Page 179 of Blackwood

And then there’s Cade. He saw it all. Every calculated move. Every lie. Every seductive word that wasn’t me.

My hands begin to tremble.

I look up and see them. Lex is already moving, fast. I pick up my pace until I’m practically crashing into him. He scoops me up, wrapping one arm around my waist, the other cradling the back of my head.

“Are you okay, baby?”

“No.” The word comes out hoarse. Honest. “I hated being the one to put fear in those girls’ eyes. When I opened the van door, the way they looked at me. The way she flinched? All I could see was me flinching from Carlos’s belt in Miami.”

The pressure rises again and my hands start to shake harder. I can’t stop them.

“Baby,” Lex whispers, catching them, pulling them to his chest. His ice-blue eyes lock with mine. “You saved them. That’s all that matters.”

Behind him, Cade stands silent, watching. The worry crawling up my spine sharpens. He hasn’t said a word, just stands there taking it all in.

Tears burn behind my eyes. Fear coils tight in my ribs. The fear that he’ll walk again. That seeing this version of me, the one Lex has already made peace with, will be too much for him.

But he doesn’t move away. He steps forward and reaches out his hand. When I place my hand in Cade’s, his breath catches. Then he pulls me in and slides one hand to the back of my neck and crashes his lips against mine. The kiss is fierce, desperate, alive.

He finally pulls back and presses his lips to my temple. “I love you, sweetheart.”

The breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding slips out of me in a shudder.

“I love you too,” I whisper into his chest.

“You were extraordinary.”

My lips part, but no sound comes out.

“Lex was right when he said he didn’t need to tell me about all of this,” he says. “He was right that I needed to see it with my own eyes. And what I saw tonight, it wrecked me. In the best way.”

He cups my cheek, his thumb brushing along my skin with a gentleness that breaks me even further.

“I used to think the line between darkness and light was something you had to pick a side on. But you move between them like you were born to. You walk into shadows and come back with the broken. You turn pain into power. Grief into justice.”

Footsteps crunch behind us. Laing strolls toward us like he didn’t just spend the last hour with his hands all over me, playing a role only one of us enjoyed a little too much.

“Dragon motherfucking,” Lex growls—then hauls off and punches Laing straight in the face.

“Lex!” I gasp.

Cade yanks me into him just as Laing stumbles back, a hand to his jaw. But he doesn’t fight back.

“Nah, it’s okay, Iz.”

He winces slightly but gives Lex a nod. “I deserved that.”

Red and blue lights flicker at the end of the road. Laing glances back at them, then turns to us one last time. “That’s my cue,” he laughs, gesturing to the car that Kenji is already sliding into. Laing winks, lip bleeding just a little. “Try not to miss me too much.”

“You feel better?” I ask.

“Not even close, baby,” Lex says as he wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“Menace.” Cade mumbles.

“You love me. Both of you.” Lex says as he kisses the top of my head.

We walk toward the line of police cruisers, the flashing red and blue lights casting our shadows in a purple hue across the pavement. Lex’s arm is still wrapped around my shoulders, his thumb absently brushing against my collarbone like he’s trying to soothe the weight of everything we just did. Cade walks on my other side, close but silent, his hand grazing mine every so often like he’s not sure if I need space or anchoring.