trackers on his bike showed him somewhere on the outskirts of the city, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t responding, wasn’t coming back







