Page 59 of Jayson (Gatti Enforcers #3)

KEIRA

I used to believe pain was something you escaped.

That if you ran fast enough, far enough, hid deep enough, you could outrun it. Leave it behind like a shadow that only clung to your heels because you were too slow.

I don’t believe that anymore. Pain isn’t a shadow. It’s a scar. And scars don’t chase you. They live in you.

The afternoon light spills across Tayana’s office in soft amber ribbons. Everything smells faintly of sandalwood and citrus, like warmth was bottled and lit on fire. She sits across from me, legs crossed, her notebook closed beside her. No pen. No pressure. Just space. And silence.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened,” I say, voice steady.

“That’s okay,” she replies. “You don’t have to.”

I pause. Swallow. Then I add; “I just want to talk about what it made me.”

Her gaze sharpens, softens, holds. “What did it make you?”

I stare at my hands. The same hands that clawed through darkness, that shook with rage, that once trembled too hard to hold a pen .

“Empty,” I whisper. “For a long time. Like someone scraped me hollow and forgot to fill me back in. And then angry. So angry I didn’t even know where to put it. I wanted to scream and break and burn and—” I cut off, voice shaking.

Tayana doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t rush to comfort me. She lets it linger.

“And then scared,” I continue, softer now. “Not of them. Of me. Of what I might do. What I might become.”

I lift my eyes. Meet hers.

“But now… I think it made me stronger. Not better. Not healed. Just… harder. Like it tempered something in me. Or maybe just exposed what was already there.”

Tayana nods slowly. “Trauma doesn’t disappear,” she says. “But sometimes it reshapes.”

I nod, even though my throat is closing again.

“Do you think it’ll always be a part of me?” I ask. “Even if I’m safe now? Even if I move on?”

“Yes,” she says, without hesitation. “It will always be a part of you.”She leans forward just slightly. “But it won’t always be the loudest part.”

I blink fast. “What if it is right now?”

“Then we let it be loud. And we don’t try to silence it with shame.”

The tears hit without warning. Not a sob, not a breakdown—just a slow, quiet leak down my face. My body doesn’t even move. I’m just… crying.

Tayana reaches for the tissue box and places it beside me, not in my hand. Another invitation, not a rescue.

“I keep thinking about who I used to be,” I say, wiping my cheek. “And I can’t get her back.”

“You’re not supposed to.”

That hits harder than anything else.

“You mourn her,” she continues. “Of course you do. You grieve the innocence, the before, the girl who didn’t know what it was to bleed from the inside out. But you don’t go back to her. You honor her by surviving forward.”

I swallow. Hard.

“I didn’t think I’d live this long,” I whisper. “There were nights I prayed I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” she says.

“And if it hadn’t been Jayson…” I trail off. “If it had been someone else who found me that night—anyone else—I think I’d be dead.”

“You think he saved you?”

I nod. “Not just from them. From me . From what I was turning into.”

Tayana tilts her head. “And now?”

“Now he just… stays,” I say. “He doesn’t try to fix me. He just holds the broken parts without asking me to hide them.”

I glance out the window, the world beyond it humming with ordinary life. Cars. Birds. Sunlight.

“I think I’m starting to believe I deserve that,” I whisper.

“You do,” she says, firm now. “You do.”

Another silence. But this one feels like breath, not weight.

“You’re not here to become who you were,” Tayana says. “You’re here to become who you survived to be.”

And in that moment, I feel it.

Not healing. But the space for it. The permission to begin.

When the session is over, I walk out into the sunlight feeling taller. Not lighter—just more rooted. Like I finally belong to my own skin again.

I take the long way home. Past the corner café where Jayson once dragged me after a night so sleepless I could barely see. Past the library with the cracked marble steps. Past the used bookstore I can’t help but walk into weekly .

It could’ve been anyone who took me that night. Anyone. But it was him.

And maybe that’s fate. Or maybe it’s just the cruel mercy of the universe. But either way, Jayson was the weapon fate handed me when everything else was stripped away.

And instead of using me like they all did…he shielded me. Loved me. Let me bleed, then helped me bind the wounds.

He could’ve turned away. Could’ve played the part of a monster. Could’ve broken me. But he didn’t. He chose me. Again. And again. And again. And now I get to choose him back.

When I get home, he’s on the floor, cross-legged in the middle of blueprint chaos. There are rolls of plans laid out, coffee mugs, red pens, and a million notes scribbled in his almost-illegible scrawl.

He’s shirtless. Hair damp. Eyes sharp.

And when he sees me, he smiles like I still surprise him. Like I matter in a way no blueprint ever will.

I step over a pile of plans and drop to my knees in front of him. He watches me, patient, quiet, like he knows something’s shifting.

“You okay?” he asks, always asking.

I nod. “Better than okay.”

And then I say it. The thing that’s been sitting on my chest for months like a stone I finally got the strength to lift.

“You asked me if I wanted to do it again. The wedding.”

He freezes. Waits. I smile. Small. Real.

“I don’t care about flowers or rings or paperwork. But if it matters to you—if it’s something you need to feel like it’s real, I’ll do it. We’ll do it. You and me. Just not because we have to. Because we want to. ”

He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for years.

“I want it,” he says. “But not for the ceremony. For the vow.”

“You already made the vow.”

“Then I’ll say it again. Just louder.”

That night, I stand at the window and watch the city fall asleep.

The skyline is stitched in gold. The harbor glitters. The streets quiet themselves one by one. And behind me, Jayson brushes his hands over my waist, presses a kiss to my shoulder like a ritual.

I used to think I wouldn’t survive this life. That if the trauma didn’t swallow me, the guilt would. But somehow, I made it here. To this house. This man. This quiet.

I still have bad nights. Still wake up with the echo of screams in my ears. Still can’t stand small, confined spaces. But the bad moments pass quicker now. They linger less. And when I reach for him in the dark, he’s always there. Solid. Steady. Mine.

The future doesn’t scare me anymore.

It’s not perfect—not clean. But it’s ours. And that’s enough. Because I’m not running. Not hiding. Not bleeding quietly behind a locked door.

I am here. Alive. Whole enough to begin again. And whatever comes next? I won’t just face it. I’ll fight for it.