Page 45 of Desert Loyalties

Instead, I take a step closer. “I got news,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

Her gaze flicks up. “Hmm?”

I grin just a little. “The plan worked. Joker’s message did the trick. The DEA’s off our backs. Officially. We’re in the clear.”

Relief blooms on her face, and she stands to hug me. I wrap my arms around her tight, holding her longer than necessary. Feeling her heart beat against mine.

But I can still feel the tension under her skin. Something’s off. I don’t let go. “One more thing,” I say into her hair. “We don’t have to leave; Ranger changed the rule about the Old Lady ceremony.”

She pulls back just enough to look up at me, brow furrowed.

“From now on, it’s not about the three choices,” I explain. “It’s just the old ladies. Their pack. You know, sisters looking out for each other, no confessions, no gangbangs.”

She nods slowly, like she’s trying to figure out what that means for her.

“But since you’re the first,” I continue, “you don’t have to. Not to anyone.”

Her breath hitches.

“You can still tell me,” I add, voice lower now, more serious. “But I think I already know it.”

Her eyes go glassy, her mouth opens, then closes. She looks down, fists clenching in the hem of her shirt like she’s holding onto the world by a thread.

And here’s the thing about me: I’m not the hero. I don’t play by good-guy rules. I’ll burn down the world to protect what’s mine.

I reach out and take her chin between my fingers, tilting her face back up to mine.

“Whatever it is,” I say, “you tell me when you’re ready. But don’t mistake my patience for distance. You’re mine, Skye. No matter what you did. No matter what it is.”

She doesn’t respond right away, just stares at me like she’s waiting for the catch. But there isn’t one.

There never will be.

Because I already know, whatever her secret is, whatever darkness she’s carrying, I’ll take it. I’ll carry it for both of us if I have to.

That’s what it means to be hers. And for her to be mine. There is nothing she could say to make me see her differently. Not even when she says:

“I set the fire that killed my grandparents.”

Chapter 18

SKYE

“I set the fire that killed my grandparents.”

I say it in one breath because if I don’t, if I let myself hesitate for even a second, I’ll choke on it. I’ll shove it back down and smile like everything’s fine. Like I didn’t kill two people.

The silence is instant and suffocating.

Drake doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at me. Then, slowly, he sits down on the edge of the bed while I start pacing the room.

“What?” he says, quiet, steady, like he doesn’t want to scare me.

“When I graduated high school,” I start, my voice shaking even though I’ve told myself this a thousand times, “my grades weren’t good enough for the fancy colleges. I mean, I tried, but it’s hard to pull straight A’s when you’re working two jobs and raising yourself.”

He doesn’t interrupt. Just waits.

“But there was this one scholarship. It didn’t care about GPA. It cared about struggle. About story. They wanted kids who’d survived shit. So, I told mine. I wrote the most honest, soul-baring essay of my life, then sat in front of a panel of strangers and told it again. And it worked. I got in.”