Page 30 of Knot Their Safe Haven

His face was partially obscured, but I could see the tension in his posture, the way his hand hesitated on the handle. Even in a grainy security photo, his desire was obvious.

Would exposure really be so bad?

Why can’t I wash this out of my mind like all the other threats?

Because I knew better. That secrets were meant to be left hidden in the darkness than exposed in a world so cruel and judgemental as ours.

The world wasn't ready for nuance.

They'd use it to tear down everything I'd built, paint me as a hypocrite who preached independence while spreading my legs for any Alpha who showed up.

At the end of the day, the truth wouldn't matter.

GHOSTS IN THE GLASS

~VELVET~

The leather split against my knuckles at 4:03 AM, a satisfying crack that echoed through the empty gym like confession in a cathedral.

Sweat poured down my spine, soaking through the sports bra that had seen better days, plastering purple curls to my neck in ways that would horrify my public image. But here, in the sacred hours before dawn when the world pretended to sleep, I could be raw.Unfiltered.Just another body pushing against its limits, trying to outrun demons that had learned to match my pace.

Fourth set. Or was it fifth?

The distinction hardly mattered when each punch felt like exorcism, each combination a prayer to gods who'd stopped listening around the time I'd turned thirty-five. My muscles screamed in that particular way that bordered between pleasure and pain—the sweet spot Knox had taught me to find all those years ago when I'd been young and furious and convinced I could fight the entire world.

Now I'm just fighting myself.

The bag swung back toward me, and I met it with a vicious right hook that sent shockwaves up my arm.

My wraps were soaked through, probably needed changing two sets ago, but I couldn't stop. Not when the alternative was lying in those expensive sheets, staring at the ceiling, counting the minutes until another day of pretending I had my shit together.

I needed water before I collapsed.

I stepped back from the bag, chest heaving, and reached for my bottle.

The cool liquid was heaven against my parched throat, and I drank greedily, not caring that half of it spilled down my chin to join the sweat already coating my skin. My reflection in the mirrored wall was a disaster—face flushed, hair a wet mess, the kind of disheveled that belonged in private moments, not public spaces.

But who's here to see at 4 AM?

That's when I saw him.

Through the glass partition that separated the Omega section from the main gym, a figure stood perfectly still.

Watching.

The emergency lighting cast shadows that obscured details, but something about the posture, the way he held himself like the world owed him explanations...

My water bottle slipped from nerveless fingers.

No. It couldn't be.

Memory crashed over me like a tide, dragging me back seventeen years to a different kind of desperation. Twenty-three and drowning in bills, pride too stubborn to accept more of Knox's help than absolutely necessary. The tutoring job had been a lifeline—teaching French to some rich kids whose parents thought culture could be purchased by the hour.

Alessandro Lucien Devereaux.

Even then, at eighteen, he'd been magnetic in that dangerous way that made people either want to follow him or run. Six feetof barely-contained potential wrapped in designer clothes that cost more than my rent. But it wasn't the money or the name that had unsettled me.

It was the way he looked at me.