Chapter 17: Broken Trust

Vance's POV

The storm outside had subsided into a low, steady drone, but inside the office, the air remained thick with a fierce, suffocating intimacy.

Anastasia was still sitting in my lap, her small hands resting flat against my chest, her heavy wool blanket draped over both of our shoulders like a dark, private tent.

Her breathing was uneven, her heart fluttering against my palm where my hand rested over her side. She had just given me back a piece of my soul, looking into my eyes and declaring herself mine with a fierce, terrifying conviction.

But as the silence stretched between us in the freezing dark, I felt a tremor run through her body—but I wasn't sure if it was from the cold or if it was something else.

"You gave me your truth, Vance," she murmured, her voice dropping into a quiet, trembling register that made my instinct to protect her flare up instantly. She stared down at the dark fabric of my hoodie, her fingers twisting slightly into the cotton. "It’s time I gave you mine. The real reason I fled Mid-Atlantic. The reason I ended up on your doorstep in Blackwood."

I shifted my weight slightly, pulling her tighter against my torso to give her every ounce of my heat. "You don't have to force it, Anastasia. Not tonight."

"No. I do," she whispered, raising her chin, though her piercing blue eyes were shadowed with an agonizing, raw pain. "Because if Saraya starts digging around in my past, I need you to hear it from me first. Before she twists it into something ugly."

I squeezed her waist gently, my large hand spanning her hip, grounding her against me. "I'm listening, Asya."

"Everyone thinks I was suspended because I tried to manipulate a professor for grades," she began, a sharp, bitter laugh escaping her lips, white mist blooming in the cold air between us. "That was the official narrative Clarissa and Julian fed to the athletic board."

The name Julian came out of her mouth like poison. My jaw clenched tight, my dark eyes narrowing as I watched the tension rack her small frame.

"Julian was my boyfriend," she continued, her fingers tightening on my chest. "Or at least, I thought he was. We had been together for two years. He was the golden boy of the men's program, and Clarissa was my cousin, my line-mate, my supposed best friend. I trusted them with everything."

"What did they do?" I rasped, my voice dropping an octave into a low, lethal rumble.

"It was right before the mid-season showcases," she said, her voice cracking slightly before she forced it steady. "I was outperforming Clarissa on every metric. The scouts were coming to watch me, not her. Clarissa couldn't handle it, and her parents—my aunt and uncle—couldn't handle the idea of the family dynasty being eclipsed by the orphan cousin they had taken in out of obligation."

I felt a cold, ruthless fury begin to simmer deep in my gut, hot blood rushing through my veins despite the single-digit temperature of the room. "They set you up."

"It was so simple it was terrifying," she whispered, staring into the dark shadows of the corner. "Julian borrowed my laptop under the pretense of downloading game film. While he had it, he used my official university account to draft a series of inappropriate, explicitly manipulative emails to my advanced calculus professor — a senior faculty member who sat on the athletic review board. Then, Clarissa 'accidentally' discovered the draft folder and brought it directly to the dean."

"God damn them," I growled, my fingers digging into the wool blanket.

"I didn't even know what was happening until I was called into an emergency disciplinary hearing," she said, her voice trembling now, the raw trauma of that room seemed to be washing back over her. "I stood there in front of ten board members, completely defenseless. I begged Julian to tell them the truth, to check the IP addresses, to look at the access logs. But Julian just stood beside Clarissa, looked the dean in the eye, and lied. He told them I had been bragging about using the professor to stay eligible."

"Nobody defended you?" I asked, feeling my rage reverberate my whole being. "Your team members I mean?"

She laughed dryly. "They all took an advantage of an old smash or pass game we played as freshers. It was an inside joke that Clarissa recorded. They said they didn't know if I did it or not."

"And your aunt and uncle?" I asked, my voice dangerously soft, my jaw grinding so hard my back molars burned.

"My aunt looked at me across that table like I was a stray dog she had made the mistake of feeding," she choked out, a single, silent tear slipping down her pale cheek. "They didn't even let me go back to the dorms to pack my bags. My uncle signed my immediate transfer papers on the spot, stripped me of my family allowance, and told me that I would be better off dead like my parents. They discarded me, Vance. They erased me in a single afternoon to keep Clarissa’s record pristine."

As the final words left her mouth, a small, choked sob escaped her throat, her head dropping forward until her forehead slammed into the crook of my neck. Her small hands gripped my hoodie so violently her knuckles turned ghostly white.

Hearing her small, beautiful body breaking down against my chest under the weight of that disgusting betrayal, something inside me snapped.

A room full of wealthy, corrupt adults and spoiled, envious kids using their money and influence to crush a twenty-year-old girl’s entire life just because she skated circles around them. They had treated her like garbage. They had thrown her out into the cold and left her to drown in the lies they constructed.

I wrapped both of my massive arms completely around her, lifting her bodily against me, tucking her head firmly under my jaw, and burying my face into her soft, dark hair. I held her with an unyielding pressure, absorbing her shivers into my own dense frame, shielding her from the memory, from the dark, and from the cold.

"Listen to me, Anastasia," I growled near her ear, my voice thick with a dark, lethal resolve that shook the very air in the room. "Look at me."

She slowly raised her head, her sad eyes brimming with unshed tears, her lower lip trembling in the dark.

I reached up, my heavy, calloused hand cupping her cheek, my thumb gently, deliberately wiping away the tear trails on her skin. I held her gaze with an intense, unblinking focus that left zero room for doubt.

"You are never going back to that dark place," I rasped, every word heavy with an unbreakable, violent vow. "You are done hiding from those cowards. Clarissa, Julian, your aunt and uncle—they think they destroyed you. They think they sent you to Blackwood to die in obscurity."

"Vance..." she whispered, her breath catching in her throat as she stared into my dark eyes.

"They have no idea what they did," I growled softly, my fingers tangling securely into the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her close to my mouth. "They sent you to me. And I swear on my life, love, I will burn that entire family dynasty to the ground before I ever let them touch a single hair on your head again. You are under my protection now. If Julian or Saraya or anyone else wants to get to you, they have to go through me first. And I don't break."

She let out a long, shuddering breath, the terror in her eyes slowly melting away, replaced by an absolute, profound sense of safety. She pressed her face back into my neck, her body finally relaxing, letting her full weight collapse into my chest as the panic receded.

"Thank you, Vance," she murmured against my skin, her fingers tracing a soft line over my heart.

I rested my chin on top of her head, my arms locked around her like iron bands. As I listened to the quiet, steady rhythm of her breathing slowly sync with mine in the freezing blackout, I stared out into the dark shadows of my office.

I had lost my dream seventeen years ago because I had been too young and too honorable to fight dirty.

I wasn't twenty-two anymore. I was a man with nothing left to lose except the girl resting against my heart, and I would destroy anyone who tries to take her from me.