MasukChapter 233: Is It Him? ReeseRoman was driving too slowly for a man who usually treated speed limits like suggestions. Sav was asleep in the back, one hand resting on the curve of her stomach, the blanket Roman had tucked around her slipping off one shoulder every time the car turned. The silence between us had weight. I could hear him thinking. I was thinking too.Guilt is a bastard. It does not knock. It walks in and sits in the middle of your chest and refuses to move. I had spent the last hour trying to decide whether to tell him. Whether to say the thing that had been rotting under my ribs. That I might have fucked his wife. That the rumor our father started might have become true without either of us knowing it.I glanced at Sav. Then at him. “Roman, there’s something I—”He spoke at the same time.“I’m sorry.”I stopped. “What?”“I should have said it years ago.” His eyes stayed on the road, but his hands were tight on the wheel. “I have not been a good brother to you. Or t
Chapter 232: A Lead Lizzie “Do you think she’s going to cause trouble for Sav?”Reese looked up from his phone. The frown had been sitting on his face since we left their room. “I can’t say. She’s not the person I used to know.”“If she tries to hurt Sav, or Roman, or what they’ve built, she’ll have to get through me first. I’ll fight her.” I meant it. “No one messes with them.”“I don’t want you in any fights.” His eyes dropped, brief, to my stomach. “Not now.”Right. Pregnant. The word still felt borrowed. Strange to my own ears. “What was she like?” I asked. “The version you knew.”He set the phone aside. “Gentle. Kind. Soft. She made the voices quieter just by walking into the room.” A faraway look crossed his face. “Nothing like whatever this is. This doesn’t sound like her.”“How long were you friends?”“We were best of friends for years.” He said it simply. “I loved her like a sister. She treated me like a brother. We used to be as close as this house would let anyone be.”“
Chapter 231: A Perfect Match RiverSitting in my father’s office with Arthur beside me and Hudson standing behind the desk was worse than I had prepared for.The room still smelled like old wood and that particular scent my father always carried around. Arthur’s shoulder was close to mine. Hudson was a straight line at my father’s back, hands clasped, face unreadable, eyes on me in a way that made it impossible to tell whether he was seeing me or simply looking through the space I occupied. I did not know which was worse. Because I didn’t know which one was easier to deal with now. “I sent for Arthur today because Kane and I have decided the wedding will be held in five weeks.”My father said it the way he announced a party. Casual. Final. As if the rest of my life were a date on a calendar he had already approved.Arthur spoke first.“Five weeks?” He did not raise his voice. “We were told a date had not been fixed. That it likely would not be for some time. I received a call this
Chapter 230: Mr Maxon River“We have arrived,” Arthur announced, as if the twelve steps from the landing to my door had been an expedition. He set me down carefully and did not follow me over the threshold. “Careful.”“Thank you.” I got the crutches under me and made it into the room, then held a hand out. “The flowers.”“Right. Yes.” He pulled the bouquet free, a little crushed from the stairs, and passed it over. “Sorry. They suffered for the cause.”I breathed them in anyway. They smelled like the greenhouse, not like a shop. And that somehow made everything better. “I don’t mind. Thank you, Arthur.”He put his hands in his pockets and smiled, almost shy about it. “I’m glad. I grew them. I’ve been trying to get the pink ones to take, and the green ones too. But I’m not there yet.” A small frown. “When I am, you’ll be the first to have them.”Something warm moved through me that had nothing to do with Hudson. “I’d like that. Good luck.” Then I noticed he was still standing in the h
Chapter 229: He Scares Me RiverEveryone looked happy. At least from the outside.Alex was on the floor with Andrea, cross-legged and unguarded, which was rare enough that I kept looking at him to make sure I was not inventing it. Earlier he had gathered the few soft strands of her hair into two ridiculous pigtails. Even a guard by the far window had laughed. Andrea had not cared that she was the joke. She kept reaching up to pat the little knots, delighted with herself, and now they were playing some ruined version of peekaboo that consisted mostly of Alex hiding behind his own hands and Andrea screaming with joy every time he reappeared.He looked carefree. He was not. None of us were, not really. Father had pushed Alex into medicine and then refused to let him practice, because a Blackwood son in a hospital was, in his words, a waste of a role that had already been assigned. Alex’s life had been measured out before he finished school. So had mine.Ramsey sat with Miles against
Chapter 228: What Dead Wives Do Roman I had taken two steps when Sav broke.The sound was small at first, then it wasn’t. It became loud sobs. Reese caught my arm. “Roman. Stop.” He hissed.I turned.She was folded into Lizzie, sobbing, one hand fisted in Lizzie’s sleeve like the bed might tilt if she let go. Lizzie was murmuring into her hair, brushing it back, telling her it was all right in the voice people use when they know it is not.Everything else left the room.None of it mattered next to the fact that five minutes ago my wife had been kicking her feet and inventing names, and now she was crying because a dead woman had walked back into our life without asking. Just to flip our perfect family upside down. “Excuse us.” I set the gun down. “Please.”“Of course.” Reese nodded. He held a hand out to Lizzie. She took it. They left together, and the door closed, and the quiet that followed was worse than the news.I went to my knees in front of Sav and took her hands. “I’m sorry







