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I don’t wait for Enzo to defend me. I don’t need him to. But I feel him behind me—still, coiled, ready. Not a shield, a sword. And if I said one word, he’d burn this house down and salt the earth. But this is my fight.

“We’re leaving,” I say. “And I’m not coming back.”

“You can’t leave now,” my father insists. “It would embarrass your mother.”

I scoff.

“You had one chance to love her. You used it to measure her instead.” Enzo’s voice is quiet, brutal. “You have no idea what you lost,” he finishes, still not raising his voice.

Then his hand finds mine like we’ve rehearsed this exit a hundred times—and maybe, without saying it, we have. Without another word, we leave. And with each step, I begin feeling weightless. As if I’ve set down something heavy I’d forgotten I was carrying.

The front door clicks shut behind us with the soft finality of a safe deposit box. Outside, the air is sharp with winter, honest in a way the heated rooms behind us never were. I breathe it in, feeling my lungs expand for what seems like the first time in hours.

Enzo stands beside me. He’s not pushing. Just there—solid as the ground beneath my feet.

“Fuck!” I scream, startling the parking attendants that are still busy outside. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

“Piper! Wait!”

Teddy bursts through the door behind us, coat half-buttoned. He moves with the loose energy of whiskey and absolute conviction, more alive than anyone inside that house has been in years.

“Christ, I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he says, but there’s something like wonder beneath the rasp, something like pride.

I cross the distance between us before I can think about it, wrapping my arms around him and holding tighter than I mean to. I press my face against the only part of my family that ever felt real.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my throat suddenly tight, the words smaller than I want them to be. “For every time you saw me. For never looking away.”

His arms tighten around me, one hand coming up to cup the back of my head. We stand like that for a moment that stretches. Behind us, I feel Enzo retreating, giving us space. Or maybe he’s asking for his vehicle.

Teddy pulls back first. He cups my face in both hands, his palms warm against the winter air, and looks at me like he’s memorizing something important. “You don’t owe them a goddamn thing,” he murmurs, voice low enough that only I can hear it. “You never did.” He kisses my forehead.

“I know,” I say, and for the first time, I think I might actually believe it.

Teddy turns me so I’m at his side, his arm around my shoulders as he looks at Enzo. “You,” Teddy says to him. “You see her.”

It’s not really a question, but Enzo answers anyway. “Always,” he says, the single word carrying weight beyond its syllables.

A soft purr sounds as one of the parking attendants drives Enzo’s car up to us, leaving it idling as he gets out and hands over the keys. “Nice ride,” the attendant observes before walking away.

Teddy steps back, giving my shoulder one last squeeze before releasing me entirely. “Go. Be free. Fly, Piper, fly.”

Enzo moves then, opening the passenger door for me with the fluid grace that comes second nature to him. I get into the car without looking back at the house, at its windows glowing with a light that’s anything but welcome.

I watch Teddy through the window. For a moment, backlit by the glow from the house, he looks like something out of a painting; the solitary figure, half in and half out of the world behind him. Then he turns and disappears back into the noise.

Enzo slides into the driver’s seat like he’s switching roles—from shadow to executioner. Every move precise, every breath measured, as though violence would’ve been easier than restraint.

“I was ready to drag you the fuck out of there,” he seethes. “Fucking parasites.”

When I look over at him, his jaw is tight, but there’s pride in the set of it.

“I wanted to hurt them,” he adds. “God, Toy, I wanted to rip them apart.”

He reaches across the console and takes my hand, his thumb brushing once across my knuckles—a gesture so small it shouldn’t matter, but it does.

Then, without a word, he leans across the space between us and kisses me again—this time slow, worshipful. Like he needs my taste to erase the stench of everything we just left behind. I kiss him back just as fiercely. Because he didn’t just stand beside me in there. He let me fight. And he stood ready to burn it down if I’d asked him to.

“I almost wish you had,” I whisper against his lips. “Almost.”

Pulling back, he arches an eyebrow. “Airport?” he asks, and there’s a universe of understanding in the single word.

“God yes,” I nod, feeling the last threads of tension unravel from my shoulders. “Let’s go home.”