All Chapters of Ruined By Mr. Cross: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

Damien’s PovElena walked up the drive slower than I remembered her moving, though ten years could do that to anyone, and Selene’s hand found mine before I’d even fully registered wanting it there, steady, grounding, the same instinct we’d built between us over a decade of facing things together instead of alone.“You look well,” Elena said, stopping a few feet from us, her eyes moving briefly to Selene before settling back on me. “Married. Happy. I wasn’t sure what I’d find, showing up like this.”“You could have called,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended.“I tried, three times,” she said. “Your assistant kept telling me you were unavailable. I didn’t think this was something I should leave in a message.”“You could have written,” I said. “A letter. An email. Something that gave us warning instead of a name on a security screen.”“Would you have answered it,” Elena asked, and when I didn’t reply immediately, she nodded, as though the silence had confirmed something she’d alrea

Damien’s PovThe three words sat on Selene’s phone screen like something radioactive, and none of us moved for a long moment, the study suddenly feeling smaller than it had a minute earlier.“Coming home,” Marcus repeated slowly. “That’s not a threat. That’s a location. Which means she’s already close.”“Call security at the gate,” I said, standing, adrenaline replacing whatever calm the day’s earlier quiet had built. “Now.”Marcus was already on his phone, speaking low and urgent, while Selene stood frozen for a moment, staring at the screen like it might reveal something more if she just looked hard enough.“Lucy,” she said suddenly, sharp with fear. “She’s at Naomi’s. If Cassandra’s coming here—”“Naomi’s house is secure,” I said, though my own voice betrayed how little certainty I actually felt. “We’ll call her right now, have someone bring Lucy back under escort. We’re not taking any chances.”Selene was already dialing, her hands not quite steady, and I watched her pace the leng

Damien’s PovFor one full second, the words didn’t land. Then they landed all at once, and the porch tilted under me in a way nothing had in ten years.“What do you mean she’s not in the car.” My voice came out flat, stripped of everything but the question.“She was with me the whole time,” Talia said, hands shaking as she gestured back toward the open door, toward the empty seat. “We stopped once, for two minutes, maybe less, at the gas station on Route 9. I checked my mirrors the entire time. I never saw anyone.”Selene had gone very still against me, and I felt the exact moment her fear turned into something harder, something with edges.“You left her alone in the car,” she said.“For ninety seconds. I was ten feet away.” Talia’s voice cracked. “Selene, I would never—”“I know.” Selene pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes for one breath, two, and when she dropped them her face had gone terrifyingly calm, the calm I’d learned over a decade to recognize as her holding hers

Damien’s PovThe cold hit first, sharper than I expected, cutting through my jacket as we moved low and fast across the frozen ground toward the cabin. Security fanned out ahead of us, two shadows peeling left, two right, and Marcus held up a hand for us to wait at the tree line while they cleared the perimeter.Selene’s breathing was ragged beside me, and I understood exactly what it was costing her to stand still.“I can hear something,” she whispered. “Is that—”I listened, and beneath the wind I caught it too, faint, muffled through walls. A voice. Not crying. Talking. Steady enough that some small, desperate part of me let itself hope it meant Lucy was calm, that whatever was happening inside hadn’t broken her.“That’s good,” I said quietly. “If she’s talking, she’s safe enough to talk.”“You don’t know that.”“No,” I admitted. “But I need it to be true for the next sixty seconds, so let me have it.”She let out something between a laugh and a sob, pressing closer to my side, and

Damien’s PovLucy fell asleep in the car before we’d even reached the highway, curled against Selene’s side in the back seat, one small hand fisted in the fabric of her mother’s coat like she meant to hold on even unconscious. I watched them in the rearview mirror for longer than I probably should have, Marcus driving in silence up front, the two of them lit intermittently by passing streetlights.“She’s out,” Selene murmured, pressing her lips to the top of Lucy’s head. “I don’t think she understood half of what happened back there.”“Good,” I said. “Let her keep that for a few more years.”Selene looked up and caught my eyes in the mirror, and something passed between us that didn’t need words — the particular exhaustion of two people who’d spent an entire evening being braver than they felt, now finally allowed to feel the cost of it.We got Lucy into her bed without waking her fully, Selene sitting on the edge of the mattress a long moment after, smoothing the blanket over her sho