25: Telling Kate

KATE POV

Dean showed up at my apartment unannounced, which was unusual enough on its own Dean texted before everything, scheduled grocery runs, probably alphabetized his own breathing pattern if given the chance and the second I opened the door and saw his face, I knew whatever was coming wasn't going to be a pleasant surprise.

"Okay, you look like you're about to tell me you're secretly married," I said, stepping back to let him in. "Please don't be secretly married."

"I'm not secretly married."

"Good start. What's the bad news, then?"

He didn't sit. He paced, which Dean never did, Dean was a sitter, a methodical thinker, a man who processed things in orderly bullet points instead of frantic circles around my living room.

"I need you to let me get through this whole thing before you react," he said. "I know that's a lot to ask. I know you're going to want to interrupt me approximately every ten seconds. Please don't."

"You're scaring me a little."

"I know. I'm sorry. Just  let me say it all first."

So I sat on my own couch, hands folded in my lap, and listened to the man I loved tell me that he'd racked up two hundred and forty thousand dollars in gambling debt, that dangerous people had threatened him in a parking garage, that he'd used Jasmine to steal access to Japheth's files in a desperate attempt to make the debt disappear, and that those same people had, as of a few days ago, specifically threatened me, by name, with details about my car and my commute that meant they'd been watching me.

I didn't interrupt. I'd promised I wouldn't, and some stubborn, furious part of me held onto that promise even as everything in me wanted to scream.

"That's everything," he finished, finally sitting down across from me, looking smaller than I'd ever seen him look, which was saying something given that Dean was six foot two and built like he still played rugby on weekends. "I know there's nothing I can say that makes this okay."

I sat with it for a long moment, feeling several different emotions arrive at once and shove each other out of the way trying to be the one I actually expressed first.

"You gambled away a quarter of a million dollars," I said finally, "and you didn't tell me."

"Yes."

"For how long has this been going on?"

"Three months. Maybe a little longer."

"Three months, Dean." My voice cracked slightly, which annoyed me, because I wanted to sound angry, not hurt, except apparently my body had decided both at once were happening regardless of what I wanted. "We've had, what, a dozen dinners in the last three months? You sat across from me at my parents' table, ate my mother's cooking, held my hand, and the entire time you were drowning in this?"

"I was trying to fix it before you ever had to know."

"That's not a plan, Dean, that's a secret. There's a difference."

"I know that now."

"Did you know it then?" I pressed, because some petty, hurt part of me needed him to actually sit in the discomfort of the question instead of just agreeing his way past it.

He was quiet for a moment. "No. I convinced myself it was protecting you. I see now that it was really just protecting myself from having to watch your face while I told you I'd failed."

That, at least, was honest enough that some of the anger in my chest eased slightly, just enough to let something else through.

"They threatened me," I said slowly, processing it properly for the first time instead of just absorbing it as part of his confession. "By name."

"Yes."

"Do you understand how insane that sentence is? 'Dangerous criminals know my license plate because my boyfriend has a gambling problem' is not a sentence I ever expected to say in my actual life."

"I understand completely, and I will never forgive myself if anything happens to you because of my choices."

"Good, you shouldn't forgive yourself easily, that seems appropriate given the circumstances." I stood, needing to move, pacing myself now in the exact circle he'd just vacated. "What does Japheth want to do?"

"Bring in real security. Possibly the police, depending on what they actually find out about who's behind it."

"And you're okay with that? Possible criminal charges against yourself?"

"I used Jasmine's position to try to steal company assets, Kate. I deserve whatever consequences come from that, regardless of how sympathetic my reasons were." He looked up at me, something raw and exhausted in his face. "I'm more scared of losing you than I am of any of it."

I stopped pacing, looking at him properly for the first time since he'd walked in  not the confident lawyer who color-coded his spice rack, not the man my family had so quickly, easily folded into our orbit, just a person who'd made a catastrophic mistake and was now sitting in the wreckage of it, terrified, honest, finally.

"I'm furious at you," I said.

"I know."

"Genuinely, deeply furious. I might stay furious for a while."

"That's fair."

"But I'm not leaving." The words surprised me slightly even as I said them, though some steadier part of me recognized they were true the moment they left my mouth. "Not because I'm not hurt, or not scared, or not completely overwhelmed by what you just told me. But because running from this doesn't make either of us safer, and because I actually believe you when you say you're sorry, even though sorry doesn't erase three months of lies."

"You don't have to decide anything tonight."

"I'm not deciding everything tonight. I'm deciding this specific thing tonight, which is that I'm not walking out that door and leaving you to handle this entirely alone, because that's not who I am, and frankly it's not who you need right now either." I sat back down, closer to him this time. "But you are going to therapy. Actual therapy, with an actual licensed person, not just 'processing it internally' the way you clearly already tried and failed to do."

"Okay."

"And you're going to tell me everything from now on. Every single thing, no matter how small, no matter how embarrassing. I would rather know every stupid mistake you make in real time than find out three months later that you've been carrying something alone again."

"Okay," he said again, quieter this time, something like relief breaking through the exhaustion on his face.

"And if you ever gamble again"

"I won't."

"Let me finish my very intimidating ultimatum, Dean."

"Sorry. Please continue."

"If you ever gamble again, I will personally drive you to my father's office and let him deal with you, and trust me, that is a significantly scarier outcome than anything a loan shark could come up with."

That actually got a small, surprised laugh out of him, the first crack of his usual self breaking through the wreckage of the last hour. "That's genuinely terrifying. Your dad once made a vendor cry over a missed delivery window."

"My dad is a national treasure and should be feared accordingly." I leaned my head against his shoulder, finally letting myself feel the exhaustion underneath all the anger, the particular tiredness that comes after holding yourself rigid through something enormous. "I'm still mad at you."

"I know."

"Like, really mad. This doesn't go away because you cried a little and I made one threat about my dad."

"I know, Kate. I'm not expecting it to."

"Good. Just checking we're on the same page." I closed my eyes, letting the quiet settle over both of us. "We're going to figure this out. All of it. The debt, the danger, whoever's actually behind this. But you have to let me in from now on. All the way in. No more protecting me by lying to me."

"All the way in," he agreed quietly, and for the first time since he'd walked through my door looking like a man bracing for the end of something, it felt like maybe it wasn't actually ending just changing into something that required both of us showing up honestly, which, admittedly, was a significantly higher bar than either of us had been clearing lately.

My phone buzzed. A text from Japheth.

**JAPHETH:** Ranjiv found something. Family meeting tomorrow morning. Bring Dean. We need everyone on the same page before this goes any further.

I showed Dean the screen. He read it twice, swallowing hard.

"Your brother's going to destroy me tomorrow, isn't he."

"Probably a little. But he'll help you first." I squeezed his hand. "That's just how Montgomerys work. We yell at you properly, and then we fix it anyway, because apparently that's a family tradition nobody ever actually voted on."

"I should probably prepare some kind of statement," Dean said, only half joking. "Opening remarks. Maybe visual aids."

"Do not bring visual aids to my family breakfast, Dean."

"A simple flowchart, maybe. Nothing excessive."

"I will confiscate it at the door."

"Noted." He let out a breath, long and shaky, some of the tension finally draining from his shoulders now that the worst of the telling was over. "Thank you. For not leaving. I know I don't deserve that yet."

"You don't," I agreed. "But I've decided deserving isn't really the point right now. Fixing it is the point. We can argue about whether you've earned forgiveness later, once nobody's threatening my car anymore."

"That's a fair ranking of priorities."

"I thought so." I stood, pulling him up with me, suddenly exhausted in the particular way that comes after holding too much at once. "Come on. You're staying here tonight. Not because all is forgiven, but because I'd rather know exactly where you are until we figure out how dangerous this actually is."

"Practical and furious. A truly terrifying combination."

"You have no idea," I said, and for the first time all evening, I almost meant it as a joke instead of a warning.