Page 180 of Blackwood

One of the NYPD officers is talking to Lilly, she’s nodding her head to his questions. He looks up and we make eye contact.

There is an instant familiarity about him I just can’t shake.

The way he stands.

His emerald green eyes.

His dark hair is streaked with gray, but then I see it.

The scar curling down on his left forearm.

The scar he would never talk about.

“Bella?” he shouts.

“Oh my God.” I whisper.

“Bella! Oh my God! Bella!” Completely forgetting about Lilly, he sprints to me.

“Baby, who is that?”

I drop Lex’s arm and take off running. We collide halfway across the sidewalk, crashing into each other like we’ve waited a lifetime for this moment. His arms lock around me with bone-crushing strength and we fall to our knees in the grass.

I’m sobbing. He’s sobbing.

His badge digs into my shoulder, his gun belt bruises my hip, but it doesn’t bother me. I’d take a thousand bruises to be here in this moment, safe in the arms of the man who helped raise me. The man who loved me like his own.

“You’re okay,” he chokes, pulling back to frame my face with shaking hands. “Jesus, Bella, I thought we lost you. I thought—”

“I missed you so much.” I nod through my tears. “But I couldn’t risk looking. There’s a lot you don’t know… and I-I didn’t know if you were still—”

“We never stopped looking,” he says. “Never. We tried to find you, Sugar Bear. They said you were placed in the southeast, but everything went dark after that. I didn’t know where to start.”

I sob harder, clutching his jacket like I’m ten years old again.

Behind us, Lex and Cade stand frozen. Watching. Confused as hell. I don’t care, because for the first time in years, part of me feels like that little girl again. The one who used to ride on Uncle Jack’s shoulders through Razorback Stadium on game days.

Chapter 54

LEX

Kingsley Field – Wexley University

About to watch my girl kill it!

675 Days Since Zeke’s Death

The crowd’s already loud and the game hasn’t even started. I lean forward in my seat on the front row, arms resting on the steel barrier as I watch the chaos unfold below. The Wexley Wolves haven’t taken the field yet but the real show’s already begun.

The Trifecta.

They’re lined up in front of the student section, posing for photos like goddamn celebrities, and honestly, they might as well be. Little girls in mini Trifecta shirts bounce on their toes, ponytails flying, glittered cheeks catching the light. One’s holding a sign that says,I wanna be Bella when I grow up,and I swear, my heart does a weird fucking thing in my chest.

Because there she is.

My girl.

Laughing, radiant, and absolutely untouchable in her black and burgundy Trifecta uniform. Signing autographs with that signature smile, crouching down to pose with a group of middle schoolers, then standing and tossing her hair like the main character in every fantasy I’ve ever had.