I look at him, and his face is blank—empty in a way that feels dangerous.
Not calm.
Not tired.
Just… hollow.
Like he's shut every door inside himself and bolted them from the other side.
A chill wraps around my spine.
Nothing I say is going to shake him—not unless he lets it.
"Talk about leaving once more and I'll strap you to this damn chair," he snaps, voice low, not even angry… just a warning wrapped in steel.
My breath catches, but I lock my expression.
I'm not giving him that satisfaction.
Not when he's the one covered in other people's blood.
Not when I'm the one who deserves answers.
"Then start talking," I say, steady.
His jaw ticks.
His eyes flatten out.
A wall slams shut behind them—one even thicker than the blood-covered one he walked in with.
He looks like someone preparing for a fight, or worse, preparing to run.
"Rain, we need to leave this place," he says finally, voice clipped. "It's not safe."
I tilt my head, eyebrows lifting slowly. "Okay. I'll leave. Why? What isn't it safe? What exactly am I walking into?"
His breath bursts out in a sharp exhale—frustrated, annoyed, familiar.
God, so familiar.
It's the same expression he used to give me when we were kids and I'd poke at him, push him, ask a hundred questions until he lost patience.
Back then he'd throw a cushion at my head or storm out.
Now he just looks at me like I'm the last person on earth he wants to lie to…
and the only person he doesn't want to tell the truth.
But I'm not backing off.
Not now.
Not when every nerve in my body is screaming that something is very, very wrong.
"Danny," I say, leaning forward, tone low. "I'm not done. I'm not a child—you don't get to decide what I should or shouldn't know. If I'm in danger, you talk."
Something flickers across his eyes—shock? anger? fear?—gone too fast to catch.
But it's enough to raise every hair on my skin.
He's hiding something.
Something big enough to get us killed.
And I'm not leaving that table until he says it.
"Whose blood was that?"
"Who was following us?"
"And why are you acting like this—like this is normal for you?"
His eyes snap up. Dark. Cutting. A warning in them I've never seen before.
"Why do you suddenly care?" he drawls.
It slices straight through me—clean, brutal.
Because there's no good answer.
Anything I say will sound desperate, exposed, stupid.
So I swallow it.
Swallow all of it.
"Fine," I whisper. "Have it your way."
I push back my chair—barely an inch—and then—
He moves.
Fast. Too fast.
A hand clamps around my wrist, yanks me backward, flips me toward the table.
My breath punches out as my chest hits the wood, hard.
He twists my arm behind me, pinning me effortlessly, his body pressing into mine—heat, weight, presence swallowing me whole.
I can't even think.
He leans down, his mouth at my ear, voice a low, controlled threat.
"You're not going anywhere. Am I clear?"
My skin erupts in chills.
He twists my arm a little more—the gall of him.
He doesn't flinch.
Doesn't loosen his grip.
If anything, he presses closer, the heat of him rising against my back, his breath steady, maddeningly calm—as if restraining me like this is the most natural thing in the world.
His voice drops even lower, almost against my skin.
"You don't get to walk away from me."
A shiver runs through me—anger, fear, something else I don't want to name.
My pulse hammers against the table.
The room feels too small, too hot, too charged.
And then I feel it—him.
All of him.
Pressed flush against my back, heat pouring through my clothes, solid enough to steal the air from my lungs.
It hits me so suddenly, so unmistakably, that my entire body goes still.
I freeze.
And he feels it the same second I do—
His grip shifts, not loosening… just changing.
More deliberate.
And then the flashbacks hit—
hot, lush, overwhelming.
I remember it too vividly—me bent over the kitchen table.
The same table where we used to laugh, argue, steal food off each other's plates… and now?
Now, in his words, we were christening it.
I remember the way he pushed into me, stretching me slow, deliberate, like he wanted every second branded into my skin.
His butter-slick fingers trailed lazily up my spine, leaving a soft, sticky heat behind. I gasped, and he only hummed—low, pleased—before lowering his head.
Then his tongue followed the path his fingers drew.
A long, slow lick across my back, warm butter melting under his mouth, my body arching helplessly into the table.
And just when I thought I couldn't take another second—the heat, the way he knew exactly what he was doing—he grabbed my chin and turned my face toward him.
His mouth crashed into mine.
Warm. Sweet.
The taste of whipped butter… and the unmistakable taste of me on his tongue.
A mix so intoxicating I felt it all the way to my toes.
His low groan drags me back to the present—slow, rough, pulled straight from somewhere deep in his chest.
A sound that curls down my spine and settles warm and heavy between my ribs.
I don't dare look at him.
If I do, every memory, every feeling I've been shoving down will spill straight out of me.
But I don't need to see him to feel him—
his amusement crackles in the air.
"What're you thinking about?" he murmurs, his lips grazing the shell of my ear, voice honey-low and completely unfair.
I squirm.
His laugh comes next—deep, rich, the kind that vibrates through me more than it sounds in the air.
God. That laugh.
It's the first time I've heard it in years, and it makes my heart feel….full.
A smile slips out—small, traitorous—and his eyes catch it.
Of course they do.
I force myself to look at him anyway.
Our gazes collide—too intense, too knowing, —and I break away first.
He lets me go.
Just… lets go.
And the second he does, the absence hits hard—
my skin feels oddly bare without his hands, like the air isn't warm enough anymore.
Silence settles between us.
A silence that feels like it's leaning in, waiting to see who breaks first.
I move to the couch, needing distance, needing space to think.
He watches every step I take, jaw tight, eyes following me.
"I still need us to get out of here," he says.
And just like that—
The moment shatters.
"You can't ask me to move at your whim," I fire back. "I deserve answers."
His stare stays fixed.
"Does your dad even know where you are?"
He goes rigid.
Not a flinch.
Not a shift.
He just… locks.
Like I've hit something buried .
Good. Something finally landed.
"Does he know you have a gun?" I press, sharper now. "I bet he doesn't."
He's trembling.
"Give me your phone," I say, standing. "I'll call him. He should know there are people chasing me because of you."
I don't know why I'm talking like this.
Like I still have any claim on him.
Like he didn't walk out of my life and build a whole new one without me.
Then—
CRACK.
I jump.
He's punching the wall.
Not once—again. Again.
The sound is sickening, flesh against brick.
His knuckles split open, blood leaving stark red streaks on white paint.
He looks like a man trying to beat back a ghost with his bare hands.
"Danny—stop!"
I rush toward him. "Stop, you're hurting yourself—just stop!"
He turns slowly—like his body weighs too much, like every movement is a battle.
His eyes—
God.
Bloodshot, wild, so full of pain I feel it hit me physically.
Like grief clawing out of him and taking his air with it.
He looks like standing upright is costing him everything he has left.
"You can't call my dad."
His voice is raw.
A cold dread slides into my stomach, heavy and sinking.
"Why not, Danny?"
My voice is barely a whisper.
His mouth trembles.
He tries to swallow the words, tries to breathe through them—
but they're stronger than he is.
"He's dead."
The words leave him in pieces.
"That's why."
Before I can even react—
his legs give out.
He drops to his knees like the world has finally crushed him.
Like he's been holding this up alone for far, far too long.