Page 40 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

Tyler looked peaceful on the preparation table. Misha had cleaned him carefully, dressed him in clothes that actually fit—a simple black t-shirt, dark jeans that didn't hang off his frame. The chest binder was gone, replaced with something that looked natural. Right.

"He looks good," I said, voice rougher than I wanted. "Like himself."

Misha nodded from beside me, hands folded behind his back. "I wanted him to have dignity. To look like the person he was, not what others tried to make him."

I brushed my fingers against Tyler's forehead. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," I whispered.

The words hung in the quiet room. Misha didn't try to comfort me with bullshit about how it wasn't my fault. He just stood there, letting me say what I needed to say.

"Wright's going to pay," I continued. "For you. For all of them. I promise."

I leaned down, pressed my lips to Tyler's cold forehead. A goodbye. A vow. A benediction for the dead and the living.

River appeared in the doorway. "It's time."

The cremation chamber was smaller than I'd expected, and more welcoming instead of the cold, industrial room I’d imagined. River operated the controls. The door sealed with a soft hiss, and the machine hummed to life.

"Four to six hours," River said, checking the temperature gauges. "I'll monitor the process."

I nodded, throat too tight to speak. My chest constricted, lungs fighting for air. The finality of it crashed into me. Tyler was really gone. Had been gone since that night in the snow, but this made it real. Permanent.

"I need some air," I managed.

Misha's hand touched my arm briefly. "Take your time. I'll be here when you're ready."

I stumbled outside, the January cold hitting my face like a slap. I walked toward the tree line, boots crunching through snow and frozen grass. Away from everything.

I dropped onto a fallen log, head in my hands, and let the grief come. It started as a tightness in my throat, spread to my chest, then exploded outward until my whole body shook with it. Four years of numbness, buried under chemicals, cracked open all at once.

I cried for Tyler's dreams of surgery, an apartment, a life with choices. For the twenty-six others who'd died in Wright's trials. For disposable test subjects.

I cried for my parents' disappointment, for patients lost to COVID, for friends lost to overdoses, and for wasted years.

The tears came in waves from places I'd thought empty. My chest heaved. Snow soaked through my jeans, but I couldn't move. The pain was too raw.

Eventually, the storm passed. The tears stopped. My breathing steadied. I sat in the cold silence, wrung out but somehow lighter. Like something toxic had been purged from my system.

The sun was lower when I finally stood, legs stiff from sitting still too long. Hours had passed. The cremation would be nearly finished. Time to go back.

I found Misha in the office with War wrapping a fresh white bandage around his upper arm.

"What happened?" I asked.

Misha's eyes met mine. "Nothing serious. Just a precaution."

War finished tying the bandage. "The insertion site needs to stay clean for forty-eight hours."

Insertion site? Wrong location for an IV. Too much bandaging for a blood draw. What was it, then?

"I have something for you," Misha said, changing the subject. He opened a cabinet behind his desk, removing something carefully wrapped in black silk.

My breath caught as he unwrapped an urn of carved stone, deep gray with flecks of silver catching the light. Beautiful. Expensive.

"For Tyler," Misha said simply, placing it in my hands. "I've commissioned a nameplate. Tyler Graham, 1999-2025.”

It was lighter than expected. Twenty-six years of life, dreams, and struggles reduced to ash and bone fragments in stone.

My knees buckled. Misha caught me, one arm around my waist as the grief slammed back into me full force. The urn pressed against my chest, Tyler's final remains against my heart.

"I've got you," Misha murmured, holding me steady. "Let it out."

I clutched the urn tighter, shoulders shaking as the tears came again. Different this time. Not the raw, howling grief from the woods, but something deeper. The weight of responsibility. Of carrying Tyler's memory forward.

"He's safe now," Misha whispered against my hair. "Wright can't hurt him anymore."

We stood like that until my breathing steadied. Until I could hold Tyler's remains without falling apart. Until the worst of the storm passed.

"Come on," Misha said softly. "Let's go to the house."

We walked across the short distance between the funeral home and the Laskin family house, Tyler's urn cradled carefully in my arms. The cold air helped clear my head, but the grief remained, a constant weight in my chest.

Misha’s bedroom was warm and quiet. I sat on the edge of the bed, Tyler's urn in my lap, running my fingers over the smooth stone. This was why I was fighting. Why I was staying clean.

But knowing why didn't make it easier. The familiar itch started in my veins.

The need to make this pain stop, to float away from the crushing weight of grief and responsibility.

My hands shook slightly as I stared down at Tyler's ashes.

One hit would make this bearable. Just enough to take the edge off.

Jimmy's number was still on my phone. One call. Twenty minutes. The pain would disappear, replaced by warm numbness.

"Hunter?" Misha sat on the bed beside me. "Talk to me."

"I want to get high," I admitted shakily. "So fucking bad."

Misha nodded, no judgment in his eyes. "What would help instead?"

I shrugged, still staring at the urn. "Nothing. That's the problem."

Misha was quiet for a moment, considering. Then he stood, moving to a closet I hadn't noticed before. He pulled out a leather portfolio, thick with papers and photographs.

"I want to show you something," he said, sitting back down. "But first, you need to know this stays between us. Always."

I looked up. "I swear," I said, setting my hand over his. "Whatever it is, it stays with me."

He opened the portfolio, revealing professional photographs. Misha was in every one. But not the Misha I knew.

The first spread showed him in a midnight blue velvet jacket draped open to reveal his chest and silver chains. His hair was longer, styled in waves that caught studio lights like spun gold. His eyes stared into the camera with an intensity that made my breath catch.

I turned the page to a fragrance campaign depicting Misha emerging from a marble shower, water clinging to his skin, a white towel slung low around his hips. He looked over his shoulder, lips parted, with that same devastating stare.

More pages: Misha in a burgundy suit against a motorcycle, watch catching light on his wrist, every line calculated.

Another: black leather pants and suspenders crossing his bare chest, sprawled across silk sheets, throat exposed, diamond earrings catching light.

High fashion spreads, runway shots, editorial pieces. Misha as art, commodity, object of desire. Couture suits. Jewelry sparkled against his skin like some mythical creature.

"Paris," he said simply. "Before Roche. When modeling was still just a job."

I stared at the photographs, throat tight. The technical skill was undeniable. The lighting, composition, styling. All of it perfect. But underneath the polish, I caught glimpses of the person I knew. A certain angle of the jaw. The way his eyes held the camera.

A strange mix of emotions churned in my gut.

Pride, because this beautiful creature had chosen me.

Protectiveness, because I could see the vulnerability he'd hidden beneath all that polish.

And something darker swept through me, a possessive anger at everyone who'd seen him like this before I ever existed in his world.

All those photographers, designers, magazine readers who'd consumed his image without knowing the person behind it.

This was Misha before Roche broke him. Before trauma carved lines around his eyes. Before he learned to weaponize his beauty instead of just wearing it. The man in these photos was stunning, but he was also just an image. A commodity.

The real Misha—the one who held me through withdrawal, who fought his family for a junkie he barely knew, who killed his abuser with his own hands—he was infinitely more beautiful than anything captured in these pictures.

"You were incredible," I said, voice barely above a whisper.

"I was a product," Misha corrected. "Something pretty to sell clothes and perfume and fantasies. This is what Wright was talking about when he mentioned my experience with photography. These existed. In magazines, on billboards, and in ad campaigns across Europe."

Something shifted between us. The grief was still there, but underneath it was something fiercer. More demanding. The need to claim each other before we walked into whatever darkness waited at The Factory. The need to prove that Wright's corporate masters couldn't touch what we'd built together.

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked.

Misha's hand covered mine on the urn. "Because you're drowning in grief, and I want to give you something else to think about. And because..." He paused, swallowing hard. "Because I trust you with all of me. The broken parts and the beautiful ones."

My chest constricted, but not with pain this time. With something bigger, warmer. Something I'd thought was dead after years of addiction and loss. Something that terrified me almost as much as it amazed me.

I'd been in love before with men who couldn't handle stress, women who'd left when I started using, people of every gender who'd found reasons to walk away.

But this was different. This was Misha showing me his most vulnerable pieces, trusting me with beauty and trauma in equal measure.

This was him fighting his family for me, saving my life, holding me through withdrawal.

This was him seeing me at my absolute worst and choosing to stay anyway.