Page 15 of Twisted Trails (Rogue Riders Duet #2)

Ambrose sinks into the armchair across from Dane, legs wide, elbows on his knees. His eyes are hard, but there’s something else there. Real fear.

So he’s not as cold as he pretends to be.

“Explain, Dane,” Ambrose demands.

Piper’s hand curls around his, but Dane doesn’t look up. His voice is quiet, watery around the edges when he finally speaks. “Do you know how hard it’s been being the one keeping her alive all these years?”

Ambrose doesn’t move. Neither do I.

Dane swallows, and it looks painful. “To be the first one she calls when it hurts too much? To sleep like shit every night for seven years because I’m scared, no, terrified , that one day I’ll wake up and she won’t?

That the pain finally won? That I missed it?

Missed the signs?” His jaw trembles. “You don’t know what it’s like to watch someone you love fake a smile so well, even you start believing it.

Only to be reminded that she doesn’t even want to be here anymore.

Because she told me, years ago, exactly how this ends. ”

I feel the words like a gut punch, and where there was hunger just a few moments ago, my stomach now clamps down on nausea.

“She said once she’s done with what she came here to do, she’d be done. That she didn’t want a life after, and was only coming back to bury him, and then she’d bury herself. She’d rather die than keep living in this much pain.”

Dane keeps going when Ambrose opens his mouth to argue.

“And no, she wasn’t being dramatic. She means it.

I just thought maybe if I helped her build this plan, if I believed in it enough, something would shift over the years…

that she’d find a reason to stay. But nothing changed, she’s still in pain every single day, and this…

” He gestures around us, at me . “This is the only thing tethering her to this world. The World Cup, the revenge, and her friends. And I’m not letting you take that from her, not when it might be the only thing keeping her alive. ”

Dane starts to sob again, and Piper pulls him into her, letting him cry against her shoulder.

I glance toward Ambrose, who looks as shell-shocked as I feel, then at my mother.

She’s pale. Paler than I’ve seen her in years.

Her hands are clutched in her lap as if she lets go, she’ll start shaking too. I don’t even think she’s breathing.

I need to move. I need air. Space. Anything.

But she stands first.

Her eyes meet mine as she walks slowly toward the kitchen, and I follow, because I can’t not.

She stops at the counter, both hands gripping the edge like she’s holding herself upright by sheer will, when I step in behind her and place my hand on her shoulder.

“You okay?” I ask, but I know the answer already .

When it comes to this topic, we’re both not okay.

She doesn’t look at me but nods faintly. “I’m just worried.”

“I know.”

She finally turns, and when her eyes find mine, she looks like she’s trying to see past me, perhaps searching for the little boy I used to be—the one who cried for months when my father didn’t come home, and my mother turned into a ghost because of it.

“Are you okay?” she asks softly.

I could lie, could pretend I’m still the brand, the unshakable, cocky Luc Delacroix?.

But I can’t, not with her.

“No,” I whisper, and my voice doesn’t even sound like mine.

She pulls me in without a word, wraps her arms around me, and I let her, before I press my chin to the top of her head, my eyes burning.

“I’m going to talk to her,” she promises into my chest. “I’m going to do my best. Those kids didn’t have a mother, and their father?

He’s… well, let’s be honest, he’s fucking useless.

” I huff a humorless laugh, and she leans back just enough to look up at me, brushing hair from my eyes.

“Maybe she just needs to see there are people in her life who love her, who care, and aren’t going anywhere. ”

I shake my head, jaw tight. “That didn’t save Dad.”

Her face folds, but she doesn’t look away. Instead, she strokes my cheek, and that’s when I feel the wet track of a tear I didn’t know had fallen.

“That’s true, mon soleil . But your father never said a word. He never let us in. Never showed us how deep it went. He smiled, remember? Every day. With Alaina, we have something we didn’t have back then.”

I blink, trying to see through the blur. “And that is? ”

“She told someone. Alaina told Dane. She asked someone to see her pain.” Maman grips my hand tightly. “I think that means, maybe, somewhere inside her, there’s still a part that wants to stay. She just doesn’t know how with everything so heavy on her shoulders.”

Merde.

The tears come fast now, and I can’t stop them, can’t breathe around the thought of losing her, of finding her too late, or feeling the air empty out of a room that still smells like her.

Because I can’t. I can’t lose her too.

“We’re not letting her slip through our fingers, okay?” Maman says fiercely, her voice the kind of steady that means she’s holding it all back for my sake. “I will not lose anybody else to this. I swear it, Luc. I won’t.”

And I won’t either.

I will do anything and everything in my power to make her life livable. I’ll go with her to every doctor, fight every fight with her, fight her father, be there for her brother, make sure Mason will fucking forgive her, and yeah, I’ll do my best to help Greer fix his fuckup.

I’d rather share her heart than watch it stop beating.