Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Violet Sorrengail liked control, in life.

She had taken control of her career, after her mother had tried to shape it for her. Had taken control of her relationships, after her brother and sister tried to give her unsolicited opinions over who she should befriend, or date. Had taken control of her body, too—at least as much as she could manage.

She liked control, thrived in control, and felt safe, in control.

There was one tiny little inconvenience in her life over which she did not have control, though, and she hated it. Hated it with all she had.

Or rather, she liked to think she hated it, even though a part of her knew it wasn’t true.

Which only proved her point further.

That inconvenience was looking right back at her. All six feet and some inches of him, dark skin and black curls, infuriating basta—

“Violet?”

Her head whipped to where Rhiannon was standing in one corner of the bookstore she owned. She didn’t know yet if she wanted to strangle her best friend for the knowing smirk on her lips, or hug her for the distraction it gave her.

Either way, Violet made her way to her.

“What?”

Rhiannon waited until she was standing right in front of her to speak, and even then, her eyes quickly darted behind Violet before returning to her.

“Nothing,” she said quietly. “But you looked like you needed saving from Mr. Handsome over there. You’ve been ogling for far too long.”

Violet rolled her eyes dramatically.

“I wasn’t ogling. And don’t call him that."

Her best friend raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at her “Aren’t you the one who called him that the first time you saw him?” Violet greeted her teeth. She would have groaned, too, if not for said him still standing behind her.

Rhiannon handed her a book that Violet knew she had just grabbed from the bookshelf next to her and grinned. “Will you put this back for me? Couldn’t figure out where it belongs,” she lied, winking, and Violet rolled her eyes again.

When she turned around, book in hand, he was still there—of course, he was still there—leaning on her counter as if he belonged there, and looking at her with that smug, arrogant look on his face.

“Violence,” he said as she approached, rounding the counter.

“Don’t call me that,” her voice was clipped, and she couldn’t care less. “What do you want, Xaden?”

“I’m looking for a book.”

She couldn’t help her scoff. “No, you’re not.”

His smirk was almost as infuriating as his eyebrow, which was slowly perking up. “I’m not?”

“No,” she confirmed flatly. “You’re not.”

She slammed the book on her counter with a little bit more force than necessary, which apparently only served to amuse him further. Bastard.

“Then why am I here?” he challenged, cocking his head to the side, his eyes dancing with amusement.

She hated his eyes. She hated how dark they were. How, in a dim light, she could pretend they were completely black, almost as dark as his onyx hair. And how, with more brightness, you could see tiny little flecks in them. Flecks of gold, that looked like his own solar constellation in the dark pool of his irises.

She hated his eyes.

She hated that she loved them even more.

Violet sighed heavily, “I don’t know, Xaden. You’re probably here to annoy me. Or to piss me off. Both of which you’re succeeding at, may I add.”

“Ah,” he crossed his arms over his chest. Gods, she hated his arms, too. “See, I thought—”

But his sentence hung unfinished between them, because his phone rang, and that seemed to sober him up immediately. He straightened at the sound, his smile disappearing from those lips—which, she hated just as much—and he retrieved it from his pocket immediately. He didn’t even glance back up at her when he said, “Sorry, Violence. I gotta go.”

And with that, he was out of the bookstore in no time.

Yes, she hated him.

But maybe what she hated above all else, was the fact that she kept staring at the door he had just crossed for maybe a full minute before Rhiannon dragged her attention back.

“What was that?” she asked, already walking up to her.

Violet didn’t bother answering. She pinched the bridge of her nose, made herself unclench her jaw, and grabbed the book her friend had used as a diversion—Great Expectations—to bring it back where it belonged.

“Vi?” she pushed, “You gonna tell me what this was all about?

“It was nothing,” she put the book back on its shelf. “Aren’t you supposed to go join Ridoc for your barathon, or something?”

She turned around, only to be met with Rhiannon’s dark eyes narrowed on her. The several braids gathering her brown hair and resting on each of her shoulders looked like snakes that were judging her just as much, and it would have been intimidating, if she weren't one of the people Violet loved most in her life. Maybe not at that exact moment, though. “It’s only 4 in the afternoon. Don’t deflect. I thought you went on a date with him?”

Violet scoffed at that. Loudly, angrily. 'Date' was no name for the disaster and waste of a night that was.

“I had more fun dating Dain, and that’s saying something.”

The grimace that made its way to her friend’s face only mirrored her own disgust. “That bad? What happened?”

She nodded to the door, a few strands of her hair escaping with the movement.

“That happened. The guy is glued to his phone and evaporates at the first call he gets. I’m done being with guys who don’t appreciate me enough.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You gonna argue with me on that, Rhi?”

“Gods, no.” her friend shook her head. “Fuck him, if that’s the case. He doesn’t deserve you. And I have just the right way for you to get over that ass.”

Violet strongly wanted to tell her she didn’t have anything to get over, because they’d never been together, and she wasn’t interested.

She hated him, anyway.

She decided it wasn’t worth arguing, though, and groaned when her friend offered to drag her to her upcoming night with Ridoc. But she never really stood a chance, and so Violet agreed reluctantly.

She saw Xaden twice more, that week, and only once the week after that. Each time, he was wearing that infuriating smirk of his, and each time, he didn’t buy anything, or do anything other than annoy her.

And more than once, he left with his phone clamped in his hand.

She realized her joints ached more on the days when she had seen him, and even though the logical part of her brain told her that was because she was more tense around him, she couldn’t help but think her own body felt his presence as ominous.

It was another week after that when she saw him again, but he wasn’t alone, this time.

And for the first time in a while when he was around, she smiled. A bright, huge smile that she couldn’t contain even if she tried.

“Liam!” She ran to her friend and he had no hesitation as he pulled her close to him in a bone-crushing hug.

“Hey, Vi,” he kissed the top of her head without letting her go. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” she mumbled against his chest. She finally pulled back and took him in. “How are you? How was it? When did you get back?”

His chuckle made his blue eyes glint in the light, but it was Xaden who answered beside him,

“I haven’t heard so many words pass your lips in a long while, Violence.”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t even bother to turn to him.

“That’s because you don’t deserve it,” she tugged at Liam’s hand. “Stay here for a little while? Tell me all about your trip? Please.”

“Sorry, Vi,” his smile turned apologetic now. “I can’t today, but I’ll make sure to come by during the week.” He squeezed her hand. “I needed to get a book, actually. Can you help me pick one?”

“Oh,” she tried to hide her disappointment with an easy smile. “Sure, what do you need?”

Instead of answering though, he turned to Xaden, “You want to grab something for Rose?”

Violet tried to rein in her heart, that almost sank in her stomach, and her brows, that desperately wanted to reach the top of her head. She gathered all her willpower and channeled all the years she had spent swallowing her pain to keep a straight face.

“No,” Xaden answered without missing a beat, and buried his hands in his pockets. “She’s good.”

“Okay then,” Liam shrugged, and turned back to Violet. “What can you get me for Sloane?

She forced a smile on her face, “I know just the book. Your sister will love it.”

Violet made a point to ignore Xaden for all of the ten minutes he and Liam were in the bookstore.

She sent the latter home with Little Women, which she knew for a fact his sister had never read, and would love, judging by the few interactions she’d had with her in the past, and the few books he had offered her following Violet’s recommendations.

As Liam hugged her goodbye, pressed another kiss to her head, and promised to call her very soon, she, in turn, did not spare a single glance at his stupidly handsome friend beside him.

And she was reminded—again—of how much she hated the man.

Hated, hated, hated him.

As hard as he made it for her.

Chapter Text

“Maybe it’s his mother,” Sawyer shrugged from where he was lying on the floor, and it only made Violet’s head move up and down with the movement, from where her head was resting on his shoulder.

“Nah,” She couldn’t see Rhiannon since she was lying on the floor as well, but she could picture her frown perfectly. “I don’t think Liam would be on a first name-basis with his mom. It’d be more like, hey, d’you want to pick up a book for your mother?”

Violet would have laughed at her friend’s absolutely ridiculous imitation of Liam if she weren’t so irritated and frustrated by the subject.

“Or a friend?” Sawyer continued, “I’d bet she’s just a friend. Like that pink-haired girl. Imagil?”

That managed to get a snort from Violet.

“Imogen,” she corrected. “And you’d better not let her hear you butchering her name. She can slice you open with just one look.”

Ridoc turned his head on the floor to look at Violet and wiggled his eyebrows. “That’d be kind of hot, if you ask me.”

The sigh that escaped Violet was tired, and strained. She lifted both her hands to her face and started massaging her eyelids gently in the hopes that this would help with the headache that had been killing her all day—all week, if she was being honest.

“Shut up, Ridoc,” Rhiannon sighed, and Sawyer echoed almost instantly,

“Yeah. Shut up, Ridoc.”

They all fell silent for a few minutes, the only sound in Violet’s bedroom the sound of their breathing, until eventually, Ridoc sat up with a gasp.

“Oh!” His eyes were blown wide when he turned to each of them. “I know!”

He looked as if he’d just discovered the cure to cancer, and maybe Violet should have known better, but she couldn’t help but wait in anticipation.

Whatever he thought he knew, it was promising.

“Maybe,” he said, “he’s a psycho killer with a weird fetish for girls with flower names.” Violet’s eye roll was instantaneous and made her headache ten times worse. “Just think about it! Rose, Violet,” he said, lifting a finger with each name he added to the list. “Then he’d probably go for a Lily, Daisy—“

Rhiannon sighed heavily, “You’re deranged.”

“—Iris,” he continued. “No, it’s brilliant!”

Violet felt Sawyer move under her, and she shifted to prop her head on the floor and allow him to sit up.

“It is kind of poetic,” Sawyer offered. “But yeah, Ridoc, you’re clearly nuts.”

“Don’t encourage him, Sawyer,” Rhiannon nudged his side, and from the corner of her half-closed eyes, Violet saw her friend nod silently in her direction on the floor. She could hear them bickering quietly, probably sharing worry and concern, and her irritation only grew further.

“Ugh,” Violet groaned after a few minutes. “Can you stop? Can you stop hovering, and can you stop talking about that? I don’t care about that guy. I don’t care about him, or his mother, or his fucking psycho kinks. Okay?”

They didn’t answer right away—none of them. Violet sighed, and finally sat up as well, only to find her friends’ eyes all trained on her.

“What?” She snapped at their expressions.

It was Rhiannon who answered—and that wasn’t a surprise, because it was always Rhiannon who answered when she was grumpy and bitchy.

“You were the one who talked about it, Vi,” she offered in a voice that was probably too gentle for what Violet deserved. “You keep talking about it.”

“I do not—“

“You do,” Ridoc said, offering an apologetic smile that had nothing mocking, or sarcastic, for once. “It’s been what, two weeks? And you keep mentioning it.”

Violet greeted her teeth in annoyance. In denial, also, maybe.

“Why don’t we just ask Liam?” Sawyer suggested after a few minutes, and this time, Violet got up, deciding she’d clearly had enough of this.

“We’re not asking Liam. We’re not even mentioning it to Liam, and we’re not talking about it. Whoever that—“ she bit back an insult that was probably way too colorful for someone she didn’t know. “Person is, I don’t mind. Even better, I don’t care. He knows someone named Rose? Good for him. Pretty name.”

She was very much aware of her friends’ disbelieving stares, and she knew that underneath them, she’d only find care, concern and love. She didn’t want to see any of it right now.

Violet saw Liam often, these days, which she could never complain about.

He’d come to her bookstore in the morning, bringing her a cup of coffee in the process, and linger with her for a while. Even helped her tidy up the bookshelves that she had set her mind on reorganizing—though all he did was wait for her directions because, as he’d told her, there’s no way I mess up your system and you get all violent on me.

She ignored his remark and his choice of words as much as she could.

He’d come to see her in the evenings, too, and would sometimes go as far as inviting her to the gym he worked at—inviting her to some kind of boxing event they’d host—but she always denied politely. She had no interest in watching people boxing, or in anything remotely close to this gym she had already heard way too much about.

Liam never complained. Never made her feel bad about declining his invitations, and she loved him all the more for it.

One day, though, he managed to convince her.

Your friend Ridoc will be there, he’d told her. He signed up to the gym a little while ago and he’s competing tonight. He didn’t tell you?

No, Ridoc hadn't told her. Of course, he hadn't.

Probably because he knew she’d freak. But she wasn’t calling it freaking out, when she was just a tiny bit bothered.

So with a heavy sigh, she offered him a smile, and followed him to the gym.

On the way there, she realized something.

She hadn’t thought of Xaden Riorson in a long while. Which was perfect—she wasn’t complaining about that. But not thinking about him for a long while also meant she hadn’t seen him in a long while.

And that—was odd.

She still wasn’t complaining about that. She was glad, even. One less problem and inconvenience in her life was all she ever wanted.

But still. It was—strange?

He had been a constant in her life for a while now.

A little less than six months, but still. He’d been there with Liam the day she’d gotten the keys to the empty space she now called a bookstore. Liam had offered to come help with the few renovations, and since she couldn’t resist those blue eyes, of course she’d agreed.

What she didn’t know, though, was that she was agreeing to another pair of arms, and another pair of eyes, all in the shape of his foster brother, and she had been caught off guard.

Because for all that Liam was tall, and handsome, and charming, Xaden was—a little bit taller, and twice as handsome, and infuriatingly all the more charming.

Not that Liam had anything to envy his brother, no. But he was Violet’s very good friend, and so her love and attraction for him was all purely platonic.

But Xaden—

Her brain had frozen the first time she had met him.

And it had continued to freeze, repeatedly, every single time she’d seen him, which had been—a lot, in the last six months.

He had made a habit of popping up to her bookstore at least once a week, and that was a bare minimum.

At first, she’d wondered if he was a bookworm, like her. Because he’d always left with a book under his arm, and a couple of bills on her register.

But when she started talking to him—talking books with him—she realized, maybe not. Not that he wasn’t cultivated, but she could feel he wasn’t as into his Classics as she was. As she’d always been.

He made a pretty good effort, though.

So, she wondered if maybe it was pity that dragged him to her bookstore, buying a book every time. Just because it was hard, opening a store in a city, in a time where a multi-billion dollar company could get it delivered to your door on the same day, and you didn’t even have to move from your couch.

Just one business owner helping another.

But that theory, too, was dulled by the fact that he bought fewer and fewer books, over time. And still, he kept showing up. More and more.

So she was left with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he liked her. Liked her for her.

And that was too much of a frightening thought to have about Xaden Riorson, she realized, because it had made her believe that maybe… she liked him, too?

That had been two months ago. And things were very different, now.

For one, she hated him. She was dead set on that. And she knew he wasn’t interested, either, so that was perfect.

Maybe he’d finally taken the hint and stopped showing up at her bookstore because even bothering her had become tedious, now.

Perfect.

“Vi?” She was startled by her friend’s voice, and her head whipped toward him. He had his usual easy smile on. “You with me?”

“Of course,” she replied instantly. “Are we here yet?” She nodded to the building that was becoming more and more imposing in front of her. “When Xaden first told me he owned a gym, I thought it was a small, little thing. Not this kind of—” she frowned. “Monstrosity.”

Liam chuckled, “You don’t like gyms?”

She shrugged. She couldn’t care less about gyms.

There were a few moments of silence, and as they were nearing the front door, Liam offered, “In case you were wondering… He won’t be here tonight.”

“I wasn’t.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it. Liam didn’t call her out on it, though.

“He’s having a busy…month,” he added, and there was something in his voice she couldn’t decipher, but she tried to ignore it.

“Good for him,” she tried to smile easily. “Anyways, what’s this boxing thingy?”

That effectively diverted Liam’s attention away, and he started getting into a detailed explanation of what, exactly, she should be prepared to watch. He held the door for her when they entered the building, and she couldn’t help but think that, yeah, this was definitely larger than she expected.

The gym was crowded. People were everywhere, talking and laughing and going this way and that, and Violet felt a little dizzy just by looking at them.

Liam took her hand in his, though, and dragged her through a few corridors, and a few doors, until they entered a room filled with mats, where people were all gathered as if to watch a show.

And what a show that was.

She couldn’t tell why—well, she could, but she wasn’t admitting that—but Violet’s body went very still at the first glimpse of what was happening in the middle of the room, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Had to remind her heart to beat, too, because she could have sworn it had stopped just a little.

Because she could have sworn that there, shirtless in the middle of the mat with a thin coat of sweat adorning his every muscle, stood Xaden, facing another man she had never seen.

She could only see his back from where she was standing, but he had the same broad shoulders, the same dark curls, the same posture. It wasn’t Xaden, though. She recognized it, now. Each of his traits was less sharp. Softer.

It wasn’t Xaden, and she didn’t know if she should be relieved, or disappointed.

“It’s his cousin,” Liam whispered next to her. “Bodhi. Looks like him, huh?”

“Mh,” she feigned nonchalance, and could only pray she’d fool anyone other than herself. “I hadn’t noticed, really.”

The snort that escaped her friend’s lips was as disbelieving as it could be.

“So where’s Ridoc?” She said instead, and Liam pointed a finger to one corner of the room, where she found, indeed, her other friend in what she supposed was a warm-up session. Serious as she had ever seen him.

“It’s his first fight here. So he’ll probably go against Bodhi. He likes to get the first round on newbies.”

Violet’s eyebrows perked up at that. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched as both men on the mat—Bodhi and that other guy—threw punch after punch.

She hadn’t expected boxing to be so…artistic.

They watched fight after fight, and Violet surprised herself by holding her breath, and cheering every now and then. She laughed at Liam’s muffled comments, and clapped with him, and ended up having a far better night than what she had planned initially.

Ridoc held his own surprisingly well—or unsurprisingly, because her friend wasn’t exactly weak or lacking in strength.

Her joints were starting to ache from standing too long, though, and she had to ask Liam to point her to the bathroom so she could get a small reprieve.

Venturing in the empty corridors after having spent almost two hours surrounded by buzzing noise and cheers was as nice as it was weird. Her head was still pounding to the rhythm of the clasps she had heard and that might explain why she got a little lost following the directions Liam had given her.

Third door to the right, in the second corridor after the water fountain. Right?

She wasn’t quite sure, now, but either way, she stopped dead in her tracks when she walked by a half-open door with a big sign on it.

Xaden Riorson

Founder and CEO of X boxing & co.

She wanted to snort at the smugness.

But the corridor was still empty and quiet, and the door was half-opened after all, and she couldn’t help to peek her head inside, just a little. Just to see the huge desk—hardwood if she had to guess—and the couch lining the window behind it.

And the books, too. Of course, Violet being Violet, she noticed the books first.

So many books her hands itched to come closer and look at each of them. Almost a whole wall was covered in books and, based on the shapes and colors, she’d say they were mainly business, economics, and maybe leadership. She wouldn’t be surprised to find a few training and fitness books amongst them as well, but her guess was that everything Xaden Riorson knew about training and working out, he hadn’t gotten from a book. No, that was all experience.

She did notice, though, a smaller bookshelf in a corner, and she couldn’t make out the books in it, but they were tinier. More colorful. She frowned. It was weird. Her eyes didn’t linger there, though, because on top of that bookshelf were discarded a few others, and those, she recognized. Those, she had sold. They were the books he’d gotten from her bookstore.

She grimaced. She hadn’t thought he’d kept any of those books. Thought he'd offered them to someone, at the very least.

The Catcher in the Rye, and 1984, and The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Great Gatsby, were a few she remembered him grabbing from her bookstore pretty well.

Oh, and Kramer vs. Kramer, too. This one, she remembered because she had frowned when he had retrieved it, and it had been one of the last ones he’d bought.

There’s a movie for that one, she told him, frowning, when he gave it to her along with another one, that she couldn’t recall right then.

That’s not something you should tell your clients if you want your books to sell, he'd retorted with his usual smirk. When she kept frowning, though, he added, I know there’s a movie, Violence. But I like the book better.

She had just shrugged.

Violet sighed heavily, and shook her head. She’d been gone long enough, and hadn’t even found what she was looking for, yet. And spying in empty offices at night—CEO offices—was not something she should be doing.

So she made herself turn on her heels and join Liam, the bathroom utterly forgotten.

Chapter Text

The next time she saw Xaden, Violet had to do a double take.

She didn’t even feign annoyance, because she was so caught off guard. His hair was ruffled, and there were bags under his eyes—small, but she could see them oh so clearly—and she wondered if he’d gotten any sleep at all, the night before.

He wore his usual arrogant expression, though, and that made her forget all about the blossoming worry in her stomach. She remembered why she hated him on sight.

“Good morning, Violence,” he said, and yeah, she knew exactly why she hated him.

She turned her head back to the bookshelf she had been busy with.

“What do you want?” she asked flatly, still not sparing him another glance.

His voice betrayed his smug smirk when he said, “I’ve missed you, too.”

Violet scoffed.

She scoffed, because the alternative would have been to throw a book at his head, and she couldn’t do that.

She didn’t want to ruin the book.

“I need a book, though, if you were so nice as to help me with that?”

Sarcasm was radiating off his every word, and she really debated whether she had a tome to spare on him. Surely, she could find something of lesser value. It’d be totally worth it.

She clenched her hands into fists, turning around to appraise him. “What kind of book?”

Xaden cocked his head to the side, “You ever going to talk to me normally again, or will I be the subject of your never-ending violence for the rest of my days?”

She wasn’t sure, but was there a hint of annoyance in his voice?

She crossed her arms over her chest without answering and the sigh he rewarded her with was tired. Exhausted, even. It almost made her regret her (childish) behavior.

Almost.

“Coehlo,” he said. “The Alchemist.”

Her heart immediately softened at that, and maybe it must have shown on her face, too, because Xaden seemed to relax, as well, just a little.

Violet had read—at least once—each and every book she had in her bookstore. She had read a great deal, thanks to her dad and his shared passion for words, and she couldn’t bear to sell a single one without knowing what it was about. She often made herself read the books before ordering them for sale, which meant she knew each of those books.

And she loved this one.

She knew exactly where each was placed in her bookstore, too, so it was no trouble finding what she was looking for.

What she didn’t expect, though, was for Xaden to be standing so close to her when she turned around with the book in her hand.

She furrowed her brows, hating that she had to crane her neck up to meet his eyes, and handed it to him silently.

He didn’t take it though, only kept staring at her.

“You ever gonna forgive me, Violence?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she barked back, because who did he think he was?

“Come on,” he leaned in slightly, and she suddenly found he was way too close. Taking up way too much space in her otherwise small boutique. “You’re mad at me since that d—”

“Don’t say it,” she warned with narrowed eyes. “And why would I be mad at you, Xaden?” The smile she offered him was soft, and angelic, and very much fake. She hoped he knew. “Tell me,” she continued. “What could you possibly have done, for me to be mad at you?”

“I already apologized for having to leave early. I also asked you out again—multiple times—but you keep turning me down. What else do you need me to do?” He leaned in, closer this time, and she had to hold her breath when his lips hovered next to her ear. “Get on my knees and beg?”

She swallowed. She was not affected by Xaden Riorson. Or by Xaden Riorson whispering things in her ears. Or by Xaden Riorson’s breath against her skin.

She. was. not.

She shoved at his chest to move him, and when he did take a step back, they both knew it was all of his decision to move, and none of her strength. She wasn’t weak, per se—had even given in to Rhiannon’s offer to train her once or twice— but she could never hold her own against this mountain of muscles.

It was pure physics.

“You want the book or not?” She moved it between them in emphasis. “Unless this was simply a way to annoy me?”

“Believe me,” he said in a tired voice, taking the book she was still holding. “I have more important things to do in life than annoy you.”

The scoff that escaped her lips was absolutely unintentional.

Because—Ouch.

“Duly noted,” she said coldly, and walked to the bookshelf she had been sorting through. “You can just put the money on the counter and leave. That’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

“It’s not—” he sighed and tried to grab her hand. “Violet—”

She yanked it back.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “Goodbye, Xaden.”

She didn’t turn to see the pained look in his eyes, or his hands running through his face and hair. She only busied herself once more and tuned out the rest of the world.

He was back two days after that, looking even worse. This time, she raised an eyebrow at him, but he didn’t even tease or make any attempt at his usual banter.

“I’m here for another book,” he said in place of greeting, and she narrowed her eyes on him.

“Why?”

“Because I finished the other and I want a new one.”

She appraised him for a beat, two, before she asked, “What do you want?”

“Life of Pi,” he said. “I don’t remember the name of the author. You have that?”

Both her eyebrows lifted at that, “First The Alchemist, then Life of Pi,” she snorted. “You on a spiritual journey or something, Riorson?”

It was almost indiscernible, but she could see the ends of his lips tugging upwards, and she couldn’t help but think this was a win.

He looked slightly less miserable, like that.

“Am I not allowed to read what I wish?”

She shrugged, “It’s just weird, that’s all.”

Yeah, there was definitely a smirk on those lips now.

“Are you admitting to judging your clients by what books they buy, Violence?”

“No,” she glared at him. “I’m not judging anyone. But I do—notice things. And you are not the kind to buy spiritual books.”

He rolled his eyes, but he still had that amused expression in place. “They’re good books. So, you have it?”

She bit her lower lip, staring at him for half a second, and before she could change her mind, she said, “Wait here.”

And then she was in her back storage area, where she took the stairs that led her to her apartment upstairs. It didn’t take her long to find the book on her own personal bookshelf, and she stared at it in her hands for a few minutes before she sighed and descended the stairs.

She paused, though, when she made to reenter her shop. Xaden was still there, leaning against one of the walls lining her shop, arms and legs crossed. His eyes were closed, though, and all the exhaustion she had seen before was back at full force.

There was a weird feeling stirring in her belly at the sight, and she hated it. She didn’t want to care for Xaden Riorson.

She had been staring for maybe a full minute when his phone rang, and it startled them both. She watched as he shut his eyes even tighter, pressing his eyelids even more firmly for a second, before he retrieved his phone.

His eyes darkened the moment he picked it up.

“What do you want? Is she okay?” he asked, and his voice was rough. It was pure hatred taming his words. “No. You have to use the other one,” he said after a pause, clenching his jaw. “The other one,” he repeated, and this time, his eyes darted to Violet, noticing her. Her cheeks flushed from embarrassment.

She started walking toward him and he tracked her every step. “It’s one fucking week, Cat, and you can’t even do that?” The other person on the phone must have been speaking, because he paused, but his eyes never left Violet. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll see you Sunday morning.”

He hung up, but remained silent for a few seconds, and Violet didn’t know what to say, or to do.

“Everything okay?” she asked eventually, and he clenched his jaw again, but straightened, nodding.

The mask was back on and all she wanted to do was rip it off his stupid face. She handed him the book with all the indifference she could muster.

He took it, inspected it, turning it this way and that, before his eyes met hers again, his head cocked to the side. “The book seems a little worn out, Violence.”

She crossed both her arms over her chest, “I expect it back.”

“You’re lending me your book?”

For half a second, his composure slipped up again, and she saw softness in his eyes—at least, she thought she did. She didn’t respond, though, only lifted her chin in defiance. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of her confirmation.

Xaden tipped his head in a nod again, and the look on his face was gone as soon as it had appeared.

“You’ll get it back.”

Without another word, he made his way to the door, and she couldn’t help but scoff.

It was Saturday night, and her legs were on fire, and her throat was burning, and her cheeks hurt from all the laughing and giggling she had done all night.

Her friends had convinced her to go for a drink at a bar nearby—which quickly turned into several drinks—and she had been laughing for the past hour. Liam was there, too, and he had brought Xaden’s cousin with him—Bodhi—claiming he needed the change of thought.

Bodhi, it seemed, was just like his cousin, but better.

He was gentler, softer, nicer. He was more attentive, too, and so much easier to like.

Ridoc had claimed he should sit beside him, because they already knew each other—what with all the time they had spent at the gym—but Violet couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more here.

She didn’t want to pry, but she couldn’t help it, either.

A little touch here. A lingering look there.

That made her smile.

“I could so take you down on the mat,” Rhiannon scoffed at Liam audibly, and Violet could see the first signs of her friend’s tipsiness starting to show.

She stifled a laugh.

“No offense, Rhi,” Liam flashed her his usual smile. “But I’ve been training since I was a teenager, and I do it for a living, now. I highly doubt it.”

”And I—” Rhiannon pointed her finger to her chest, “Have won several prizes in Karate and other Martial Arts you’ve probably never heard of. Don’t you dare underestimate me.”

“Don’t,” Sawyer agreed with a shake of his head. “She broke my wrist once, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“You deserved it,” Rhiannon snapped. She turned her gaze back to Liam. “But since you’re so sure of yourself you’re so on.”

Liam raised an eyebrow at her, “You serious?”

“I’m going to make you eat dust, Mairi.” Violet full-on laughed at that, and Rhiannon turned her death glare at her, but before she could say anything, Liam started to get up.

“Come on, then.”

“What?”

“Come on,” he repeated, and there was a challenge in his eyes that made Violet and Sawyer laugh even louder. Even Ridoc and Bodhi had stopped talking to listen to them. “I have the keys to the gym. Let’s do this.”

Rhiannon narrowed her eyes at him, and to everyone else, it might seem like she was appraising him to know how serious he was. But Violet knew better. She knew she was just trying to decide whether she was too drunk for it yet.

“Let’s go,” she answered eventually.

That’s how Violet found herself looking at two of her best friends fighting on a mat in a deserted gym, cheering loudly at them. Sawyer and Ridoc were engaged in a fight of their own next to them, leaving her and Xaden Riorson’s carbon copy sitting on the floor.

“Damn,” Bodhi said next to her. “She didn’t lie. She definitely can hold her own.”

“You should see what she can do sober,” she teased.

They fell silent for a few minutes, and eventually, he said, “It’s nice. To have an evening out with friends.”

She turned to him and lifted an eyebrow quizzically, “I thought you and your cousin had this whole gang of friends you spent every last minute with? Liam won’t shut up about it.”

“Yeah,” Bodhi said with a sad smile. “No, we do. We just—have other things to worry about, is all.” He shrugged. “Just saying, it’s nice to have a little break, once in a while.”

Violet searched his face for one beat, two, before she asked, “Why isn’t Xaden more like you?”

That drew a laugh out of him, “What?”

“You know,” she shrugged, “With you, we can talk like normal people. Not—whatever riddles he answers with, and without being interrupted by whatever things he runs off to.”

The smile Bodhi gave him then was sad, and small, “He uh—” he shifted his gaze forward. “He’s going through a lot.” He paused. “He—”

“Never mind,” Violet smiled at him. “I don’t really care, anyway.”

He looked at her, searching, and she knew she probably didn’t fool him, but she was glad when he didn’t push further.

Liam was still dodging Rhiannon’s punches, and she watched silently for a few minutes, before she asked, her voice quiet,

“Who’s Rose?”

Bodhi seemed taken aback by the question—both his eyebrows shot up, and his eyes went wide. Even his shoulders seemed to tense.

“What?”

Violet cleared her throat, “Who’s Rose?” she repeated. “Liam mentioned a Rose once. Who is she?”

“Oh, uh—” Bodhi looked lost, panicky, almost. “Did you ask Xaden?”

She furrowed her brows. “I’m asking you.”

Bodhi ran a hand through his hair, “I think you should ask Xaden.”

At that, Violet rolled her eyes. “I’m taking back what I just said,” she sighed heavily. “You’re just as secretive as he is.”

“No, just—” she could see him struggling to find the words. “It’s just his…thing to tell. You should ask him.”

She sighed again and pulled both her legs up her torso, falling silent once more.

They didn’t stay silent for long, though, because only a few minutes passed before Bodhi spoke again. He was even quieter this time, so she wondered if he wanted to make sure even Liam couldn’t hear him.

“Liam says you’re very smart,” he murmured. “You should be able to piece it together.”

She scoffed, “What, like you want me to know?”

Again, he was silent for a few minutes and then, “He could use a friend. It’d do him good. And he's shit at talking,” Violet snorted at that. She couldn't agree more. Without preamble, he stood up. “You should go to his office. It’s just down—”

“I know where it is,” she offered quietly, and there was a flash of surprise on his face.

“Good,” he nodded with a small smile. “Go there. I’m sure you’d find a few…interesting things.” She raised both eyebrows at him. “In the meantime, I’m going to go teach your friends how to actually fight,” he said with a wink. Before she could process any of it, he walked over to Sawyer and Ridoc on the mat.

She had to wait a few more minutes before she mustered the strength to get up, and do as he’d suggested. Violet found it was a little bit harder to navigate the dark corridors, now that she was trying to find his office on purpose. Everything was so silent it made the skin on her arms prickle.

What was she doing?

She didn’t care about Xaden Riorson. She didn’t, didn’t, didn’t.

But even she had more and more trouble believing that.

There was no light in the corridor that she recognized as the one leading to his office, so when she neared the door, her eyes needed a few minutes to adjust to the even darker room.

When they did though, her heart hammered in her chest because the office wasn’t empty.

No—here, sitting on the couch, his elbows propped on his knees and his face in both his hands, was Xaden, and she had never seen him so disheveled.

And Violet wasn’t sure anyone was supposed to see him like this—he wouldn’t normally allow it.

She wasn't sure Bodhi knew he was there, either. He wouldn't have sent her here otherwise.

Her heart sank in her chest at the sight because, no, she didn’t want to care for him. But she also couldn’t deny that a little, tiny, part of her did.

Chapter Text

Her heart slamming against her ribcage was the only sound she could hear for the few seconds it took her to move. She felt frozen in place. Didn’t know if she should make a move. Didn’t know if she should join him when it was so clear he wanted to be left alone.

But she also couldn’t bear to leave him like this. She couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t.

She didn’t want to.

Xaden was still facing the ground, head bent low, oblivious to her still standing in the threshold.

On equally quiet steps, she moved further into his office, and it was only when she was a few feet away that he seemed to notice someone entering. He lifted his head and there was a moment of confusion, then recognition, then something else she couldn’t decipher in those eyes.

But neither of them spoke.

If he thought it was weird she was in his gym, in his office, in the middle of the night on a Saturday, he didn’t say.

And she didn’t offer anything, either.

It was harder than ever to hate him, she realized, in the dark of the night, in the quiet of the room, when he looked so vulnerable. She wasn’t sure she still wanted to hate him right then.

She stopped walking only when she was standing in front of him, and she then noticed that his breathing, as much as his posture, was uneasy. Ragged.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, searching each other’s faces, and trying to find the answers neither of them could find.

Violet swallowed, and eventually lifted a hesitant hand to his face, placing a featherlight touch on his cheek. He didn’t let her be hesitant for long, though, for he leaned into her hand as if it was what he had waited all along, closing his eyes. Seeking comfort.

Her breath caught in her throat.

The touch wasn’t weird. Not at all, really. If anything, it was familiar. Second nature.

They were no strangers to casual touches. A brush of a hand. A cup of a cheek. A few forehead kisses, sometimes.

Even an almost kiss on the lips, once.

Of course, that was all before. Before he’d taken her out on that date, and before she decided she couldn’t like Xaden Riorson. Because she hated him too much.

None of it was weird, between them.

But this was Xaden. Always in control, always composed, always pissing-her-off Xaden.

For him to be like that, meant that something was very wrong.

It was another full minute maybe, when she finally made herself murmur,

“Why are you here alone?”

He didn’t answer right away. Didn’t move from his place against her hand, didn’t open his eyes. She started brushing her thumb against his cheekbone.

“Why are you?” He countered after a few seconds, and then he opened his eyes to meet hers. “The gym is closed at this hour.”

“Liam had the keys. He’s on the mat with Rhiannon. Sawyer, Ridoc, and Bodhi, too.” She paused the movement of her thumb. “Your turn.”

She saw him clench his jaw. It was small, almost unnoticeable, but she saw him. And she braced herself for yet another deflection.

He said, “I didn’t want to go home, tonight.”

“Why not?”

Xaden closed his eyes again, and didn’t speak.

“Why not, Xaden? Tell me.”

Maybe she was pleading, but in the quiet darkness, she found she didn’t care.

“I can’t sleep,” he shrugged a single shoulder.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “So you stay here?”

Once more, he stayed silent, and Violet let out a heavy sigh. She started to withdraw her hand.

“Never mind. I’ll—“

He didn’t let her finish, though, and didn’t let her hand move away. He stopped her with a touch on her wrist to keep her there.

“It’s too quiet.”

“What?”

“It’s too quiet at my place,” he repeated. “So I stay here.”

She frowned. The gym at this hour was probably more quiet than any house or home could be, so it didn’t make any sense. But she didn’t push. There was something in his voice that told her the admission cost him more than he would have liked.

And for once, he hadn’t pushed her away yet.

Baby steps, they say.

“Any reason why you can’t sleep tonight?”

His lips tugged upwards at that, “The better question would be when was I ever able to sleep?”

She raised both eyebrows and he sobered up.

“Never been a good sleeper. The last—year hasn’t helped.”

She searched his face, “But it’s getting worse?”

His hand slid from her wrist until he held her hand, and let them both fall. He didn’t let go of her hand, though.

“I’ve had a shit week,” was all he said, and she knew then, that he didn’t want to offer any more details.

Violet cocked her head to the side. “So, what do you do when you don’t sleep at all?”

“What do you think?” He asked instead, and at that, she couldn’t help her eye roll.

She removed her hand from where he was still holding it and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Are you even able to answer a real question with a straight answer? Or is this something you’re absolutely incapable of doing?”

Xaden leaned back on the couch, looking at her straight in the eye.

“I read your books, Violence. That’s what I do when I can’t sleep. Happy?”

“And are you going to tell me why you can’t sleep?”

Xaden clamped his mouth shut and she swore she could see a battle in his eyes, but he didn’t offer anything.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I didn’t think so. I should probably get back, anyway.”

She could swear she saw a hint of disappointment in his eye.

And it all honesty, she felt it, too.

She didn’t let herself feel it, though, and started making her way to the door.

“Goodnight, Xaden,” she said, turning around, though he was right there behind her.

And before she could register it, he leaned it, placed a soft kiss on her forehead and she froze.

“Goodnight, Violet,” he murmured against her skin.

He didn’t draw back right away, though, and she didn’t either.

For a minute, she could almost picture herself moving, just an inch closer.

But she didn’t, and Xaden drew back eventually.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, tucking a strand of her hair she hadn’t noticed had escaped from her braid behind her ear.

“To get another book?” her voice felt quiet, even to her. She blamed it on her heart resonating in every part of her body. “What will you ask for, then?”

He grinned—Xaden Riorson grinned. It was small, almost nonexistent, but she saw it all the same. “I don’t know. I’ll ask my favorite bookworm to find me something worth reading.”

The grin that stretched her own lips was entirely unintentional. As unintentional that the flush on her cheeks.

“Goodnight, Xaden,” she repeated.

She turned around and walked away before she could do something very stupid.

Violet tried to convince herself she was fine.

She was not thinking about the night before. She was not thinking about a certain hand holding hers, or a certain kiss on her forehead.

She was certainly not thinking about a certain Xaden Riorson in his own office, looking broken and shattered.

And she was not thinking of her heart beating way too fast to be casual, and aching way too much to mean nothing.

Of course, that’s all she was thinking about.

Her bookstore was closed on Sundays. And she usually spent the day inside, reading, because that was what she liked best.

Sometimes, she’d spend time on the phone with Mira, listening to her latest adventures in the police force. Sometimes, she’d call Brennan and listen to his stories from the hospital he worked at, and find herself smiling until her cheeks ached when Naolin popped his head over his shoulder, only to say silly things that never failed to make her laugh.

Sometimes, she’d have them both on the phone together, and somehow, this was the worst. It was like they were on their own personal contest to make her life a living hell—to ask her questions that were supposed to show their care, but instead only made her feel weak, and small, and breakable, and broken.

Those calls usually ended with colorful insults flying out of her mouth, and her phone slamming against the kitchen counter in frustration.

This Sunday, though, she didn’t do any of it. She didn’t read—had tried, but couldn’t get a single sentence to make sense and ended up giving up on her book after realizing she’d read the same paragraph five times. She didn’t call Mira, didn’t call Brennan. Certainly didn’t call them both together.

And whatever she tried to do, her traitorous mind and ennerving brain wouldn’t allow her to think about anything other than those onyx eyes and those golden flakes, and how they had looked so sad.

She couldn’t even convince herself that she didn’t care—even her mind wouldn’t allow it.

All she could wish was for Xaden to go back to his infuriatingly annoying behavior the next time they met so she could, in turn, go back to hating him.

In the meantime, though, she was left pacing her apartment, without having enough focus to do anything.

It was when she‘d found herself moving around the books on her personal bookshelf—yes, she found the motion soothing, and her therapist had never thought it strange—that Violet made up her mind even before the idea was fully formed.

She plucked the book from her bookshelf before she could convince herself otherwise.

The gym wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty, either, when she entered. She felt a little out of place, though, among all those people who knew exactly where they were going, exactly what they were doing, and that made Violet second-guess herself, just for a second.

She didn’t give up, though, and lifted her chin to make her way to Xaden’s office for the third time.

The people around her barely spared her a glance, and she didn’t pay attention to anyone else, either, not really.

His office door was almost closed, but not completely, when she approached. No sounds were coming from the inside, and maybe that was what convinced her to not back down—if Xaden was still in the same exact spot as the day before, she wouldn’t leave him alone.

But as she peeked her head inside, she couldn’t see anyone. His office was completely empty.

Idiot, idiot, idiot. She was such an idiot.

Maybe she should—

“Are you looking for something?”

She jumped at the voice behind her so much that her knee almost buckled. She managed to hide her pain, though, and turned around.

A huge man was appraising her with raised eyebrows, looking all the more annoyed and certainly not impressed by her. She recognized him as the person who had been fighting Bodhi that very first night of boxing, although he was clean, this time. Nicely put together, even. It was as if he’d made a particular effort to dress up, and Violet might not know the guy, but somehow she could sense it wasn’t his usual style.

His muscular arms were crossed over his chest and she only then noticed the paper kraft bag he was holding, with a pinch of blue peaking out.

Violet realized she still hadn’t spoken, though, had only taken her time staring, and that made her cheeks flush.

“Oh, hi,” she tried to muster the best confident smile she could. “I was looking for Xaden Riorson? He ordered something. I was bringing it for him.”

Only half a lie. Right?

He’d told her he might want more books, eventually. She was bringing him a book.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but this guy didn’t need to know that.

The man narrowed his eyes at her and she could tell he knew, too. She was about to add to her lie when they heard another voice approaching. And that voice, Violet knew.

“Garrick, you ready or—oh.” Imogen Cardulo, all pink-haired beauty, defiance and arrogance in one person stopped next to the man, glaring at her. What else was new? “Sorrengail,” she said, and Violet could hear the spite in that single word. “What are you doing here?”

It had always been a wonder for Violet, that Xaden had chosen to call her Violence when he knew someone like Imogen.

Then again, she had long stopped trying to understand Xaden Riorson.

“Sorrengail?” The man—Garrick—echoed, disbelieving. “That is Violet Sorrengail?”

“In the flesh. Or—what little there is of it, anyway.”

Violet gritted her teeth.

“She’s tiny,” he said, and strangely enough, he seemed to be more relaxed, now.

Still ennerving as fuck, though.

“She is right there,” Violet snapped at them. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

Imogen rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Right. And what are you doing here?”

Violet didn’t even have time to respond before Garrick answered for her,

“She’s got something for Xaden.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll just leave it in his office,” she said, moving the book she’d been holding in emphasis. “Unless you have more annoying interrogation questions for me?”

Garrick and Imogen exchanged a look that didn’t fail to ennerve Violet, and he was the one who raised a hand to motion her toward the office door.

Access granted, she understood.

She rolled her eyes and entered, walking to the desk without rounding it before she placed the book on it.

She barely noticed papers scattered all around with words she didn’t have time to read or the picture frame that she couldn’t see because it was turned on the other way. She was aware of both guard dogs at the door watching her every move, so she didn’t linger.

She did see a post-it pad on one side of the desk, though. She grabbed it without thinking, scribbling hurriedly,

In case you have trouble sleeping again.

That’s one of my favorites.

She bit her lower lip and left it at that, without her name. Xaden would either know exactly who had left it there, or he wouldn’t and that would make it just easier to hate him.

She left the post-it on the book and turned around without sparing a glance at Garrick and Imogen who, she knew, were still tracking her every move, even in the corridor.

Chapter Text

“Violet? You listening to me?”

“Uh?”

Ridoc chuckled from where he was sitting across from her and nudged her ankle with his foot.

“Sorry,” she said, offering him an apologetic smile. “I kind of zoned out.”

“Of course you did,” he narrowed his eyes at her, and from anyone else, she’d thought she was in trouble, but this was Ridoc. His smile spread on his face not even a full minute later. “So what did I-hate-him-but-not-really Xaden do this time?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically at her friend, busying her hands with the coffee placed in front of her.

To be fair, she hadn’t been thinking about Xaden just now. Not that she hadn’t been in the last few days—she hadn’t seen him since that night in his office and had already managed to convince herself that it was okay he hadn’t reached out to mention the book she had left on his desk.

It was okay. It was okay. It was perfectly and absolutely okay.

“Stop talking about him,” she took a sip of her cup. “And stop thinking all I do is think about him.”

Ridoc raised a single eyebrow at her, “Isn’t it?”

“No,” she said pointedly. “It's not. And if you want to talk about that so bad, why don’t we talk about whatever the hell is going on with you and Bodhi?”

Violet didn’t think she’d ever seen her friend—always smiling, and laughing, and cheerful—blush such a shade of dark red.

“Oh my God,” her eyes widened in realization. “There is something going on between you and Bodhi!”

“No,” he countered, shaking his head. “Nothing’s going on. Stop being so loud.”

She bit her lower lip and appraised him with knowing eyes.

“Tell me,” she demanded, “Come on, Ridoc, tell me.”

But her friend was still looking as bashful as she had ever seen him.

“Fine,” she cleared her throat. “I’ll tell you something about me and Xaden if you spill your tea in return.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Is it going to be worth it? Or is that a way for you to trick me into talking?”

Biting the insides of her cheeks did nothing to hide her grin. She wouldn’t tell him to his face, but the fact that he was considering her offer only confirmed her suspicions: he had something to tell.

“Even Rhi doesn’t know,” she said. But Ridoc didn’t seem so convinced, so she continued, trying her best to appear merely bored. “What if I told you mine involves his lips?”

Ridoc’s reaction was immediate, “Oh, Violet Sorrengail, you are so on. What did that Greek-looking god of yours do with those lips ?”

She chuckled, “You do realize you just called a Greek god the cousin of the man you’re supposedly going to tell me about? Isn’t that a bit fucked up?”

“No,” Ridoc countered. “See, for one,” he lifted one finger in emphasis. “I knew of Xaden Riorson before I ever knew about his cousin. So I was in no fault for finding him attractive. Second,” another finger joined the first one. “The man is hot. Nothing I can do about it. Third, I said Greek-looking god. Never said he was a Greek god. And fourth—” he bit his lower lip, raising his fourth finger. “Well, I guess we’re about to get to that in an instant anyway—But I didn’t taste Xaden Riorson to confirm whether he is a god or not,” he shrugged. “Bodhi, on the contrary—”

Violet’s gasp made most heads turn to them in the café, and she could do nothing to hide the huge grin on her lips.

“Ridoc,” she leaned in over the table to avoid attracting any more attention. “You did what?!”

“Shh,” he chuckled, “Don’t be so loud, Violet.”

“And you, don’t be so shy,” she accused. “Spit it out, Ridoc, I want details over here. Because I’m guessing it’s not only his lips you tasted.”

The flush on his cheeks turned impossibly darker, and it was so unlike him that Violet had to pause.

Ridoc had never been shy—or quiet, for that matter—to men he spent the night with. If anything, his escapades were usually a strong topic of their never-ending conversations, only made better by Ridoc’s own jokes and puns.

This, though, was something she was not accustomed to—his quiet demeanor, the slight blush that had yet to leave his cheeks, his almost nervousness.

She smiled fondly at him.

“Was it good?”

If possible, his grin turned even softer.

“Very good,” he nodded. “So, so good.”

“And—it happened, what? Once?” He nodded. “Will it happen again?”

Ridoc shrugged a single shoulder, “I mean, I don’t know,” he paused. “I sure hope so.”

She took a sip of her coffee, her smile never leaving her lips, “So,” she grinned. “A Greek god, huh?”

Her friend rolled his eyes at her, leaning back in his chair, “Never mind. You got mine, now I get yours. And it’d better be good,” he nodded in her direction. “So, his lips? What did that man do with his lips?”

Violet rolled her eyes, “Don’t get so excited.”

“Uh, excuse me, Vi,” he said in mock offense, bringing a hand to his chest to match the look on his face. “That guy is all you’ve been able to talk about for months—“

“I—“

“—please save us both the embarrassment and don’t deny it,” he gave her a knowing look. “I know we’re pretending you hate him now, but please, you’re too clever for that.”

A resigned sigh escaped her, and her gaze darted down to her cup of coffee.

“So,” Ridoc continued, and his voice was a little gentler. “Lips?”

Violet huffed a little laugh, “Please don’t kill me when you’re disappointed?”

The look he gave her was appraising and suspicious.

“After our—” she grimaced. “date, he came by the bookstore the next morning.” Ridoc cocked his head to the side, waiting. “He apologized. Tried to get me to go on another date with him.”

“Because you had such a good time on the first one?”

“I mean…” she sighed. “It wasn’t horrible horrible. I might have dramatized that a little bit.”

“A little bit?” her friend echoed. “I mean, I don’t know,” he shrugged, the slightest smile on his lips. “All I’ve heard about it is that Xaden was a fucking asshole and that he did not deserve you, and that you were done with him and his sorry ass.”

Violet chuckled, “I never said that.”

“Maybe not in so many words,” Ridoc grinned. “But the sentiment was certainly there.”

She folded her arms across her chest, “It wasn’t terrible. Not really. At least not until our meals arrived, and his phone rang, and he was out of the door in half a minute.” Both of Ridoc’s eyebrows lifted at that. “He barely apologized before I was left in front of my salmon, and I wanted to die from embarrassment.”

“Asshole,” Ridoc muttered, and that drew a little laugh from Violet.

“See? That’s exactly what I thought.” She let out a heavy sigh. “And so, the next morning he came by, apologized—properly this time, I’ll give him that—and asked me out on a second date.” She took her cup of coffee in hand and started toying with it, twirling the liquid in circles. “And we almost kissed.”

Ridoc’s voice was careful when he asked, “What stopped you?”

She met his eyes again. Her smile was weak, and almost sad.

“What do you think?”

Her friend cocked his head to the side, waiting, and she then realized that for all the jokes, all the banter and all the sarcastic comments he was a master at, he now wore a serious expression. Solely and entirely there for her.

She loved him all the more for it.

“His phone,” she explained when he didn’t say anything. “His fucking phone rang, and then he was gone again, and then I decided there was no way I was dating someone like that.”

"Until recently?" She raised her eyebrows at him as he continued, "You seem to be...hating him a little less, recently."

Violet took a deep breath. "I don't know. I don't really know right now."

Ridoc sighed, running a hand through his hair, “Look, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but why do you keep getting back to him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Bodhi mentioned—” he paused. “He thinks you’d be good for each other, and that maybe Xaden is only shit at showing it. But—do you think it’s worth it? If he’s not giving you all his attention?”

She didn’t answer right away. Only searched his face. Only tried to come up with a response to that.

Because quite frankly—she had no idea. Was it?

There were so many emotions swirling inside of her when she thought of Xaden Riorson, and they were all more confusing than the last.

“Is yours?” she countered when she didn’t know what else to say.

“Mine?”

“Bodhi,” she clarified. “Is he worth it?”

That fond look was back on Ridoc’s face.

“At least, mine called the next morning, and didn’t leave without saying goodbye,” he grinned. His smile was softer, though. Less playful. “I’m just saying—they might look alike, but my Durran is better than your Riorson,” he winked. “So much better.”

Violet leaned back in her chair, groaning.

“Change my mind,” she demanded. “This was supposed to be a nice coffee date, Ridoc, not—this.”

“Sorry, Vi,” he gave her an apologetic smile, then moved his chair to place his beside hers and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t get your mind too caught up in this.”

But how could she not?

He was clouding her every thought and she couldn’t get herself to stop.

Sometimes, she thought it was all the mystery around him—like one of the puzzles she used to do with her father when she was a child. Or the mystery novels she’d loved when she was a teenager. Just her mind trying to piece together things she couldn’t make sense of.

And somehow, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop until she had her answers.

She was a problem-solver after all—whether she liked it or not, her mind would continue rolling, grasping at straws, trying to gather every single piece of information or evidence that might be helpful to understand the unnerving, infuriating prick that was Xaden Riorson.

Maybe then, she’d be able to move on.

She hoped she would.

“Oh, shit,” Ridoc breathed next to her, and she lifted her head from where she had let it rest against his shoulder. She was about to turn her head to follow his line of sight but he said, “Don’t look, shit Vi, don’t look!”

She furrowed her brows, “What is it?”

“Bodhi’s here,” he muttered under his breath, and his arm left her shoulders.

Violet couldn’t help her chuckle, “So? What’s got you so freaked out?”

“I didn’t plan on seeing him here, fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I haven’t seen him since—” he straightened. “How do I look?”

She bit her lip, but it did nothing to hide her smile.

Ridoc was embarrassed, and it would be a lie to say she didn’t find that impossibly cute.

She nudged at his side, “Go see him.”

“What? No!”

“Go,” she pressed. “Come on.”

“I will not,” he said pointedly. She rolled her eyes at him.

After only half a second of making up her mind, she got up—albeit a bit abruptly. Ridoc’s eyes grew wide.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I just saw someone I know over there,” she said with the best innocent smile she could muster. “Just gonna go say hi.”

“Violet, I swear to God—”

But his words died as she continued making her way to the coffee counter, where Bodhi was in line, arms crossed over his chest.

It only took her a few seconds to reach him, and she stopped next to him, “Bodhi,” she smiled as he turned at the sound of her voice. “Hey,”

The expression on his face went from confusion, to recognition, to alarm in only a few seconds, and then she watched as his eyes darted from her to the front door of the coffee shop. He tried to hide it, though, and flashed her an easy smile.

“Violet,” he said, voice almost clipped. “Hi.”

“How are you?”

Bodhi cleared his throat, uncrossing his arms only to bury his hands in his pockets and the motion was so much like Xaden that she felt a little uneasy.

“Good, good,” he nodded. Cleared his throat again. “What are you doing here?”

She lifted an eyebrow. His behavior was becoming incredibly odd, and she could only feel weird about it.

“I was just having a coffee with my friend,” she nodded over her shoulder to Ridoc, whose attempt at seeming detached didn’t fool her for even one second.

Bodhi, however, seemed to relax at the sight—his shoulders dropped a notch, his face eased. She swore she saw a tender smile making its way on his lips, too.

“I was just leaving,” she continued, “But you could join him if you—”

But she never got to finish her sentence, because a shriek, followed by a loud giggle reached her ears, and it was pure instinct for her to turn her head to follow the sound. Bodhi did the same, she saw, as did most people around them.

Though the man next to her didn’t only turn, but knelt down, too, to catch a fumbling toddler who was running unsteadily in their direction.

No, not in their direction—rather, directly into his arms.

“Easy,” Bodhi chuckled as he caught the child by the waist—a little girl with thick, dark hair that almost reached her shoulders and bounced on her back in small waves.

Violet could only stare. Couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe.

What the fuck?

She would have laughed, too, if she’d been able to, because since when was a child comfortable enough to run into a stranger’s arms?

And since when was Bodhi okay with that?

And why didn’t the mother or father or anyone responsible for the child come to pick her up?

This was ridiculous.

Right?

She didn’t really notice the girl bouncing up and down on her shaky legs, or Bodhi speaking to her.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she heard someone say behind her, “You in line to get coffee?”

But she couldn’t talk.

And then, when that tiny head looked up and met her confused gaze, Violet swallowed the lump in her throat.

She had to force the words out, this time.

Needed to.

“Bodhi,” she said carefully—quietly. ”Who is that?”

Because no, she couldn’t deny it now, the fact that Bodhi knew the child.

No parent was coming to pick her up. No nanny was running after her.

Bodhi knew her, and Violet had a twisting feeling in her gut that she might guess who it was, too.

She didn’t let her mind go there, though. Because otherwise, she might find herself puking all over the floor.

A hand found her lower back.

“Vi?” Ridoc. “You good?”

But she couldn’t turn to him. Couldn’t talk to him.

Couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t.

“Bodhi,” she repeated, more urgently this time.

This time, Xaden’s cousin turned to her with a grimace. They heard footsteps running toward them, before Liam’s voice, urgent and alarmed and worried,

“Rose,” he crouched down next to Bodhi and the child. “I told you not to run off like that.”

But Violet didn’t hear anything past that first word.

Past that name.

Rose.

And Liam—her friend Liam. Her very good friend, Liam.

She was going to be sick.

Chapter Text

Violet ignored everything around her—and it wasn’t even on purpose; her body was acting on its own accord. She left the coffee shop without noticing Liam’s worried glances, without hearing Bodhi’s quiet calls, without feeling Ridoc’s lingering presence rushing behind her.

She just left, didn’t look back, and she started walking.

It was a nice neighborhood Ridoc had brought her to. At least, she would have thought so if she could register the quiet streets, the nice little shops lining the crosswalk, the flowers sprinkled here and there.

But nothing registered. None of the things passing by her eyes stuck in her mind, when it was rolling that much.

There were memories, and feelings, and sounds, and images that were popping into her mind, each faster than the last. She had trouble grasping any one of them, to single one out and make sense of it, but her mind knew, somehow.

Her mind always knew.

Phone calls and names and books and glances.

Overheard conversations and broken faces and clenched jaws.

She was connecting the dots without even realizing it, making sense of things she hadn’t known were linked, and she wanted to grit her teeth at her own idiocy.

Because it was so clear now, and she should have known better.

Ridoc placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and she hadn’t even realized she had stopped walking until he squeezed gently.

“Vi?” he asked quietly. She took a deep breath. “Vi, what is it? Who was that?”

She swallowed, and finally turned around to face him.

Now that she knew, now that her mind had made sense of it, she found her voice again.

She offered him a weak smile.

“Who do you think?”

Ridoc’s eyes, filled with alarm searched hers, before they widened. “Oh shit,” he breathed. “You think—” he ran a hand through his face. “You think Bodhi has a child?”

Violet couldn’t help it—she laughed. Full-on, loud and unguarded laughed. Because that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Not for one second.

And yet—yet, it would make things so much better.

For her, at least, because judging by Ridoc’s panicked face, he wouldn’t find it better. Or funny, for that matter.

“No,” she offered eventually, when she had sobered up enough. She let out a long breath. “She’s Xaden’s.”

If possible, Ridoc’s already blown eyes grew even wider.

“Fuck,” he cursed, and she offered him a weak smile in response. “So, like,” he said, careful and hesitant. “Do we hate him? Do we think he should have told you? Do we—”

She didn’t let him finish.

“I have to go home,” she said. She was about to turn around, but as she saw the look on his face, she sighed. “For the record… Bodhi tried to tell me. Or, make me figure it out, at least.” She offered him a half smile. “So, yeah, you were absolutely right. Your Durran is ten times better than my Riorson.”

Ten times better than her Mairi, too, she didn’t add.

Because Liam had been her friend for a long time, now, and maybe his silence and lies were worse than Xaden’s or Bodhi’s or anyone else’s.

The fourth time Violet walked to Xaden Riorson’s office was a Thursday.

She was confident, and determined, and felt empowered like she had never been.

She was on a mission.

Like she had hoped, he was in his office, though this time, he was sitting behind his desk and seemed focused on the task at hand—whatever that was for him. She didn’t wait for him to notice her and invite her in; she barged in, and slammed the couple of books she had been carrying on his desk, oblivious of the papers he had been looking at.

He lifted his head to her, and she expected to see confusion there, but was only met with mild annoyance.

It didn’t matter, she had a point to make.

“I’m mad at you,” she announced, and placed both her hands on her hips. Xaden lifted an eyebrow at her, and leaned back on his chair, folding both his arms over his chest.

“And that’s new, how?” She narrowed her eyes at him. His usual smirk was already on its way to his lips. Infuriating. “You’re always mad at me, Violence, you’ll have to be a little bit more specific.”

“No,” she countered. “I’m usually annoyed at you. Unnerved. Because you’re an asshole and a pain in my ass. But now I’m mad. Pissed, even.”

He rolled his eyes, “What did I do, now?”

“You have a child,” she blurted, and then, she saw it—the surprise, the unexpected, the alarm. If she hadn’t been sure she was right, this would have been her confirmation. She didn’t let him defend himself, or spit the lie she expected him to serve her. “You have a child, and you lied to me about it. So, I’m mad at you.”

Xaden clenched his jaw, hard. His face was already closed off now, but he said, still,

“I didn’t lie.”

Her narrowed eyes were glaring at him and she hoped with all she had he could see the hatred there.

“You lied.”

“I didn’t,” he pushed. “I never gave you the full information. You never asked. So I didn’t lie.”

She scoffed—dirty and disappointed.

“How the fuck was I supposed to ask if you have a kid or not?”

He shrugged, “I don’t know. But either way, I didn’t lie.”

Violet had to take a deep breath, gritting her teeth.

“That’s beside the point,” she said flatly.

He cocked his head to the side. “Is it?”

“Yes,” she crossed her own arms over her chest, mirroring him. “I’m going to help you,” she nodded to the pile of books she’d just discarded on his desk.

Both his eyebrows perked at that, but he made no move to look at the books. Only kept her stare with the infuriating intensity in his gaze.

“You’re going to help me?” He echoed. She nodded. “Help me with what? I thought you hated me. That you were mad at me.”

“Oh, I do, and I am,” she said, her foot tapping on the floor in annoyance. If annoying her were a national sport, that man would already be a crowned champion. “But you’re losing her custody, so I’m going to help you.”

Xaden Riorson froze in front of her. He froze, eyes boring into hers, and she wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

She had rendered Xaden Riorson speechless, and she couldn’t even feel proud about it.

Violet could only stare back. Wait for his denial. His refusal. His rebuttal.

His jaw ticked, and then he said,

“We’re not calling it losing if the trial is still ongoing.” The way he said it was flat, it sounded rehearsed. She raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s what Bodhi says,” he added, and yeah—that made more sense.

“And what do you say?” She asked, relaxing slightly.

He searched her eyes, for half a second.

“I say hope is a fickle thing.”

“And the judges tend to give custody to the mother,” she finished for him, because she knew that’s where his thoughts were.

That’s what she knew to be true, too. She’s heard about this enough times.

He didn’t nod, but his silence was confirmation enough.

“Who told you?” He asked, that mask slipping off just a little to show her his exhaustion.

“No one,” his stare told her he didn’t believe it. “I saw her,” she said, “with Bodhi and Liam the other day. She’s—very cute.”

She could swear she saw Xaden relax, and soften at that.

“She does look a lot like you,” he still didn’t say anything. “And I just—figured it out—”

“Of course you did,” he muttered, and was that an amused look crossing his face?

“—I patched it together,” she continued. “The phone calls that have you running off. The not sleeping at all.” She moved to pick up one of the book she had sold him a while ago. It was resting on that smaller bookshelf she now noticed was filled with kids' books. How the hell had she missed this? She moved the book between them in emphasis. “And Kramer vs. Kramer? What was it, research?”

He shrugged, “My lawyer recommended it. It was shit, though.”

“It’s a good book,” she disagreed.

“It is. But it didn’t help.”

Violet nodded pensively, parsing through the pages just because the motion was soothing.

“I’m guessing she has a crappy mom?”

The snort she heard from him was ragged.

“She doesn’t have a mom, she has a mother,” Violet knew the difference all too well. “You think you have a crappy mother?”

He knew that. She’d told him so, a long while ago. She nodded.

“Hers is ten times worse.”

Violet grimaced. She couldn’t imagine anyone worse than her own mother, but if that woman was ten times worse—

At least, Lilith Sorrengail had loved her father, and had never tried to take Violet from him.

She took a deep breath, placing the book back down.

“Why didn’t you say anything Xaden? You know I could have helped. You know I would have.”

Because she had a law degree—one she had been forced to complete by her mother before making it clear she didn’t want to follow in her footsteps—and he knew it. They’d talked about it more than once.

His onyx eyes searched her face for a few seconds. Before eventually, he glanced down to take the first book from the pile she had let fall on his desk.

“It’s not something you say on your first date,” he merely shrugged. She scoffed at him.

“Bullshit,” she accused. “I don’t believe you.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but his gaze was still trailing downward.

And she tried to ignore the sting in her heart.

Because she had told him things.

Personal things.

In the hours he had stopped by her bookstore, and the countless times he’d been around, she’d told him things, and she thought he had been open with her, too.

Apparently not.

She’d told him about her mother, and how Violet had never seemed to be good enough for her. About her sister and how she’d loved her despite her never-ending loyalty to Lilith. About her brother and his coddling her when she hated it.

About her father, too. How his death was still an open scar in her heart. A wound she doubted would ever heal, a pain she knew would never stop aching. And how maybe a part of her had died, too, that day.

She told him things, and it hurt more than it should to know that he hadn’t been honest with her, in turn.

Violet swallowed.

“Never mind,” she said dryly. “I really don’t care, anyway. I’m going to help you just because no child deserves to end up with an uncaring parent, but that’s it.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. “I still hate you,” she informed him. “So this will be all business.”

His face was blank in front of her and she only stared back.

She nodded to the books in front of him.

“You can read this, if you haven’t before. And If you want my help, I’ll need more details about it.”

“You shouldn’t help me, Violet,” he said, voice tight. “You—”

“Suit yourself,” she shrugged, cutting him off. “But I know a great deal about these things. And I know I can help you.” She’d seen and heard of enough cases like this one growing up to know valuable things. Her law degree was just a bonus. And he knew it, too. “And—”

“Xaden, did you—” Liam’s sentence left unfinished in the air between them, and when Violet turned to look at him, he was staring back with pleading eyes. He took a step toward her. “Oh, hey Vi, can we talk?”

“Busy,” she said flatly, and ignored the pain in her friend’s face. She turned back to Xaden, “Come find me if you change your mind. Or don’t. As I said, I don’t care.”

And with that, she stormed out of his office, not paying any mind to the tired sigh she heard escaping his lips.

Chapter Text

“So, he has a kid.”

“He has a kid,” Violet echoed.

“And he’s losing custody, but you’re helping him.”

“He’s losing custody,” she repeated. “And—“

“Don’t you dare,” Rhiannon cut her off, narrowing her eyes at her in a glare. “Repeat after me again. That’s not how a real conversation works and you know it.”

Violet sighed heavily. “You’re stating facts, Rhi—so I don’t know what else to tell you.”

Her friend’s face was both sympathetic and a little annoyed—at Violet, at Xaden, or at the whole situation, she couldn’t tell.

“How are you taking it?”

Violet shrugged, moving the book she’d been reading to the side and grabbing another one from her pile.

She hadn’t heard from Xaden since she’d left his office that day—but that hadn’t stopped her from starting her research.

If he knew what was good for him, he’d come by and ask for her help. She knew it.

And he knew it, too.

It was all a matter of time now—of how long it would take him to swallow his pride, or uneasiness, or whatever it was that had made him wait for a full week since she’d made the offer.

“I don’t really care that he has a kid,” she replied eventually. “I mean, yeah, it kind of sucks he never told me, but we were never together anyway.”

“But you dated,” Rhiannon cocked an eyebrow at her.

“We went out on one date,” she corrected. How many times did she have to say it? “But he lied about it. And Liam did, too.”

Rhiannon was silent for a few seconds, before she sighed, and got up from her couch—she’d been pretending to be busy since arriving at Violet’s bookstore earlier that day but had yet to open the book she’d gotten from a shelf. She walked to the counter, where Violet had pushed all her usual material to the side to make some room for her computer, and books, and notepad.

“But Liam apologized,” Rhiannon said in a gentler voice when she came to a stop next to Violet. “Several times, right?”

Violet rolled her eyes, “I didn’t talk to Liam.”

“No, you mean you didn’t let him talk to you,” Rhiannon folded both her arms across her chest. “I know you’re mad at him, Vi, but do you really think he should be the one to be held accountable?”

“He lied to me,” She replied easily. “Would you have kept something like that from me?”

There was a battle in her friend’s brown eyes as they both stared at each other.

“She wouldn’t have,” a voice behind them replied for her. Violet narrowed her eyes at Liam who had just appeared by the door.

It wasn’t new, either. He’d come by her bookstore more than once in the past week, showing up with a coffee or an apologetic smile and trying to talk to her.

She’d stopped him every time.

Today, though, he had brought out the big guns. He was carrying a tired-looking Rose in his arms, and he knew damn well Violet wouldn’t be able to be too unpleasant in front of her. She gritted her teeth.

“Oh,” Rhiannon all but swooned at the sight, “You must be Rose?”

Her voice had taken a high-pitched sound that made Violet grimace a little.

Liam offered her a half-smile, “The one and only,” he said, gently bouncing the little girl in his arms. “Say hello, Rose?”

But the little girl frowned instead, muttering, “Dada.”

Liam sighed a tired sigh, “I know you want your Daddy,” he rubbed her back with his free hand. “You’ll see him soon. But look, we have new friends here. Say hi to them?”

Rose shook her head, her black curls bouncing behind her back with the movement, and Violet couldn’t suppress a chuckle. Even Liam seemed surprised, but she didn’t pay him any attention.

She got up from her stool, made her way to a bookshelf, and grabbed a book from it. She was in front of them in only a few strides.

“Hello Rose,” she said in her usual voice. She’d always hated being treated as a child, so she didn’t let herself take another tone with the girl. “I’m Violet.” It wasn’t very surprising that the child didn’t answer, but she was looking at her with an intensity that almost made Violet uneasy. Almost. “I saw your bookshelf,” she added in a mock whisper. “So I guess you like books. Would you like to look at this one?”

Rose tilted her little head to the side, appraising. Her dark eyes were fixed on the book Violet was holding—The Cat in the Hat, one of her personal favorites—and the same gold flecks that Xaden had in his eyes were glinting with a touch of uncertainty as she turned her head to Liam in a silent question.

“You can,” he assured her in his soft voice. “I’m sure Rhiannon over there could read it to you, if you want.”

She seemed to hesitate, turning her head from Rhiannon, who was still a few steps behind, to Violet, and then back to Liam.

“iet?” she asked with a frown, and Liam furrowed his brows in confusion.

“What do you mean, Rose?”

“iet,” she repeated, but somehow, it wasn’t any clearer.

Liam, who had seemed so assured until now, was looking at Violet and Rhiannon with a look that betrayed how so completely lost he was.

Violet chuckled—all the anger she felt toward her friend leaving her all at once. She had no idea how to take care of a child—didn’t have any idea how old this child could be, to be honest—and it was somewhat reassuring that Liam was as uncertain as she felt.

He cleared his throat and lowered Rose to the ground, “Rhiannon can read you the story,” he repeated without lingering on the frown still on her tiny face. He added, looking up to Rhi, “Please?”

But Violet knew Rhiannon didn’t need to be asked twice—she loved children. Had always loved them, and had only gotten better around them ever since her twin sister had had a kid a few years back.

So of course, she flashed him a huge grin and motioned for Rose to come closer, taking the book Violet was still holding to bring Rose to the couch.

Violet looked with deep interest as the little girl walked on wobbly legs, and was helped by Rhiannon onto the couch.

When she was seated though, she turned her head to Liam with wide eyes, a little gasp escaping her mouth in the process.

“Gaeyl?” she asked desperately, and if Violet didn’t know any better, she might have thought she was on the verge of tears. Then again, she didn’t know anything about children, and especially not this child.

Liam, though, was here to save the day, and seemed to know exactly what the girl was referring to.

“Right,” he said with a little chuckle, eying Violet tentatively. He fumbled with the tote bag he’d been holding—something Violet hadn’t noticed until now and would surely tease him about later—and retrieved a stuffed animal. A navy blue dragon that was probably bigger than Rose’s head. “We can’t possibly have story-time without Sgaeyl, can we?”

Rose’s face lit up, and she bounced up and down in excitement as Liam handed it to her.

She cradled the stuffed animal tightly to her chest as soon as she had it in her hands, and once again, Violet couldn’t help but smile.

Not knowing anything about children didn’t mean she didn’t find them incredibly cute.

Liam was back next to her in a second, his face the picture of guilt and worry, and it was all it took for her to remember how hurt she was.

“Can I talk to you?” He asked her, hopeful.

She crossed her arms on her chest.

“Do I have a choice, now that you’ve set up everything to get me alone?”

“Always,” he frowned. “But I’ll admit I wish I could explain. I—”

She sighed, leaning back on a bookshelf behind her.

“I’m listening,” she said slowly, though they both knew she was not happy about it.

Liam seemed a little relieved.

“I’m sorry,” he said firmly. “I’m sorry for lying. I didn’t want to, but Xaden—” His eyes darted to where Rose was sitting, listening to Rhiannon’s every word, and back to Violet. “He didn’t want to tell you. And—Vi, you’re my best friend, but he’s my brother, and—”

“And he means more than I do,” she finished dryly for him. “Nice.”

“No,” Liam ran a hand through his hair, and she couldn’t remember a single time she’d seen him looking that guilty. “That’s not what I mean. But it’s not my kid,” he continued. “It wasn’t my secret to tell so I—”

She rolled her eyes, even though she knew. She knew it wasn’t, and knew it shouldn’t bother her so much, either.

“I tried to tell you,” Liam said a little more quietly, when she didn’t answer. “If that makes you feel any better, I tried to tell you, once, when Xaden was here, I—”

But Violet didn’t let him finish. She snorted, disbelieving and bitter.

“No, Liam, you didn’t try to tell me,” she shook her head. “You blurted out her name out of nowhere. Without any context, or explanation, and I was left thinking about it for days.” Her voice was sharp, but she didn’t really manage to care. “I’m sorry, but if anything, you made it worse.”

Her friend grimaced, his lovely features shifting to unease in the blink of an eye.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “If it makes you feel any better, Xaden was not happy with me either, that day.”

That was supposed to make her feel better?

Xaden had not only told his friends—and her friends, too—not to tell her anything. But he’d also gone to lengths to make sure she didn’t hear about it.

If anything, it made her feel worse.

She gritted her teeth.

“Vi, I—” Liam sighed again, “Is there anything I can do to make it better? You’re my friend, you—”

“Why didn’t he want me to know?”

“What?”

“Xaden wanted so badly to keep this from me,” she explained. “Why? Why keep it from me?”

She knew—had expected, at least—that Liam wouldn’t answer.

That he’d deny, or deflect, or brush her off.

But his face was a mix of guilt and alarm again, and she was getting so very annoyed with people lying to her.

“Never mind,” she snapped, straightening from the wall. “Leave it.”

“Violet—”

But she was already walking away, heading back to her counter.

The sound of Liam’s tired sigh was muffled by Rhiannon’s voice, reading the story Violet knew by heart, but she tuned her out. She grabbed another book from her pile on the counter and busied herself with it.

Liam and Rose left when Rhiannon finished the story—Rose making her way to Violet and waving in front of her energetically, while her other arm was still holding her stuffed animal close to her chest.

“Bye-bye, iet,” she said, her big, bright eyes fixed on Violet.

She found, once again, that she couldn’t help her smile.

“Bye, Rose,” Violet said. “You liked the book?”

The little girl nodded frantically, breaking into a babble of sounds and words that Violet couldn' quite understand.

“Wow,” she chuckled, “I guess you really liked it.” She nodded toward Rhiannon, who was holding the book behind her. “You can have it, if you want.”

The babble ceased, and Rose’s dark eyes widened at Violet.

“Me?” she asked, almost in disbelief.

Violet nodded, “Yeah,” she shrugged. “It can be yours, if you want. A gift.”

Rose continued to stare at her, her eyes searching Violet’s face without responding. When she finally made up her mind, she took a single step forward and wrapped her tiny arms around Violet’s leg—the only part of her she could reach while Violet was seated on her stool. She squeezed tightly, squashing her stuffed dragon in the process.

Violet huffed a little laugh, awkwardly patting Rose’s head. “It’s okay,” she said as the little girl finally let go. “You’re very welcome.”

She offered her a last warm smile before Rhiannon handed her the book, that she had trouble carrying in her tiny arms that were already busy carrying the dragon.

Liam approached with a few strides to take the book from her hands, and Rose watched intently as he placed it carefully in his tote bag.

“Give me Sgaeyl, too?” he asked, handing out a hand for her, but she shook her head, gripping the stuffed animal tighter.

“Alright,” he chuckled. “Say Bye Violet and Rhiannon?”

“Bye-bye,” she repeated her words from earlier, holding out both her arms for Liam to pick her up, which he did easily.

It was with a last, lingering apologetic look that he left through the door, and Violet groaned in frustration as soon as he was gone.

“Why—”

“Don’t,” Violet cut her friend off. “Finish that sentence. I don’t want to hear it.”

Rhiannon brought both her hands up in defense, resigned, but didn’t say anything else.

Later that night, Violet was curled up on her couch, wrapped in a blanket, and trying to massage her thighs as gently as she could when her phone buzzed.

She kept her hands pressing into her skin for a few more minutes, focused on the podcast blasting loudly in her apartment, until her curiosity got the better of her.

She grabbed her phone on her coffee table and immediately chuckled at the ID she hadn’t realized was saved.

Ridoc, she suspected.

The name screamed Ridoc.

From Do NOT respond to that bastard : Thank you for the book, Violence, she loves it.

A second text arrived half a minute later.

From Do NOT respond to that bastard : That offer of yours still stands?

From Do NOT respond to that bastard : I can’t lose her.

She didn’t expect—or wish—for her heart to soften at that.

But it did. Traitorous thing that it was.

Chapter Text

I mean, it’s fucking annoying, Jesinia signed through the screen.

Violet frowned. Her phone was leaning against a pile of books on her kitchen counter, leaving both her hands free to sign,

I thought you loved it? That they did everything to make it easier for you?

Her friend sighed a deep sigh, and Violet saw her settle down on her beige couch. She moved to place her own phone down.

I do love it. She signed. And they— She paused her signing. They do a lot. I have an interpreter in court and everything. But it doesn’t mean everyone is absolutely open-minded about it. I didn’t choose to be a public defender for nothing. Nobody would willingly hire someone like me.

Violet grimaced a little, her face contorting with a mix of unease and sympathy.

Of anger, too, because she knew damn well her friend was the very best lawyer anyone could find.

Jes, Violet signed. Don’t say that.

It’s true, though. But it’s okay. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I just wish I was strong enough not to care.

You— Violet started signing, but her friend moved both hands to get her to stop instead, and when Violet frowned, she signed,

Change my mind? I really don’t want to talk about it. What’s new with you?

Violet sighed, defeated.

She didn’t want her friend to stay like that.

But she also knew not to push. There was nothing worse than someone telling you things you did not want to hear, when you did not want to hear them.

She knew that a little too well.

You mentioned in your text you had something to ask me? Jesinia added when Violet didn’t answer, and she groaned.

She had. But a part of her had also hoped her friend would somehow forget.

Violet bit her lower lip, signing,

I know it’s not your usual specialty, but how much do you know about custody trials?

Jesinia’s eyebrows rose at that. She stared at Violet, unmoving, until she blinked once.

After what seemed like an eternity—but was probably just a few seconds—she frowned,

Go from the beginning.

And so, Violet did. At least, with how much detail and information as she had—which wasn’t a lot.

Wasn’t anything to go by, really.

When she entered the gym, later that day, she was about to follow the path to Xaden’s office—she tried not to think about how familiar it was, by now—but was stopped by a voice.

“He’s training, right now,” she turned around only to be met with Imogen’s pink hair and usual annoyed face. The pink-haired woman tilted her head in a nod toward a hallway, and left without another word.

If she wanted Violet to follow after her, she didn’t say, but Violet did anyway.

It didn’t take her long to reach the room she had entered, and Violet paused to take it in.

It looked a lot like the room she’d been in, that first night of boxing. It was smaller, though, and less crowded than that night. Way less crowded.

She recognized a few people—Liam and Bodhi were talking in a corner, their arms folded across their chests, and a few other faces looked familiar, too.

But her gaze didn’t linger on anyone, to try and place them. She was too dumbstruck, too frozen in place, to look at anyone other than the fight in the middle of the room.

It was exactly like that first night, she convinced herself. She watched because two people were fighting, and she would have had the same reaction no matter who it was.

She had thought there was something artistic about it, last time.

This was pure perfection. A dance of punches and kicks that had something so raw and captivating about it, she was in awe.

“They’ve been at it for a little while now,” a voice behind her startled her, and she didn’t turn to look at Bodhi. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to.

She was too busy staring at Xaden and Garrick sparring only a few feet away from her.

No, it didn’t matter who it was.

And no, it didn’t matter they were shirtless.

It didn’t matter that Xaden’s torso was adorned with swirls and twirls of dark tattoos that she would have loved to study, to trace.

She’d be staring anyway, because there was something nice about the fight. That’s all there was to it.

Right?

“Were you here to talk to him?” His cousin continued, and this time Violet had to force herself to speak.

“He told me to meet him here,” she said, though her eyes still didn’t agree to move. “So I’m here.”

A little early, she could admit.

Bodhi hummed contentedly, and he was about to speak again, she was sure, but a shriek was heard in the room and it made everybody pause.

She watched as Xaden's fist—which had been lifted and about to collide with Garrick’s jaw, apparently—immediately dropped and as his head turned.

His chest was sweaty with the exertion and moving up and down with his heavy breathing, and he turned around, scanning the room, giving her a full display of his back and of the tattoo he had there, as well.

But then, he paused, and she could only see his profile from where he was standing now, but she still saw his face relaxing instantly, and he dropped to his knees just in time to catch a wobbly Rose running toward him.

Sloane was a few steps behind, trying—and failing—to catch her, but it didn’t seem to matter now, because Rose was in Xaden's arms, and he was scooping her up, and Violet had never seen him so relaxed and unguarded.

It was almost strange to see that look on his face.

“Gods she’s cute,” Bodhi chuckled next to her. “And Xaden only has eyes for her, too.”

Violet crossed her arms on her chest, and couldn’t help but agree—it showed, how much he cared.

And judging by his text from the week before, he was fucking scared of losing her.

She sighed, and tore her gaze away just as Xaden started placing soft, playful kisses all over his daughter's face, making her giggles reverberate all around the room.

“Will you tell me what we’re working with? He was supposed to explain everything today, but it looks like he’s busy.”

Bodhi seemed torn, hesitant, but eventually, he nodded to the door behind them.

“Okay,” he said. “I can at least get you started."

She followed him out of the door and through a couple of hallway, and was surprised when they reached the door to Xaden’s office. It wasn’t a path she had used before, and that made her feel a little dizzy just thinking about it.

This building was way bigger than she had thought.

“Do you want to drink something?” He asked nicely as she settled onto the couch in the office.

“Sure,” she placed her bag beside her and set her computer on her lap. “Coffee?”

He nodded and started making the coffee, leaving her the time to unlock her laptop and get ready.

Her call with Jesinia this morning had helped her tremendously, and the knowledge that her friend was only a phone call away, should she need her, was grounding.

Violet hadn’t practiced law in a while—and didn’t hold a formal lawyer title anyway—and even though she knew she was damn good at this, she wouldn’t take any chances.

“Okay,” Bodhi sighed as he placed a cup of coffee for her on the table. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” she shrugged. “How old she is, what happened with the mother, how the trial is going.” She met his eyes. “Anything that could be helpful.”

“Right,” he sat in a chair opposite her and ran a hand through his hair. “You sure you don’t want to wait for Xaden for this? He—”

“We’re losing time, Bodhi,” she cut him off. “He asked me here. Asked for my help. And I won’t be able to do that if no one tells me anything. So give me something to work with. Xaden can fill in the blanks when he’s not playing Daddy.”

Bodhi grimaced, and quite frankly, she wasn’t happy with her wording, either.

With what little she had seen of him interacting with Rose, she could tell he loved his daughter, and wanted to do what was right for her.

She would never resent him for it.

But she was also irritated by everyone asking for her help and not telling her anything, and so she was snappy.

Not to mention she was hungry, and she was infinitely snappier when her stomach was empty.

“Right,” Bodhi repeated his word from earlier, a little more clipped this time. He leaned back in his chair. “Rose is just over one year old. Long story short, Xaden was on and off with a girl, a few years back,” he said half grimacing. “She’s a fucking psycho, if you want my opinion.”

“We don’t.” They were both startled at Xaden’s voice, even though it was softer than usual, and Violet understood why when she saw Rose in his arms. She was leaning her head on his shoulder, and clutching the same stuffed animal as the week before, her thumb in her mouth.

He had found a shirt, in the few minutes since they’d left the gym, and if Violet had been under any kind of substance, she might have admitted to being a little disappointed.

But she was thinking absolutely clearly right now, and so she didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

“What are you doing here?” He asked as he tried to set Rose down, but she clung to him, and so he kept her right there without a word.

Violet couldn’t control the rise of both her eyebrows.

“You invited me here,” she said.

Prick, she added mentally.

There was a child in the room, after all.

Xaden narrowed his eyes at her.

“No, I mean what are you doing here in my office? Why didn’t you wait for me in the sparring room?”

At that, she had to pause.

In truth, she hadn’t realized he had noticed her presence at all.

He had been too busy throwing and dodging punches, and then looking for his daughter to notice her.

She grabbed her coffee cup, leaning back on the couch, and the movement seemed to catch Rose’s attention because she turned her head toward her. Her face lit up a little, and she waved her tiny hand in Violet's direction.

“You were busy,” Violet replied, waving awkwardly at Rose. “I thought I’d get started.” She shrugged and eyed Rose meaningfully, adding, “And maybe we should continue without you.”

Xaden rolled his eyes, but he made no move to try and untangle himself from his daughter, either.

“We can—” he started, but was cut off when Rose said,

“Dada.”

She turned her little head to look a him, brows furrowed, and pouted. Xaden cocked his head to the side, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear.

“What is it?” he asked softly. “What do you want?”

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, and Xaden chuckled a little.

“Thirsty?” he murmured, and Violet had to swallow a snort.

There was no way in hell she’d have understood that with the same information.

But Rose seemed to be content, for she stopped opening her mouth and happily gripped the baby bottle Xaden had taken from his desk.

He sat down on a chair next to Bodhi, opposite her, as Rose gulped down a few mouthfuls of water while he supported the bottle for her.

“We can talk,” Xaden said eventually. “It’s fine.”

Violet doubted it would be fine to discuss whatever they had to discuss in front of a one-year-old, but she didn’t say.

Instead, she took a sip of coffee, and tried to avoid Rose’s piercing eyes on her as she pushed the bottle away. Xaden placed it on the coffee table without a word.

“Alright,” she conceded, discarding the cup as well. “Bodhi was just explaining things to me. I need details.”

Xaden sighed heavily but surprised her by starting to speak without further prompting.

“I was never together with her—” his eyes darted down to Rose before they snapped back to Violet’s. “—genitor,” he offered. “As Bodhi said, we were on and off, but mostly off. It was purely—”

He trailed off again, and Violet tried, an eyebrow raised, “Not sentimental?”

She wasn't sure if physical would be suitable for the little ears next to them.

“Right,” he rolled his eyes. “That.” He leaned back on his chair and repositioned Rose on his lap, as she started toying with the hem of his shirt. “She wanted more, though. Always has.”

“Wanted your money and name,” Bodhi said with a fake gag, and Violet had to stiffen a laugh. “And she found a way to do just that,” he added, more sadly this time, as he looked over to Rose.

Xaden narrowed his eyes at him, almost protectively, but Violet understood what his cousin had meant.

That woman wanted a tie to him, and getting pregnant with his child had seemed like a good way to do just that, apparently.

“Thing is,” Xaden continued, “that I still didn’t want her, then. And she didn’t know what she had gotten herself into, either, so after one month of trying to stick around, she got annoyed and left.”

There was bite, and disgust, and anger in his voice, that Violet couldn't help but reciprocate.

“Good riddance,” Bodhi muttered under his breath.

Violet would have laughed again if she didn’t know that what was at stake was so serious.

“Until recently?” She guessed.

“Yeah,” Xaden nodded. “Until—” Rose gasp made him pause, but she only pushed away from him, leaving him her stuffed animal, and he helped her get on the floor, steadying her in the process before he continued, “Until a few months ago. She was five months old, so, she wasn't gone for long.”

She nodded pensively, a few hairs coming out of her braid as she typed the key elements he was giving her on her computer.

Xaden was tracking each of Rose’s steps, ready to get up at any given moment, while toying with the stuffed dragon mindlessly but he kept talking,

“She came back with a file for custody and child support. We’ve been in a legal battle ever since.”

Violet winced, fingers hovering above the keyboard, and all she could say was,

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His eyes met hers, pained and devastated, and for a minute there was only them.

Not for long, though, because a loud thud was heard and Xaden’s head whipped around in alarm, only to find Rose giggling in front of a book that had fallen on the ground.

His face softened at that, and Bodhi got up to walk over to her, sitting back down behind her on the floor and whispering softly.

She kept staring for a few seconds, watching as Rose smiled and turned over to Bodhi, before Violet looked back to Xaden.

She asked, voice low, “So, you’re in the middle of a trial right now?” He nodded. “How’s that going?”

But she didn’t need him to answer to know. She already knew.

“Bad,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “We’ve been going back and forth. She gets to stay with me for now, the judge has agreed to that, since she was living with me before, but—” he trailed off, and there was something in his voice was she hated immediately.

He sounded tired—exhausted, even. Defeated.

“They made temporary custody arrangements, too?” Violet asked—more of a guess, really.

Xaden nodded, keeping her gaze.

“One week. She had her for one—” he clenched his jaw, trying to contain his anger, and then glanced toward where his daughter was still sitting with Bodhi. “It was one hell of a week,” he said eventually. More quietly.

Violet remembered. At least, she thought she remembered.

It was that week he had come to take several books.

That week she’d found him in his office, restless and broken.

She swallowed.

“And what did the social workers say?” She asked, hopeful. “There are social workers appointed to the case, right?” He nodded. “So what did they say?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t say anything, but his eyes darkened, and after a few seconds of staring, and gritting his teeth, he got up.

He made his way to his desk, oblivious to Rose’s eyes tracking his movement, and fumbled with a folder on his desk. He seemed to find what he was looking for, though, and retrieved a piece of paper that he handed her once he was back in front of her.

It was a Social worker’s statement, she recognized, and a sentence at the end of the page was highlighted.

It read:

It seems like the child responded well to being around their mother for the week. It would be unfortunate to keep them apart, given the positive interaction observed.

Violet grimaced.

She wouldn’t admit it to his face, but this was bad.

From what she knew, judges and social workers always tended to favor the mother in custody cases—believing women to be more suited to care for a child, never mind that a shitty mother was as bad as a shitty father every single day.

But those were the facts, and having a social worker write that—this was bad.

Very bad.

She placed the paper on the table.

“Your lawyer,” she said. “They’re good?”

“I thought so,” he sighed. “Now, I don’t know.”

Violet bit her lower lip, observing him, and asked, “And hers? Oh, and the judge? Who is it?”

Again, Xaden clenched his jaw, and when he answered, his tone was clipped,

“Her lawyer’s a damned shark.”

“Who is it?”

“Tecarus. Ever heard of him?”

Oh, yes. Yes, she had.

And bad things, too.

The answer must have shown on her face, because Xaden added,

“It’s her niece.”

She raised her eyebrows, “Ca—”

“Don’t,” he cut her off, eyes darting to Rose again, who was now on Bodhi's lap, what looked like a small carved figurine in hand. “Don’t say her name. But yeah. Her.”

She scoffed audibly, unable to help herself.

“Yuck,” she closed her laptop with a loud snap. All of her disgust toward the woman could not be contained.

She had only heard of her, never met her, but what she had heard was enough.

And now that she thought about it—it all made sense, now.

Catriona Cordella.

Cat, he had said in her bookstore over the phone, that day.

She put her laptop back in her bag.

“What,” Xaden asked, eyebrows raised as he appraised her. He placed the stuffed animal on the coffee table. “That stops you? You changing your mind about helping us?”

Violet got up, bag clutched to her shoulder.

“Are you kidding?” She smirked. “I’m going to enjoy bringing her down even more.”

Chapter Text

The days, and weeks, and months that followed were swallowed whole by research, and research and research.

Violet would spend every waking hour with her mind drifting off to the case. She’d wake up at night sometimes, only to scribble something down on the notepad she kept close to her nightstand. She’d look into former cases in the morning while drinking her coffee and find herself building up arguments in the shower. She’d listen to legal podcasts on her walk to work and would open her computer even before opening her bookstore, then spent the day researching and researching and researching again. She’d massage her stiff muscles in the evening with a frown on her face, and she’d try to pretend it was because of the discomfort, and not from another wave of frustration.

More than once, she’d call Jesinia, and her friend always seemed eager to help.

And in the afternoons, after Violet closed her store, she’d walk up to the gym and settle in Xaden’s office to work a little more.

Most of the time, the office would be empty when she entered it. She never let it bother her. She simply settled on the couch and started working again.

Sometimes, he came in, either sweaty and slightly panting, or in an impeccable suit. Either way, Violet was not staring.

(She didn’t know in which case it was harder for her eyes to dart away.)

He’d usually come silently beside her, sitting next to her probably closer than strictly necessary, and they both pretended it was for the sole purpose of looking at her computer or the book splayed open on her lap or her notepad.

He’d wait patiently for her to finish her thoughts, or her line, or whatever she was busy with; never talked until he knew she was ready.

Never mind that she got distracted every single time he entered the room.

It was because she didn’t like people watching her work, she told herself.

She’d see Rose every now and then, too. Always smiling, always laughing, always bubbling with joy. Always attached to her father’s hip, if he was anywhere around.

But every time she saw Violet, a huge grin stretched across her lips. At first, she’d wave at her. After a few weeks, she’d come closer and started peering at what Violet was doing—as if she understood every single thing written on her computer.

Lately though, the little girl had started breaking into a run when she saw her, and nearly colliding with her chest every time. Violet could only huff a little laugh.

No, Violet signed in front of her phone one night. It was already late, and she was tired. But she also just had a thought and hadn’t been able to resist the urge to call her friend. I think they already did all that. Violet sighed, a little defeated. They even talked to her doctor. Tried to see if he could pledge in his favor.

In front of her, with her hair a little messy, Jesinia frowned.

And it still wasn’t enough?

Violet didn’t respond. It was clearly not enough. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

I don’t get it, she signed. It’s like I’m missing something.

Jesinia observed her for a second, before her hands started moving again—a little more slowly this time.

Why are you doing this, again? Doesn’t he have a lawyer that could help him?

He does, Violet signed a little sharply. But it’s not getting anywhere.

Jesinia kept still again. Unmoving.

Maybe you should rest, Vi. Try to get your head out of this. It’s all you’ve been doing lately.

She knew.

Of course, she knew.

And it’s not like she didn’t want to do anything else. But her mind didn’t give her a choice in the matter. Every time she started to think about something else, her thoughts simply drifted off again.

Still, she signed,

You’re right. I think I need a break. She flashed her friend an easy smile. So why were you still up anyway?

The blush creeping up her friend’s cheek was deep and crimson. Violet couldn’t refrain from her smile and closed her computer to give her friend her full attention.

She was handing a customer their receipt just as the door opened. Violet didn’t have time to look though, before her legs were encircled in a motion that was anything but comfortable. She winced a little.

“Rosie,” she said a little awkwardly, placing a hand on the little girl’s hand. “That hurts.”

With gentle hands, she took Rose’s arms away from her legs and lifted her head, only to be met with Liam’s small grin. She looked back down.

“Hi,” she greeted the small set of onyx eyes staring at her. “I didn’t know you’d come here today.”

“We were in the neighborhood,” Liam answered with a little shrug. “Xaden’s on the phone outside.”

Violet didn’t want her eyes to flicker to the outside of her shop. She really didn’t, and yet, when she looked, she only saw the empty street. She hummed contemplatively.

She felt a small tap on her leg, and she looked at Rose again just in time to hear her babble. Violet had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing at the incomprehensible words flying out of her mouth.

“We’ll have to work on that,” Violet laughed softly as she crouched down to be at her level. “I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say, I’m sorry.”

At that, Rose cocked her head to the side, observing her with an intensity that reminded Violet far too much of another set of onyx eyes. And then she lifted a hand to Violet’s hair, gripped the end of a strand, and pulled. Hard.

“Ouch,” Violet covered her tiny hand with hers, trying to hide her wince. She was about to continue, but another voice beat her to it,

“You never have your hair down.”

When she glanced back up, Rose’s hand still in hers, Violet was met with the exact set of eyes she had been thinking about a few minutes ago. She cocked an eyebrow at Xaden, who simply shrugged.

“She must like it.”

Violet rolled her eyes—and she didn’t know why, really, she was annoyed every time he entered the room. She made Rose let go of her hair and got up, without letting go of her hand.

She nodded toward him, and the phone he was holding.

“Was it who I think it was?”

For a second, he searched her face, and tipped his head in a nod. She had been making her way to the two men standing in her bookshop, Rose following with their hands still clasped together. The little girl let go immediately when they approached though, and leaned against Xaden’s legs instead.

“So?” She inquired.

“Next week.”

A few steps behind him, Liam grimaced, but didn’t offer anything. It didn’t escape Violet, though. She shrugged.

“It’s better than sitting around.”

Xaden’s face seemed closed off. Unwilling to offer anything about what he was feeling, what he was thinking.

But she knew, somehow.

Another audience meant it could go either way. Meant he could have good news, or bad news.

She placed a hand on his bicep and squeezed, once.

“It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t answer.

She knew he couldn’t believe that, either.

“Anyways,” he sighed heavily. “Liam had something to ask you, I believe.”

Liam snorted, and Violet did, too, because whatever her friendship with Liam was at the moment, they weren’t speaking enough to be asking things to each other.

Not that he hadn’t tried—again and again and again.

Violet folded her arms over her chest, waiting.

“Actually,” Liam said as he turned to Xaden, “I believe it was you, who…”

“Spare me,” Violet rolled her eyes dramatically. “What do you want?”

They exchanged a quick look, and then, it was Liam who said, with a little sigh,

“We’re having a family dinner. We thought you might come?”

The laugh that escaped her mouth was as disbelieving as it was amused.

“No, thank you.”

“Please.”

She narrowed her eyes at Liam, and she shook her head. “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

Again, they exchanged a look that only served to annoy Violet even more. She rolled her eyes at them and turned on her heels to get back to her front desk and away from them.

There were footsteps behind her though, and she shouldn’t have been surprised to feel a hand on her lower back.

“Please,” Xaden echoed Liam’s words slowly. “Why won’t you come?”

His voice was low, meant just for her, and she tried to get away from his touch, but somehow she couldn’t.

She hated that she had to crane her neck up in an attempt to look at him. Violet narrowed her eyes at him.

“Stop this.”

“Stop what?”

She shoved at his chest and he took a step back. Not enough to give her the space she wanted—craved—but enough to enable her to breathe a little easier.

“Stop trying to turn this into something it isn’t.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

He fell silent again—kept observing her with those eyes.

Eventually, he said, “Come to dinner for Liam. He’s your friend. Even if you don’t treat him as such.”

Violet scoffed. Dirtily. Annoyingly.

She wasn’t treating him as a friend? But was he, in return?

She didn’t even try to argue.

“Did you miss the part where I’m only doing this for her?”

“Then come to dinner for her.”

Violet rolled her eyes but didn’t answer.

“Please,” he tried again in a murmur, and the sound made her pause.

When she glanced back behind her, his eyes were pleading.

“What’s this dinner?” She said instead.

“Just—dinner.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “It’s just dinner, Violence. And we’d like you to be here.”

She hated how he managed to do that. To creep into her life and slip through her defenses and wrap around her heart. She didn’t want to budge, to give in, to give up. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for him, to feel sorry for him, to want to help him.

She didn’t want to feel all the things she did for him.

She couldn’t help it.

Violet closed her eyes, and slowly nodded.

It was easier if she didn’t voice her agreement. It’d be easier like that.

When she opened her eyes again, a small, satisfied smile was on his face.

“Will you look at me at all, during dinner? Or will you keep your eyes closed and ignore me?”

She narrowed her eyes on him.

“Don’t push it, Riorson.”

“Ouch,” he replied in mock offense, though his expression suggested otherwise. If anything, his smile only grew wider. As if their banter, and her biting remarks were soothing to him. Comforting.

Maybe they were.

He probably handled it better than being pitied.

“We’re going back to Riorson?”

She shoved at his chest again, but he placed a hand on top of hers to keep her there. His face turned serious again.

“She’ll be thrilled.”

When she searched his face, though, she wondered if he really meant himself.

She had never set foot in his apartment. And it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that it was spacious, and neat, and beautiful. She shouldn’t, and yet, Violet couldn’t help but let her gaze rake over every surface.

The open kitchen with the countertop and the bowl of fruits sitting on top. The wide living room and the table set with way too many plates. The library in a faraway corner. The stuffed animals and the blankets and the stacks of toys sitting in every corner.

“You’re staring.”

She turned her head to find Bodhi’s amused eyes on her. She hadn’t noticed he’d stopped as well after opening the door for her.

“Just—” she shrugged. “Curious.”

His answering hum was anything but convinced.

“He’s in her room with her, if you were wondering.”

“I was not.”

And she was not, it was the absolute truth.

“What’s this dinner anyways?” Violet said as she shrugged off her jacket. She placed it on a stool before she waved at Garrick, who was speaking quietly in a corner of the room with Imogen, both leaning in front of a window.

“They have an audience in a few days,” Bodhi said matter-of-factly.

Violet nodded. She already knew.

“We always try to get together beforehand, just—”

Just in case, she understood.

She blinked at him.

“It’s just—” he shrugged again. “I suggested it once, and he’s wanted to do that every single time since.”

“That’s very nice,” Violet answered very quietly. “That you’re all here for him.”

“For them,” Bodhi corrected gently. “They’re family.”

Again, she found herself nodding. And for some reason, she wasn’t so irritated about this dinner, now that she understood.

Whoever had done the cooking had done it exceptionally well. They were served so many dishes—and such extravagant ones at that—that Violet was sure she could have guessed it wasn’t just any kind of dinner by the menu itself.

It reminded her of the Christmases spent with her family when her dad was still alive and of the Thanksgivings she’d organized with Mira and Brennan ever since he died. It reminded her of the birthdays her friends would plan for her and of the welcome-home dinner she’d once been invited to.

It was homey and welcoming and warm—in a way she didn’t know what to make of.

The conversations were easy, she realized, with his friends and family. Or at least, they were easy with most of them—she had yet to warm up to Imogen though, or maybe it was the other way around.

But Garrick threw her easy smiles and didn’t refrain from laughing at her biting remarks (No, Riorson, I don’t think you’re neat) and Bodhi nudged her side more than once as if she was his oldest friend (I’m not sure they’ll make it ‘til the end of dinner, what do you think? He’d whispered in her ear, glancing pointedly at Imogen and Garrick making eyes at each other), and even exchanged glances with Liam sometimes, allowing a smile for him. He rewarded her with a hopeful gaze every single time.

Rose was there, leaning on her father’s chest or shrieking away from Bodhi’s tickling, or frowning at the plate of food Xaden was picking from.

And Xaden—more than once, he’d meet her eyes and Violet couldn’t escape the heat on her cheeks at his gaze—intense and filled with something she definitely didn’t want to address at the moment.

Violet pretended the blush coloring her cheek was all due to the wine Imogen kept pouring into each glass.

Bodhi had been proven wrong—Garrick and Imogen stayed even after the dessert, although Violet could have sworn that the sleeping child on the couch and the worry (hidden but visible) on her father’s face were the only reasons they had pushed through.

They left earlier than everyone else, but when Xaden brought Rose to bed, Liam was also starting to gather his things.

She approached him slowly.

“You’re leaving?”

He glanced above his shoulder and shrugged. “I have an early morning.”

She mused, crossing her hands behind her back and shifting on her toes.

He noticed, of course, and chuckled, “Yes, Violet?”

“Nothing.” When he lifted an eyebrow, she sighed and gave in. “Nothing,” she repeated. “It was just—nice.”

When he straightened and fully turned to her, there was a small smile on his lips. It was very hard to remember why she had been mad at him—with his puppy eyes and his amused grin, and the wine in her body.

“It was,” he agreed. He seemed to hesitate, before adding, “I’ve missed my friend.”

But there it was again;

The lies and the secrets and the sting in her heart that reminded her of why, exactly, she couldn’t just close her eyes on all of that.

Violet tipped her head in a nod but didn’t offer anything.

His smile faded a little, “I’m sorry, Vi. I really am.”

“I know,” she nodded again, before stepping away. Bodhi was next to the front door, probably waiting for the two of them to join him before he left, and making a pointed effort to not intrude—although she was very aware of the fact that he could probably hear them very clearly.

She was reaching for her coat but she was stopped by a hand on her lower back.

“Stay for a little while?” She looked up to find Xaden looking down at her—eyes boring into hers again but what else was new. “Please?”

“I don’t—”

He did something then—his hand on her lower back contracted slightly, as if he was trying to contain his disappointment, or maybe trying to wrap her in his arms without being able to, she wasn’t sure—and he repeated, “Please, Violet.”

She didn’t know what it was, really.

If it was his hand on her, or the look on his face, or his eyes boring into hers. If it was the way he’d looked at her all evening or the way he’d said her name—her name, not her nickname.

Or if perhaps it was simply the wine, again.

(It was probably the wine again).

Either way, she found herself nodding.

She found herself giving in.

Just for a little while.

Chapter Text

“Here.”

Violet offered Xaden a small but gracious smile for the cup of tea he’d just placed in front of her.

He settled next to her on a stool, leaning both his elbows on the kitchen counter before him.

And for a few minutes, they stayed silent, both of them.

Surrounded by the neat apartment, and the toys scattered around, and the lingering taste of wine in her mouth.

Violet hadn’t been able to say no to him. But she certainly wasn’t sure what she was doing here.

Wasn’t sure what he was expecting from her right now.

Her hand on her teacup twitched involuntarily.

“You can’t come on Tuesday,” Xaden murmured after what felt like an eternity.

Violet was almost startled at his voice—even with how low it was.

“What?”

“You can’t come,” he repeated. “To the audience. I wish you were there, though.”

“Oh,” she cleared her throat. “Yeah. No, I knew I couldn’t come. Being a—kid’s trial, and everything.”

Xaden nodded, his head facing ahead.

“Xaden,” she said, letting out a long, painful sigh. “Any judge would see how you—”

He snorted—a dirty thing that made her stop in her words and grimace immediately.

“We don’t have just any judge.”

Violet’s eyebrows both rose at that. “Who’s the judge?”

He was silent beside her. One second, two. And then, “I just mean—it’s not just any case.”

And it made sense, to some extent.

It was his daughter. His life.

He was feeling desperate.

It was another few beats of silence before she stood abruptly.

“Get up,” she ordered.

Xaden didn’t respond, but he was certainly looking at her, now—looking at her finally—and behind the misery, there was a very amused look on his face.

“Get up,” she repeated. “Now.”

He humored her. And for a moment, they only stood, awkwardly facing each other.

Awkwardly, but not only because he was towering over her by a few too many inches.

Awkwardly, because Xaden’s lips were already tugging a little at the sides and Violet could almost admit she wanted to chase after the smile that was seconds away.

(With her mouth, probably.)

She decided to ignore him.

“You train a lot,” she said flatly. He cocked an eyebrow. “So it’s not very new, for you, to push through, even when it’s difficult.”

Still, he said nothing, but his eyes were certainly waiting—waiting for her.

“What would you do,” she said, “if someone you were training was ready to give up?”

“I’m not—”

“What would you do?” she repeated, “Answer me.”

For a moment, he searched her face. And Violet hadn’t realized he was standing so close to her until now.

“I’m not a coach,” he said flatly. “I just train.”

Violet rolled her eyes, and tried to suppress a groan. He was making this difficult for nothing. She folded her arms over her chest.

“Okay,” she said, voice a little more annoyed now. “So, let’s say you’re not a coach. But your friend—say, Liam—wants to give up.” She paused, and began tapping her foot on the floor in annoyance. “What do you tell him?”

Was she imagining things, or was that a smirk making its way on his lips?

“Oh,” he said. “Well, that’s easy. He tried to give up a few days ago.”

She tried not to sound too surprised as she said, “And? What did you tell him?”

“That he shouldn’t,” Xaden shrugged. “That he had to fight.”

“Why?” she pressed. “Come on.”

“Because you’re worth fighting for.”

“I—” Violet blinked. “What?”

The smirk on his lips was unmistakeable now, and equal parts infuriating and adorable. Not that Violet would admit it.

“You are worth fighting for,” he repeated. “He wanted to leave you alone like you pretend you want him to. He wanted to stop trying to talk to you. I told him to keep going.”

Violet scoffed. Was he really trying to change the subject right now? Or simply trying to rile her up even more than she usually was?

“You—”

“Violence,” he said in a long, exhausted breath. “You’re being a little harsh with him, don’t you think?”

“No.” She frowned, and then added, “Stop changing the subject. We’re not talking about Liam right now.”

“I thought we—”

This time, Violet wasn’t able to suppress her groan. She lifted both her hands up in annoyance and was already turning on her heels but Xaden caught her easily to keep her right there.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t even move, not exactly. He was simply holding her wrist—covering the entirety of it with his broad, warm hand. She hoped he realized the quickening of her pulse under his palm was due to the wine.

Better yet, she hoped he couldn’t feel it. Because her pulse was skyrocketing, and she was quite sure it was nothing healthy.

“Violence,” he said slowly, after a few minutes. “Where are you going?”

She had to swallow under the intensity of his gaze. And the heat she felt then was probably not due to wine, was it?

“Home,” she tried to frown, but it was probably lost when one of Xaden’s hands reached for her face—hovering near her hair without touching.

“Stop running away,” he whispered, almost nothing more than a breath. “Stop running away from me.”

Violet blinked.

And she thought maybe her heart had stopped, then.

“You’re able to help me,” he continued, just as his hand finally met her cheek—only grazing slowly. “When will you be able to forgive me?”

“I…”

But Violet wasn’t able to finish her sentence.

I, what?

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

I’m not holding any grudges.

I think maybe I already have.

She trailed off and she saw him clench his jaw, for one second. Another one. And then, his eyes flickered to her lips, before he met her eyes once more.

“I care about you, Vi,” he murmured. “I care about you more than—”

The rest of his sentence—of his admission, or his feelings, or his vulnerability—hung in the air between them when they heard a cry. It was soft at first—soft like it was only seeking for comfort. But then it turned a little louder. A little stronger. A little wilder. Like a cry of pain, and hurt, and despair.

Xaden’s hand twitched around Violet’s wrist for only a second before he rasped,

“I’m sorry,” he was already retreating—already pulling away. “Please don’t go. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait to see her little nod, and was out of her sight before she could process it.

But perhaps it was better, like that.

It was better, because then Violet found her mind slowly—so, so slowly getting clearer.

She found her heart steadying—finding its normal pace again when it had been beating both too much and not enough.

She brought both her hands to her chest, ignoring the cries from the other room slowly calming down, and the whispers she heard coming from there, too.

Xaden was back just a few minutes later.

And this time, he wasn’t alone.

Rose was nestled in his arms, wearing a pajama filled with colorful dragons and clutching her own tight to her chest. Her cheeks were tear-streaked and her eyes red, but she seemed more peaceful now that she was against her father. Her tiny head was nestled against the crook of his neck, and her thumb was buried in her mouth—but her big bright eyes landed on Violet immediately.

“Sorry,” Xaden murmured upon approaching again. “She had a nightmare.”

If anything, Violet would have told him he didn’t have to apologize for that.

Never.

She shrugged it off, and almost on instinct, took a few steps toward them to be able to reach Rose.

She had grown quite accustomed—quite fond—of the small sets of eyes and the long eyelashes looking back at her.

“You’re good, Rosie,” Violet offered with a smile she hoped was comforting. “You’re alright.”

Rose didn’t answer, didn’t even make a single move. But her eyes were still trained on Violet expectantly. She continued,

“Want to know a secret?” Violet paused then, both eyebrows raised in emphasis as she tried—pointedly tried—to ignore the other set of dark eyes on her. “A Daddy’s embrace is the best thing against a bad nightmare. So you’re perfectly good just here. And,” Violet leaned in closer to Rose. From where she was nestled against Xaden, Violet was almost at her level. “Your Daddy will never say no to you, never. So you should definitely use that against him.”

She guessed, more than saw Xaden’s eye roll at her words. And the snickering giggle that bubbled out of Rose was a reward in itself.

This time, Violet straightened. “I should go,” she said, finally meeting Xaden’s eyes. “Leave you two sleep.”

From the look on his face, he wasn’t so happy about that.

He didn’t try to complain, either.

He said, “Will you be good to go home on your own?”

Violet rolled her eyes and didn’t even dignify him with a response. Instead, she was already reaching for her coat. She slid it on easily, before she found Xaden—and Rose—waiting for her by the door.

She rose on her toes to place a kiss on Rose’s cheek.

“Goodnight, Rosie. I’ll see you soon.”

She was stopped in her tracks by a hand on her hip, and when she turned to look, it was to a cocked eyebrow.

“No kiss goodnight for me?”

Violet huffed. “You didn’t—”

She stopped talking as soon as she felt his lips—warm, gentle, careful—meeting her cheek.

“Goodnight, Violence,” he murmured as he straightened. “I’ll see you soon.”

The next time Violet saw Rose, she was busy.

She was sitting in Xaden’s office—much like she was every other day—and signing frantically to Jesinia who was helping her, yet again.

Rose came running in with a loud squeal, apparently oblivious to the audience they were to have the day after.

Violet though, was anything but.

She felt stressed, restless.

She felt like her heart was in her throat, and she could do nothing about it.

“Ouch,” she put a steadying hand on Rose and grimaced. “Hey there. You’re alone?”

Rose didn’t answer (of course she didn’t) but she was undeniably not with anyone. Violet glanced up at her screen and hastily signed,

Sorry.

Jesinia brushed her off with a hand as she asked, Is that the child in question?

Violet wasn’t able to answer right away. She wasn’t, because Rose was climbing on her lap—a little uncomfortably for Violet, too—and positioning herself on her chest without so much as a questioning look. Violet could only huff.

Yeah, she signed as soon as she was able. Meet Rose.

She glanced down toward the pool of hair she could see now that Rose was facing away from her, and said, as she signed, too,

“Rosie, this is my friend Jesinia.”

For a moment, Rose turned her head to Violet, and then back to the screen in front of her.

And then she leaned back against Violet with a small sigh and a lot of babble.

Violet was able to continue her conversation with her friend after that—at least, mostly. She stopped speaking the words, but after only a few sentences, she felt Rose’s tiny hands encircle her wrists and follow her movements. Violet didn’t really mind. In truth, she hadn’t been able to suppress the fond smile on her lips at the touch.

It was only when the call was finished though, that Violet shifted. She brought Rose down next to her instead, and used the opportunity to stretch her legs. She massaged her thighs softly as she said,

“So, Rose. Where’s everyone? Why are you here alone?”

Rose only lifted her arms up and down in answer, her babbles interrupted only by her small giggling laughs.

“Mh,” Violet chuckled. “Yeah, still no skills in baby talk.”

The child beside her seemed to burst into laughter, and Violet had no choice but to join her.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Violet was startled by Xaden’s voice, and when she turned to look, he was leaning against the open doorframe of his office, his arms folded over his chest. “She’s asking you about the latest increase in the stock exchange.”

Violet bit her lower lip enough to hurt—and yet, it did nothing to tame her smile. Or her laugh. She chuckled again.

Xaden finally took a step inside the room, then a second one.

The smile he was wearing—the smile Violet had grown accustomed to, by now—was making her melt from the inside out, she thought.

And this time, she didn’t even have the wine to blame.

He took a seat beside her on the couch.

Beside her, not his daughter, who was on Violet’s other side.

And she was definitely not bothered—or affected, for that matter—by his hand finding her lower back.

“Liam is staying with her tomorrow,” he announced in a low voice.

This effectively managed to sober Violet up.

Immediately.

She turned to him, glancing above her shoulder to see his eyes fixed not on her but on his daughter.

“You think..” Violet trailed off, cleared her throat, and tried again. “You think I could keep them company, too?”

Xaden’s eyes snapped back to hers.

They were incredibly deeper than they usually were.

Incredibly more sad.

Slowly, he nodded—eyes never leaving hers even when they heard Rose babble audibly again.

Violet found herself leaning back. Just slightly.

And it wasn’t even anything—Xaden was already so close. But it was enough to let her back meet his chest, and for her head to find his shoulder to lean on.

His arm encircled her immediately, as if on pure instinct, and she couldn’t be sure, but she thought he had half-buried his face in her hair and was.. breathing her in, perhaps.

Pressing her the tiniest bit closer to his chest.

She didn’t even find it in herself to complain.

To pretend to complain.

Violet didn’t remember ever being this on edge. Struggling this much to keep her thoughts in check. And her heart in check.

She was nibbling on her lower lip incessantly, checking the time every few minutes, only to end up checking it again. She was pacing one minute, sitting down the next, only to stand again once she wasn’t able to stay still.

She was losing it.

And Liam knew it, too.

“You’re making me nervous,” he grumbled next to her, after her third attempt at sitting down. “Can you just… chill?”

Violet scoffed.

Chill?

No, she didn’t think she could chill.

“He’ll be fine,” he continued, his voice a little lower now. “It’s not his first…”

She shot him a glare that she supposed was enough to silence him.

“It’s not him I’m worried about.”

A lie.

Of course she was worried about him.

But not only him.

Rose was sitting on the floor further down in Xaden’s apartment, playing with toys and stuffed animals alike.

Violet swallowed.

“I just..” she sighed. “I just want to know.”

“I know, Vi,” Liam answered very quietly. “We all do. But worrying like that won’t do anything you…” he shrugged. “You’ve done a lot, already.”

And yet, Violet doubted it. She doubted she had done enough.

She sighed a heavy sigh, and instead of answering—and instead of pacing the floor again, or going mad like she was sure she would—she walked to the corner Rose was sitting on and sat down next to her on the floor.

“So, Miss Rosie,” she smiled softly. “What are we playing at?”

Rose babbled immediately, drawing an uncontrollable smile from Violet that immediately soothed something in her.

“Mh,” she mused. “Okay, I guess. Can I—”

She trailed off when Rose furrowed her brows at her, moving her arms up and down.

“I’m sorry, I—”

The frown on Rose’s face only deepened. She continued with her movements and babbles, but the only thing Violet could make out were sounds like,

Da, and ty and iz.

Nothing she could work with. Still, Rose seemed more and more bothered by the minute.

And it was exactly what she didn’t need—to upset a child when she was already worried sick for her dad.

Violet cleared her throat.

“Rosie,” she said softly. “I can’t—I don’t understand, I—”

Rose did something, then.

With one of her hands, she started making a sign.

A sign.

It didn’t mean anything, and didn’t even resemble any sign Violet knew, but it was a sign all the same.

She chuckled at the realization.

“Oh,” she said slowly. “Okay. Maybe we can…” she cocked her head to the side thinking. “Maybe we can work with that.”

Slowly, Violet lifted both her hands in front of her. She knew she had Rose’s full attention—and probably somebody else’s from afar.

She signed, water, as she said, “I’d like some water.” She did it again, this time saying, “I’m thirsty.”

Rose blinked at her, eyes never leaving hers.

This time, Violet signed, food. “I’d like some food.” Again, she repeated the motion. “I’m hungry.”

Roses’s eyes were still boring into hers, watching with the utmost fascination every single move she was making.

Violet started again.

Water, “water.”

Food, “food.”

Then she added,

Sleep, as she said, “I’m tired.”

When Rose blinked again, Violet gently reached out for her tiny hands—helping her make the signs she had just shown her.

“Water,” she said, repeating the motion more than once. Then, “Food.”

And finally, she changed, “Sleep.”

For a minute, they both stayed still—both looking at Rose’s hands hanging in the air in front of her.

And as soon as Violet let go of her smaller wrists, Rose started moving again.

She signed—or rather, tried to sign—the signs Violet had just taught her.

And then again.

And then again.

Violet huffed as she watched her.

“That’s good, Rosie. That’s very good.” She paused, still watching the motions Rose was repeating again and again and again.

Until finally, she said, “If you want something, you can show me.” Rose met her gaze and blinked, once. “Okay?”

Her response came in the form of a babble.

“Iet?”

Violet nibbled at her lower lip before breaking into a chuckle.

“I mean, we might not have all the words yet,” she gently reached a hand to brush her hair away from her shoulder. “But we can try our best, okay?”

“Iet,” she repeated, her bubbly smile contagious to Violet’s lips. She started bouncing up and down, even in her sitting position on the floor. “Iet, Iet.”

There was a chuckle behind them, and when Violet chanced a glance above her shoulder, she was met with one of Liam’s easy smiles.

“Wait until Xaden sees this,” he said quietly. “The bastard’s going to fucking lose it.”

Violet rolled her eyes at him.

She probably should have scolded him for the words he was uttering in front of the child, or the meaning of those exact words.

She probably should have.

She didn’t.

She merely offered him a small smile instead.

Somehow, Violet noticed how relaxed she was able to feel for the rest of the afternoon.

Chapter Text

Xaden was still not back.

He was still not back.

It was past nine and he was still not back.

Saying she was worried sick wasn’t enough anymore.

Violet was anxious, panicked, absolutely unable to form coherent or logical thoughts.

It wasn’t making any sense.

She had tried calling him—she and Liam both.

She had tried to reason. And when she hadn’t been able to, Liam had tried to reason, too.

The trial had probably taken a while.

It was probably fine.

Perhaps he had decided to stay with his lawyer afterward.

Right?

They’d put Rose to bed about an hour and a half ago (had struggled with her cries and sobs that even her stuffed animal Sgaeyl hadn’t been enough to soothe her).

She wanted her dad.

She didn’t want to fall asleep without him.

Violet had managed to calm her after a while, letting her play with her loose hair while she read her a book she’d found in the living room.

That had done the trick—Rose had fallen asleep on her lap, gripping her hair tight despite her tear-streaked cheeks.

It had been a struggle in itself to untangle herself from the little girl without waking her, but she had managed.

And then, she had been able to show the full extent of her worry—not that she had done it willingly.

Burying her nails in her hands and nibbling on her lower lip were signs she had become familiar with, over the years.

The hair-pulling (twirling a strand around her finger, pulling, then twirling again) was a new addition. Checking her phone every second hoping for a new text, or call, or anything was quite new, too.

Even Liam was starting to look worried, and that was saying something.

“Have you called him?” she asked—for maybe the umpteenth time. “Have you—”

“Yeah, Vi,” Liam answered quietly. “I called him. I called Bodhi, too, but—”

They were both violently startled by Violet’s phone buzzing on the table between them, and both their eyes snapped down to it.

Reaching for it was a battle in itself. All Violet wanted was to see what it was.

Her heart was having a little trouble believing what she’d find would satisfy her, though.

With a deep breath, she finally gathered the courage to unlock it, and didn’t hide her grimace at the name appearing on the screen.

She deflated.

“It—” she sighed. “It’s just Ridoc. Just—” she sighed again. “Just my friend Ridoc.”

She didn’t want to be disappointed.

She didn’t want to.

And yet—she was quite sure this was exactly what the feeling in her chest should be called.

“Aren’t you going to check it?” Liam asked carefully, once she set her phone back in place. “Aren’t you—”

“I just—” she sighed again. “It’s not normal, is it?” she asked eventually. “He’s not supposed to come home this late, he—”

“Vi,” Liam said, very softly, when she trailed off. With a hesitant hand, he reached for her knee and squeezed. “Maybe he just needs a little… A little time.”

Violet frowned.

She wasn’t sure he realized how far from reassuring this was.

Because there were only a couple of options, right?

Either Xaden was still with the lawyer and preparing for whatever the hell came next after this.

Or he needed a little time to process the news he had received.

Either way, he had missed Rose’s bedtime for it. And he was avoiding any type of contact for it. So nothing about this sounded… good.

Nothing.

When Violet’s phone buzzed again, she felt the need to shut her eyes tight, just for a minute.

It was Ridoc again.

She knew it was.

She wasn’t even disappointed this time when she checked, because she knew.

“I’ll just uh—” she shot Liam a half-smile. “I’ll tell him that I—”

When violet trailed off this time, it was purely because her eyes had widened, and her mouth could do nothing but hang a little open as she read the texts waiting for her.

From Ridoc : Hey, Vi. Could you come down to the gym?

From Ridoc : Xaden’s here. Bodhi thinks it’s useless but I think you should come.

“Oh,” she said out loud, in barely just a breath. “Oh.”

She was standing up even before she knew it, and moving. Her movements were stiff and practiced as she reached for her bag, her coat, her keys. She didn’t even pause to think.

“Vi,” Liam called after her just before she reached the door.

Had he called her name before?

She had no fucking idea.

“Vi, you—”

“He’s at the gym,” she offered in a rushed voice. “Will you stay here? I uh—”

She blinked.

I have to go, was what she wanted to say.

But did she?

Who was she, exactly?

And why did she feel like she had to go find him? Find him, comfort him, offer whatever support she could.

“It’s okay, Vi,” Liam answered, very softly. His voice was always soft. Even more so right then. “Go. I’ll stay here for Rose.”

Slowly, Violet nodded.

She was still a little stuck, though. A little scared.

Perhaps Liam knew it, too.

Almost hesitantly, he pulled her into a hug.

A hug so familiar it felt like coming home.

Violet pressed her eyes shut as she held her friend back.

“He’ll be fine,” Liam murmured. He tightened his hold around her when he noticed she still hadn’t pulled away. “Whatever it is, I’m sure he’ll want to see you.”

Somehow, Violet believed it, too.

The gym was dark when she arrived. And it was no wonder, either. The hour was very late.

And yet, no matter how late it was, she found the front door open, with a few lights lit inside.

It was easy to find her way through the corridors when the lights seemed to guide her right where she was supposed to go.

The first face she noticed was Garrick’s. And it was closed off, unmoving. He was leaning against an open door, both his arms folded over his chest and seemed to be glaring at… no one. Or everyone, perhaps.

He seemed pissed, annoyed, angry.

Violet had never seen him like this.

Especially with his disheveled hair, his half-torn shirt, and the few bruises blooming on his face.

She wasn’t able to hide her grimace.

And it was useless, anyway. He wasn’t looking at her.

Instead, his eyes were fixed on the inside of the room, pointedly ignoring the two figures next to him.

The two figures Violet recognized as Bodhi and Ridoc as soon as she came closer. Bodhi was looking even worse than Garrick. And Ridoc must have thought so, too, because he was hovering—one hand cradling the side of Bodhi’s head as the other was holding a folded cloth next to the other man’s lower lip.

His bleeding lower lip.

They were bickering—rather silently, but bickering all the same.

The sight probably would have made Violet smile, had it been any other time.

As it was, it only brought more dread to her stomach.

She cleared her throat as she approached, and the three heads whipped toward her.

Bodhi’s soon turned back toward Ridoc though, as he said,

“You called her? Ridoc I told you he—”

“She’s the only one he’ll want to see right now,” Ridoc countered, his voice more serious than she had heard him in a while. “What he’s doing is—”

“It’s what he’s always done,” Garrick interrupted him in a cold voice. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not healthy,” Ridoc shot back.

His eyes narrowed on Garrick, and the cold glare he shot him surprised even Violet. He was pissed. He was pissed like she had never seen him.

“Babe,” Bodhi said quietly, placing a hand on Ridoc’s chest. “He’s fine. It’s his way to cope. He’s letting his anger—”

“He’s beaten you up.” Ridoc’s narrowed eyes landed on Bodhi, this time.

And Violet had probably been wrong.

Very, very wrong.

For he wasn’t just pissed.

He was brimming with anger.

She swallowed uneasily.

“What happened?” she breathed finally—her first words to them since she’d arrived, really. “What—” she closed her eyes, then opened them again. “What happened?”

Bodhi and Garrick exchanged a look—one Violet wasn’t sure she wanted to know the meaning of—before Garrick shrugged.

He said,

“You’ll have to ask him.” Before she could talk, he added, “Not now, though. Not tonight.”

“But I—”

“He doesn’t want to talk to anybody when he’s like that,” Bodhi explained, his voice a little more gentle than Garrick’s. “So you should probably go home.”

Violet wanted to scoff.

Go home?

And to do what, exactly?

Pace the floor relentlessly?

Pull at her hair until every last strand had been plucked from her scalp?

Dig her nails through her skin until she could feel the bones?

She straightened and squared her shoulders.

“I don’t care that he doesn’t want to talk,” she announced. “I’ll make him.”

This time, neither of them argued. They merely looked at her, and as she stepped forward, Garrick simply waved a hand in the direction of the room in a mock invitation.

She ignored him.

And it was easy enough.

As soon as she took in the inside, Violet couldn’t think about—or see, or notice—anything other than the sight that greeted her there.

As she had expected, Xaden was in the room, fighting.

He was throwing punches at a punching bag, and when she saw the intensity and strength he was putting into each punch, she understood a little better the state of both Bodhi’s and Garrick’s faces.

She was almost surprised they didn’t have more injuries.

As Violet continued walking toward him, she noticed a few other things.

His suit jacket, balled up in a corner of the room, as if Xaden had discarded it carelessly as soon as he’d gotten here.

The white shirt he was wearing, which she guessed was half-open, based on the sides she could see hanging low on each side of his body.

The papers scattered on the floor next to the mat. Had somebody thrown them away?

Had he?

And then, she noticed the things about him. About his movements.

About his body.

The way his punches were.. different than what she had always seen them. A little more violent. A little more hazardous, too. A little less focused.

The way his head hung low—at least lower than she knew he usually stood.

The way he was breathing—too loudly, too raggedly. Too heavily.

Defeated.

He was defeated.

Violet’s eyes started getting glassy before she even spoke to him.

Her steps were slow. Delicate. Measured.

She didn’t want to startle him.

She didn’t want to surprise him.

And she didn’t have a fucking idea of what to tell him.

So she offered the only thing that came to mind.

The only thing that made the least of sense, to her.

“When my father died,” she said quietly, her voice foreign even to her own ears, “I thought I wouldn’t survive.”

For a second, Xaden seemed to freeze. But it was so quick Violet barely registered it, before he started punching again. Perhaps a little more violently this time.

“I didn’t think I could ever—” she trailed off, took a deep breath. “I didn’t think I could continue living like this. I didn’t want to.”

Slowly, Xaden paused in his movements. From where she was standing behind him, she couldn’t see his face, but she saw how much his chest was heaving with the intensity of his breaths. He held the punching bag in both his hands as soon as he stopped punching and for a minute she wondered if it was to make it stop moving or to help himself stay upright.

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

His voice was so rough Violet wasn’t sure she would have recognized it.

It was raw.

She took another step forward.

“That you were separated from your dad and you wanted to stop—”

He didn’t finish, and before she could respond, Xaden started punching again.

This time, she knew his movements were definitely stronger. He was using every single ounce of his force to throw at the bag in front of him, and she could only blink again.

Blink away the tears that were gathering in her eyes faster than she wanted to acknowledge them.

“I—” she swallowed with difficulty, but it did nothing to ease the lump in her throat. “Xaden,” she breathed. “It’s not what I meant. It’s not—” She closed her eyes, tight. Her first tear started rolling down her cheek. “I just meant… I’m still here. I’m fine. And—and you are still here you—”

She trailed off with a sigh again, and then she closed the distance. She placed a hand on his back when she was within reach.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Please tell me what happened.”

As soon as her palm met his back, Xaden froze again. He didn’t turn toward her, didn’t speak, didn’t make a single move.

But he stopped punching, hands falling to his sides, and somehow she thought it was good.

“Please, Xaden,” she murmured. “Just—”

“One month.”

He didn’t offer her anything else.

Didn’t elaborate, or explain, or specify.

Violet echoed, “One month?”

“She gets her for—” Xaden drew another weak, shaky breath and Violet found herself closing her eyes again. “She gets her for one fucking month.”

And despite everything—despite the severity of the situation and the state Xaden was in and the anger already brimming deep inside Violet’s stomach—she couldn’t feel anything other than relief.

She almost whimpered.

“Temporary custody arrangements again?” She asked, just for the confirmation she needed.

Xaden didn’t answer. But she knew.

She knew.

She blinked again, managing to escape the last of her tears, now.

And then she didn’t hesitate. She leaned forward and wrapped both her arms around his middle from behind, pressing her cheek against his back as she held him. Held as tight as she could, as much as she could, as strong as she could.

She swore she felt his whole body relax. And as it did, she felt his own hands cover and wrap around hers.

“It’s temporary, Xaden,” she murmured—just a breath. “It’s—”

“It’s my daughter.”

Violet knew he hadn’t meant for his voice to break on that last word. To break in a sob—messy and desperate.

And yet—it had.

It had, and it was all she could do to crumble alongside him.

“I know,” she murmured against his back. “I—I know. But it’s not—”

Violet took a deep breath. And then she moved—she straightened, even despite his hands tightening around hers to keep her right there, as if afraid to let her go. Violet did anyway, only rounding him to finally face him. She had to crane her neck up, of course, to be able to look at him.

She took him in.

His hair—messier than she had ever seen it. As if maybe, she hadn’t been the only one to spend her night pulling on hers.

His face—painted in concern and guilt and pain, the usual mask he wore utterly forgotten and probably gone too far.

His eyes—the exact definition of heartbreak.

“Xaden,” she murmured. “It’s not… It’s not lost, yet.”

Yet.

She bit her tongue on that last word.

It’s not lost.

That’s what she should have told him.

It’s not lost.

Xaden repeated, in nothing more than a breath,

“She’ll get her for one month, I—”

Slowly, he shut his eyes tight, and as he did, his arms found Violet. Her arms. Her shoulders. Her back.

Soon, he was holding her tight again—pulling her flush against him and encircling her as much as he could—just as he said,

“I’ve never been away from her for so long.”

Violet didn’t answer.

She wasn’t sure what she could offer to that.

Instead, she let him hold her, and she held him in return.

They stayed like that for a long moment. Until every single one of Violet’s limbs ached with the discomfort and until Xaden’s breaths eased just the tiniest bit.

Until his hand had found its way tangled in Violet’s hair, and until she was overwhelmed by the scent of him—overwhelmed in the best of ways.

In the most painful way, too.

Until he allowed himself the few tears she had guessed were rolling down his cheeks as he buried his head deeper inside her neck.

And then a little longer.

Violet was the one to eventually pull away.

She straightened, just the tiniest bit, and offered,

“You should go home.”

Slowly, he nodded, though he didn’t make a move.

And when he squeezed her hand, almost softly, she understood what he wanted to ask.

What his eyes were pleading her for.

She offered him a weak smile.

“Of course, I’ll come with you.”

They didn’t talk. Didn’t say a single word, or share a single look for the whole walk back to his apartment. But they kept their hands clasped together—Xaden’s holding hers with a little more strength than was comfortable but she didn’t say.

The gym had been absolutely empty when they left—no signs of Ridoc, or Bodhi, or even Garrick.

They didn’t comment on it, either.

But every time Violet glanced at Xaden from the side, her heart ached in a different way.

Never had she seen him like that.

Liam was pacing the floor when they entered, and he was already opening his mouth to speak, but one look at Xaden had him clamp his mouth shut.

Violet shook her head imperceptibly.

They wouldn’t go into details right now.

Instead, Liam offered, his voice soft and quiet,

“She’s asleep. You should get some rest, too.”

Violet doubted Xaden would be able to.

She didn’t say.

And as soon as Liam was out the door (with one last worried look toward them and one last sigh), Xaden walked to what Violet assumed was his bedroom, taking her with him.

He still hadn’t let go of her hand.

She still hadn’t tried to let go, either.

Chapter Text

She woke up to a few things.

First, a discomfort, in every single one of her limbs. Her legs and feet and hands. Her head, too, throbbing with pain.

Her fault for worrying and standing for too long the night before, she knew.

Second, a hand on her chest, pressing… hard. And then again, on her arm, on her shoulder. Messily… climbing on her?

Then, voices. Quiet, and muffled. Whispers.

And finally, a body pressed against hers. This was the last thing she noticed, because the sensation, unlike the other ones, was not one of discomfort. Instead, it was… relaxing. Warm, easy.

Violet pressed her eyes shut tighter, and tried to bury her head deeper in the pillow—her body deeper against the other body. She stirred. She wasn’t ready to wake up just yet.

But the whispers continued, and even with the exhaustion she felt, she could hear them more and more clearly.

“Iet?”

“Careful,” she heard in a murmur. “You don’t want to crush her.”

“Iet?”

A hum, this time, came in the stead of the response. Low, deep.

And again, “Iet?”

“Yeah baby,” there was a chuckle this time. “She’s here.”

Against her, the body (and the arm wrapped around her, too. Had there always been an arm?) Tightened his hold around her, just slightly.

The voices fell quiet, but she heard the press of a kiss then—gentle and tender.

When Violet opened her eyes slowly, she found herself nestled on Xaden’s side. Nestled and positively flush against him, as he laid on his back with Rose lying on top of him.

They were looking at each other though, not at her. And the look they’d exchanged…

Violet almost felt like she was intruding on that look only.

Love, in its purest form.

She couldn’t describe it any differently.

Xaden’s face was still a little tight, a little guarded. Closed-off, even as worry was still splattered in his every feature. It only served to remind Violet of the events of the night before.

He seemed slightly more relaxed, though. And she could only guess it had to do with the child on top of him.

Violet hadn’t been able to refuse him, last night, when he’d brought her to his bedroom and asked her (without really asking) to spend the night with him.

And after a few minutes of lying down (wearing nothing but a shirt he had handed her—one she certainly wouldn’t give back, she thought) Xaden had been so restless that she’d offered quietly, Why don’t you go lay down with her?

He had seemed to think about it. But really, she knew his mind was already made up the moment he’d ask, you wouldn’t mind?

And of course she wouldn’t. Why would she?

He was gone with a tender kiss pressed to her forehead—one she wasn’t able to forget for the rest of the night.

And so she had fallen asleep alone—but surrounded by his shirt and his sheets and his smell.

Not his arms, though. She hadn’t fallen asleep in his arms—had only woken up with them.

“Ah,” Xaden murmured, his eyes fixed on Violet, now. “Look who’s awake.”

She tried not to be bothered by the deep flush she could feel making its way onto her cheeks. But as she tried to straighten, she didn’t miss the way Xaden’s arms around her tightened again. In the sole attempt to keep her right there.

She cleared her throat.

“Hey, Rosie,” she greeted with a small smile. “You slept good?”

Rose was already smiling, though unlike the other days, her smile was small. She nestled her head against Xaden’s chest.

Violet guessed she had only slept well when her father had come to find her in the middle of the night, then.

She couldn’t blame her.

Xaden answered by pulling his daughter even closer, and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

A meaningful, loaded one, Violet couldn’t help but think.

When he glanced back toward her, she couldn’t help but shift a little bit closer, too.

It was… weird, she thought.

She had no right to be there—in his apartment, in his bed, in his arms. To let him hold her like that, to wake up next to him and his daughter.

To allow him to think it was okay.

But also—she couldn’t help but notice how… normal it felt.

How good it felt.

How… homey.

His house. His bed. His arms.

She wasn’t sure she had ever felt safer.

“I think it’s… not necessarily bad,” Violet said slowly.

She was sitting on the couch with her back propped against the armrest, her head leaning against the back and both her legs drawn to her chest. Her feet were tucked under Xaden’s thighs and her hands were clutching a cup of coffee. Her third, that day.

It hadn’t taken much convincing from Xaden (merely a look) for her to agree on staying here with them.

And it hadn’t taken much convincing from her (merely a phone call) for Liam to agree to open her bookshop for her.

It had been a little easier to talk with Xaden about the news they had been given yesterday, now that he was a little more… at rest.

Not relaxed, not happy, not near okay.

But he had processed the news, at least.

Xaden sighed beside her. And the sound made something inside of her ache, but her heart was already in her throat, so what else was new.

“They’re trying to see how well she…” he clenched his jaw as he trailed off, then added, “they want to give her full custody. Don’t they?”

It wasn’t really a question, and Violet knew it, too. He was looking for a confirmation. A confirmation for something he was already sure about.

“I—“ Violet pinched the bridge of her nose. “Honestly? I don’t know. When does the arrangement start?”

It took a little longer than usual for Xaden to answer, then. “On Saturday.”

Meaning, soon. She sighed, shaking her head. “It just—It doesn’t really make any sense,” she said slowly.

Xaden’s head turned toward her, and there was such… hope in his eyes, that she felt the need to swallow under his gaze. Hard.

“If they wanted to give her custody,” she continued, “they’d have done it already.”

Slowly, Xaden raised an eyebrow at her, prompting her to continue.

“I don’t want to give you false hope, Xaden,” she murmured. “But I—I don’t know. It kind of feels like the judge is… stalling.”

Xaden blinked. “Stalling? Why? Stalling for what?”

This time, instead of answering, Violet took a gulp of her coffee. She let the hot liquid burn her throat, until all she could feel was the way it grounded her to the present. To the logical part of her.

When she spoke again, she was staring ahead. Not to him. But rather blankly. She wasn’t seeing anything other than that part of her mind where she could almost feel the wheels of her thoughts rolling and rolling and rolling.

Her mind had always worked like that. Had always been able to solve puzzles and understand things when she didn’t even realize it yet.

She said,

“I think…” she paused, then continued, “I don’t know. I think they’re waiting for something. Because, believe me, I’ve seen cases like that. I’ve heard of cases like that. It’s extremely rare for them to make temporary custody arrangements more than once. And especially one that long, it feels…” this time, her eyes found his again. “It feels like they’re waiting for something, I don’t—”

A hand on her leg made her pause, and when she glanced sideways, she found Rose’s big, wide eyes fixed on hers. Violet hadn’t even seen her approach or heard her wake up from her nap. From the look on Xaden’s face, he on the other hand, knew perfectly well. He didn’t seem surprised the tiniest bit.

Rose tapped her knee again, with the hand that wasn’t busy burying her thumb in her mouth and holding her stuffed dragon in the process. Violet straightened and stretched her legs, never mind that she had to place her feet on Xaden’s lap to do so. Rose climbed on her lap immediately.

For a minute, they both stopped talking—looking at the child between them instead. Despite having slept for a few hours, Rose still looked tired. Still looked half-awake, in truth. She tried to nestle against Violet’s chest just like she had nestled against her father that morning, though it was much more difficult seeing that Violet wasn’t exactly that… broad.

She didn’t seem bothered.

“She likes you,” Xaden murmured eventually, a sound so quiet it was almost nothing at all.

He turned his head away almost immediately after though, and Violet saw him shut his eyes tight.

As if trying to forget something. To avoid remembering something.

She could guess where his thoughts were without a problem.

And that look on his face—she couldn’t bear to look at it. She wanted to make it better, no matter what it might take. She wanted to change his mind, for however long she could.

Just for the sake of chasing away this… hauntedness she saw etched in his face.

Softly, she used one of her feet to push on his knee.

“Hey,” she said. “We have something to show you.”

For a minute, Xaden didn’t move. He kept his eyes shut tight for one, two, three seconds. Eventually, he turned back to face her, his expression impossibly sad. Violet tried to ignore it.

“Rosie,” she said. “You remember what we did yesterday?”

Rose turned her head toward Violet, brows furrowed, without making a single sound.

Violet started signing, water.

“Remember?” she asked. She signed again. Water.

She saw understanding cross Rose’s features before she straightened and used her free hand to sign as well.

Violet huffed softly. With gentle hands, she corrected her movement—lifting a third finger with her two others.

“Water,” she said. “Yeah. Like that.”

A small laugh bubbled out of Rose as she repeated the motion a couple more times. Violet watched appreciatively, and she glanced at Xaden for half a second.

He didn’t say anything—didn’t even move—but his face was so expressive she swore she could read his mind by the sight alone.

Violet cleared her throat and had to make a pointed effort to tear her gaze away. She focused back on Rose before her and she signed, Food.

Rose continued with the motion a couple of times. When she stopped, she looked up at Violet and cocked her head to the side.

“iet?” she asked, eyes full of questions.

Violet almost chuckled. “I’m sorry, Rosie,” she said softly. “I don’t know what you mean when you—”

“iet,” she echoed, frowning. Then, she turned to Xaden, and repeated, once more, “iet.”

Violet pursed her lips. She didn’t know what to tell her—what to offer to satisfy her.

Xaden though, seemed to know, somehow. He chuckled, a soft sound as he reached for his daughter, who went willingly to him. “She’s trying to say your name,” he murmured, though his eyes didn’t meet Violet’s. “I think she wants to know how to sign your name.”

Oh. Violet’s eyebrows rose up to her hairline. Oh.

“iet,” Rose repeated, as in confirmation. She started moving excitedly. “iet.”

Finally, Xaden glanced at her, almost expectantly. But Violet had somewhat frozen beside them. She huffed.

“I didn’t—” her voice turned into a chuckle eventually, and when she still didn’t move, Xaden did. He lifted a hand to show Rose. V. I.

He repeated the motion once, twice. Thrice.

Vi.

Rose repeated the motion, not without some difficulty. The sight drew another chuckle out of Xaden before he helped her raise her fingers to form the letters. Rose eventually managed after a little while, before she turned back to Violet, her hair flying around her face with the motion and a look of unmistakable pride in her eyes.

She signed for her as she repeated, “iet.”

“Yeah,” Violet chuckled. “That’s my sign.”

The smile that blossomed on her tiny face was incredibly happy. She clapped her hands together once, twice, before she turned toward Xaden with a gasp.

She said, “airn?”

“Mh?” Xaden cocked his head to the side. “What?”

“Airn,” she repeated. “airn.”

When Xaden still didn’t seem to understand, Rose climbed out of his lap and then, she was gone—almost running to her bedroom.

And as soon as she was out of sight, Xaden moved, too, as if he had been waiting for this all along. He gently moved both of Violet’s legs to the side and almost crawled toward her, stopping only when he was hovering above her on the couch. Caging her in between his strong arms and warm chest and the intensity of his gaze.

Caging her in, although there was nowhere else she would have rather been.

He said,

“You taught my daughter ASL?”

His voice was low. Slow. It was deep, too, and Violet didn’t think she had ever been attracted to a voice.

Until now, at least.

A freaking voice.

She swallowed. “I mean not—not many words. But I couldn’t understand her. It’s easier to communicate like that, it—”

Violet stopped talking as soon as he leaned in. And she didn’t know why, really she felt her heart rate quicken so much it physically hurt. She was holding her breath—all while almost panting—and she couldn’t say why.

She felt Xaden’s lips find her forehead and her eyes fluttered closed on their own accord.

He had kissed her on the forehead before—multiple times.

Nothing like this, though.

Nothing as gentle, cautious—intimate—as that.

“Brilliant,” he murmured against her skin, sending shivers all throughout her body. “Brilliant fucking woman.”

She wasn’t sure why her hair stood on end on her arms, and why her breathing caught in her throat.

And when Xaden lingered there, against her skin, she wasn’t sure, either, why she felt the need to pull him closer—closer, closer, closer.

Instead of doing just that, and in an attempt to keep him away, she placed a hand on his chest.

And oh what a mistake that was.

His heart was beating as fast as hers—and maybe more. And his chest was warm, and strong beneath her palm. She wanted to dig her fingers in it and pull him toward her instead of pushing him away.

She lifted her eyes to look at him through her eyelashes and—second mistake.

She had never seen his eyes so deep. So dark and wide.

So freaking dark, though.

Violet murmured, “You know ASL, too?”

Practical. Logical. Day to day conversation.

That would do the trick, right?

That would stop her heart from beating erratically and her breath from coming in short gasps. That would stop her mind from going to places she could not afford to go to with a child in the other room, too, right?

“I do.”

Fuck.

This freaking voice again.

Violet closed her eyes for one moment, two.

And then, with one last kiss to her forehead, he retreated, all at once.

She almost whined at his absence.

When she opened her eyes again, she understood. Rose was back, clutching not one but two stuffed animals to her chest.

They were almost identical. Two dragons probably bigger than most stuffed animals Violet had ever seen. The first one she recognized as the one Rose always carried with her—Sgaeyl. The other one, though, was black. Perhaps a little bigger, too.

Rose extended it to Violet, her movements determined.

“Airn,” she announced.

Violet huffed and reached a hand toward the stuffed animal. “Mh,” she chuckled. “Thanks?”

Rose nodded, apparently happy.

She announced, “iet, airn. gaeyl, me.”

Violet blinked, and for once she was quite certain she had understood the one-year-old.

Still, Xaden explained,

“You get Tairn,” a smirk was so evident in his voice Violet wanted to rip it off his face. With her mouth on his. “She keeps Sgaeyl.”

“Well,” she said with a soft smile to Rose. “Thank you. That's very nice of you." On half a thought, she signed the words as she repeated, "Thank you.”

The rest of the day was spent seamlessly. Calmly. Almost… domestically.

Violet didn’t know what to think about that.

It was late in the afternoon when she finally decided she should go home. And again, she wasn’t sure she should feel such a pang in her heart at the thought of leaving Rose and not knowing if she’d see her again for the upcoming month.

The arrangement started on Saturday, after all, and it was only two days away.

Liam was still in her bookstore when she arrived, feeling a little exhausted. The boutique was closed, and the lights dim, and when she entered, Liam stood up immediately.

He had been sitting on the couch in the middle, probably waiting for her, even though she hadn’t checked her phone all day to let him know when she would get back.

“Hey,” he greeted as she arrived. “I didn’t know if—”

He stopped himself mid-sentence as soon as she threw herself at him—hugging him tight.

Despite her much smaller size, Liam squeezed her tight in return, cradling the back of her head gently.

“Hey,” he repeated, a little more softly. “Are you okay?”

But she wanted to laugh at the question. To laugh and yell and scream. She had no idea what she was feeling. No fucking idea.

For the day she had spent was… happy. Happier than she had spent in a while, and relaxing in a way she wasn’t sure she was allowed to feel.

But she also knew what was coming soon, and she sure as hell didn’t think the upcoming weeks, and month would be happy at all.

Her stomach was in knots from the thought alone.

Instead of answering his question, she murmured,

“I just—I just need my friend right now.“

Liam’s first instinct was to pull her a little closer.

“I’m here, Vi,” He pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.

It was nothing like the kisses Xaden had dropped on her several times this afternoon—and the day before. Nothing like the softness and intimacy she felt from him.

But there was something incredibly tender from Liam. Something supportive. Something caring.

“Whatever you need,” he repeated. “I’m here for you.”

Chapter Text

“What are you doing?”

Violet didn’t even turn at the sound of Rhiannon’s voice. She was too busy looking at her bookshelf—looking, and looking and looking and—

“Found it!” She almost wanted to squeal in excitement. She had been searching for a specific book for the better part of half an hour now. A book she had known exactly where to find and would have been able to grab in only a few minutes, if only she hadn’t been interrupted by so many clients.

“Hey Rhi,” she finally greeted, her eyes solely trained on the book in her hands. She turned it around, then again, then again, and when she had inspected every single inch of it, she smiled proudly. It was only then that she glanced up—and found Rhiannon’s perfectly-shaped eyebrow cocked and her eyes trained on her. “What?”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Violet shrugged, already making her way to her counter and the small bag she had been filling all day. She added the book inside of it.

“Nothing?” Rhiannon challenged. “And since when does nothing involve children’s books,” without a care in the world, Rhiannon started fumbling through the kraft bag. “And chocolate bites, and a stuffed animal and—and more children’s books?”

Violet snatched the bag away from her friend’s hands. And maybe she was overreacting, but she didn’t want her to look at it, and to mess with it.

She didn’t want her to.

“I’m just rearranging… things,” Violet gently placed the bag down—neatly tucked in the small spot between her counter and the wall beside it, just far enough for it to be out of Rhiannon’s reach.

Her friend folded her arms over her chest.

“Those are all kid’s stuff.”

“Are not,” Violet countered, trying to make herself busy—or, at least, seem busy—with whatever papers had been carelessly left on her counter.

Bills and client’s receipts and—unsurprisingly—more bills.

“Violet,” Rhiannon said, very slowly. “Why are you avoiding my questions? Why are you gathering kids’ stuff and—oh my god—why the hell are you blushing?”

“I’m—” Violet trailed off, managing to roll her eyes at the same time. “I’m not—”

But she couldn’t even get the words out.

And Rhiannon didn’t even need her to, apparently, because she placed her thumb and forefinger around Violet’s chin and tilted her head toward her, pining her under her knowing gaze.

“Why are you preparing stuff to give to Xaden Riorson’s kid?”

“I’m—” Violet tried again, but Rhiannon lifted both eyebrows at her now, and it was enough to silence her again.

Enough to make her stop in her lie, too.

Instead, she offered,

“She’s cute.”

“Agreed.” Despite her words, Rhiannon’s tone was sharp and stiff. “Tell me more.”

“There’s nothing to tell—ouch! Rhi!”

At Violet’s insistence, finally, Rhiannon let go of her chin, though she didn’t take her gaze off her.

For a minute, she didn’t speak—didn’t do anything other than look at Violet with an intensity that probably would have scared, her, if it had been anyone else.

As it was, Violet could only be annoyed.

Annoyed that her friend knew her that much, really.

“Just tell me one thing,” Rhiannon said eventually.

Violet didn’t even dignify her with a response.

“Do we still hate the guy?”

Violet snorted, but when she locked eyes with her best friend again, she found nothing but pure and unadulterated seriousness in her gaze.

And that’s why Violet loved her so much, wasn’t it?

Rhiannon was fierce, she was kind, she was loyal to a fault.

Should Violet decide they hated someone—Rhiannon wouldn’t question her, not even for a second. She’d fight her fights with her, would hold her hand and pat her back and would never—never—make her feel bad about it.

She’d also call Violet out on her bullshit—it was Rhiannon, after all—but Violet wasn’t sure she would have had her any other way.

And under her gaze—under her determination and her devotion and her endless friendship—Violet wasn’t sure what to answer to her question.

Her first response—instinctive—would have been yes.

Of course we still hate the guy.

It was what she’d told herself—what she had told everyone who bothered to listen, really, for the last couple of months.

And yet…

She wasn’t sure, now.

She couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t even get the word—the lie—past her lips.

And perhaps that was her answer, wasn’t it?

Maybe Rhiannon knew it, too.

For Violet still hadn’t spoken—hadn’t been able to do anything, really, other than look into her friend’s eyes—and yet Rhiannon’s whole body seemed to soften. Her hold around her arms loosened, and her brows relaxed and even her mouth seemed to get gentler; her lips subtly tugging at the corners in a not-quite smile.

The distinct ding of the bookstore’s opening door didn’t even startle either of them in their battle of stares—but the bubbling laugh they heard echo on each of the walls was enough for Violet’s eyes to snap toward the sound.

Toward the laugh.

Toward the pair of onyx eyes.

Two pairs.

And again, Violet thought she probably already had her answer when she realized she couldn’t even try to stifle her smile at the sight.

“Iet! iet!”

Rose was bouncing excitedly in her father’s arms, moving the blue stuffed dragon she was holding in the process. When she got a little too restless, Xaden slowly crouched to bring her down, and it wasn’t even a second after her feet had touched the ground that she all but ran toward her—half falling almost three times in the process.

Violet secured her with a hand on her arm as soon as she had made her way to her.

“Hey Rosie,” she greeted with a warm smile. “How are you today?”

Rose looked at her, cocked her head to the side for a minute, and then signed, water.

“Mh,” Violet got back up. “Thirsty?”

She was very aware of Rhiannon’s more than surprised gaze, and of Xaden’s more than proud one on her.

She didn’t let either bother her as she nodded toward him, and made absolutely no effort for her voice to be nice or gentle as she threw at him,

“Your daughter’s thirsty.”

Still, his lips spread into an even wider grin.

Asshole.

She rolled her eyes at him, not even able to lose her own smile as he approached and handed Rose the bottle of water he had been carrying in the tote bag she so often had seen Liam with.

“Here, Rose,” he said, eyes never leaving Violet. “You could have told me.” To Violet, he added, “You ready?”

She hummed noncommittally, ignoring, once again, Rhiannon’s leveled gaze.

“Well,” her friend stated after what was probably too long of a silence. “I was leaving anyway. Since Miss Violet over here was doing nothing. Doing nothing at all, and certainly not something involving—”

“Thank you, Rhi,” Violet said, rolling her eyes dramatically, and this time moving to make sure she was able to glare at her friend efficiently. “I’ll see you around.”

Rhiannon’s only response was a snort before she turned around, her braid flying behind her back as she made her way to the door of the bookstore. She glanced over her shoulder before she left, finding Violet’s eyes and cocking an eyebrow at her in a motion that made her want to scoff.

Violet only turned her eyes back to Xaden when her friend was out of the door, and found his head cocked to her side, the hint of a smile on his lips.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he took a single step forward, finding a bookshelf to lean on. “Nothing at all.”

She rolled her eyes and decided to busy herself instead of giving him the satisfaction to push further. She started gathering the books and receipts that had been collecting on her cashier’s desk for a few hours now, and pointedly looked at anything but him.

Do we still hate the guy?

Well. At least she absolutely had her answer, now.

The blush she couldn’t try to tame on her cheeks under the intensity of his gaze was definitely her answer.

“No, perhaps you shouldn’t…” Violet trailed off in an amused huff as Rose tugged at her braid. She had let it loose, for once, instead of tucking it to her scalp like she usually did, and was now positively regretting her choice. “Rosie—ouch!”

Rose straightened on her lap, her bright and wide eyes observing Violet for a second before bursting into a wave of laughter, bringing a hand to her mouth in the process. Violet had no other choice but to join her laughing.

“Well done,” she continued with a chuckle. “You removed my hair tie.”

Slowly, Rose cocked her head to the side, as if only realizing she had, indeed, a hair tie in her hands. It only lasted for a moment though, before she let it drop where they were sitting on Rose’s small bed and grabbed Violet’s hair again—and then tugged.

“No—“

A huff near the bedroom door caught her attention and when Violet glanced up, it was to Xaden leaning against the doorframe. His arms were folded over his chest and his head resting against the doorframe as well—as if he had been there for a few minutes and had no plan to move at all.

A soft look was on his face but it was dimmed by the worry and pain Violet knew lay beneath.

“You’re spying on us,” she accused quietly, her eyes turning back to Rose, who was now busy untying her braid in a less than gentle motion.

Xaden’s response didn’t come right away. And Violet didn’t turn to look, but she knew his eyes were focused on Rose’s movements as much as hers were. She had almost untied all of Violet’s braid when he answered,

“Got a problem with that, Violence?”

A sound—between a scoff and a huff—left her mouth, but it was Rose who frowned, her brows furrowing as she stopped playing with Violet’s hair. She asked,

“iet?”

Xaden almost chuckled, but when none of them answered, she repeated, “iet?” as she signed with both hands, VI, just like her father had taught her.

“Violet,” Xaden said finally, making a pointed effort to articulate each letter as he pushed off the wall to come towards them, “is also called Violence.”

Violet couldn’t help her scoff.

“I’m—”

“She is,” he countered as he sat down on the bed near them, placing his hand on Rose’s lower back immediately. He continued in a whisper. “Don’t tell her though,” he kissed his daugther's cheek. “She pretends she doesn’t like it.”

Violet doubted the little girl who was still half-sitting on her lap understood everything. Yet, her laugh enveloped them as soon as Xaden leaned in to blow a raspberry in the crook of her neck. She shrieked away from him and reached forward until she crushed Violet in a tight hug instead, and perhaps it should have felt weird—been weird—but Violet found her arms wrapping around her small frame as if on instinct instead.

She couldn’t remember having ever seen a better picture of adoration on Xaden’s face.

Violet cleared her throat after a few minutes.

“Did you get everything ready? Her stuff?”

His look immediately turned a little harder. He nodded stiffly.

“And you uh—” she straightened as soon as Rose did too, climbing out of her lap and onto the floor. “You heard about…” she trailed off, eyeing Rose from the side, and chose to sign to him instead,

C A T

Xaden huffed—though there wasn’t anything funny about it.

“Yeah,” he nodded. He took a deep breath as he turned his head towards Rose again. She had made her way to a corner of the room, where most of her toys were piled up, and sat down right in front of it. “10 am tomorrow,” he murmured.

Violet’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest.

And it shouldn’t really, right? She knew it—they both did. That’s why she was here after all—why Xaden had asked her to come by tonight, and why she wanted to go by his gym tomorrow.

And yet, she couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but feel hopeless, anxious, absolutely worried sick.

For Xaden, for Rose.

For herself, too.

She took a deep breath, mirroring the one she had just heard him take, and murmured, “Come here.”

His head turned towards her slowly, his eyes haunted by his worry but inquisitive, too.

She tilted her head toward him. “Come here,” she repeated. “Lie down.”

He didn’t answer—not with his words anyway. But he did as she asked, and Violet shifted to the side to give him more room as he approached, lying next to where she was sitting on the bed. His gaze never left her—the questions in his eyes never quieted down.

Only when he was positioned did she gently take his arm, and slowly reached down until she met his palm. She placed it on her lap and started massaging the knots in his hand.

Xaden seemed surprised at first, but she swore she saw his whole body relax after only a few minutes. Violet didn’t speak for a few moments either, keeping quiet even when his whole attention was trained on her.

Eventually, she offered quietly, “Massaging the knots in your hands helps to relieve the tension.” He was still looking at her, although her own eyes were fixed on his daughter further in the room. “It helps with the anxiety,” she continued after a pause. “Helps refocus on the present.”

She heard his sigh, and when she finally glanced down at him, she saw his closed eyes and his pursed lips.

“It won’t change tomorrow,” Violet murmured after another few minutes. “But it can help tonight.” His hand contracted stiffly in reflex. “You can at least enjoy tonight,” she added, even more quietly.

This time, Xaden opened his eyes to find hers. There was a battle raging inside of him, and the sight was purely unbearable. She hated to see so much heartbreak on his features—hated that there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.

Violet let out a long sigh, and before she could convince herself otherwise, she let go of his hand and moved—shifting downwards on the bed until she lay next to him. Xaden’s eyes never left her, even as she positioned her head just next to him on the small pillow.

“I uh—” she started in a breath. “I brought things for her, actually.”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he kept looking at her with those eyes—fucking expressive eyes—and then, he swallowed.

“You brought things,” he repeated slowly. “For her.”

“Yeah I—” she huffed, nibbling on her lower lip, and then continued, “I thought maybe if she wanted to take some of those—” she trailed off, and then continued, “I don’t know. I don’t really know why, I just—” she sighed. “I thought she might like it. I’ll give it to you before I go later tonight.”

Xaden’s eyes seemed to narrow on her, slowly—as if debating on what to say. For a minute, he kept silent, and perhaps Violet shouldn’t have, but she really couldn’t help the blush creeping up her cheeks.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she asked, “What?”

She tracked the motion of his swallow. And then,

“Two things,” he answered, his head turning to look at Rose for a second before turning back towards Violet, “One—You’re staying here tonight.”

Violet’s both eyebrows rose up to her hairline, and she was already opening her mouth to speak when Xaden silenced her by bringing a hand on her cheek—his thumb brushing against her mouth.

“I’d like you to stay here tonight,” he amended, “Please.”

She wanted to tell him that she probably shouldn't—tell him he should spend this night with his daughter, and make the most of it.

But Xaden did nothing to move his thumb, and the look in his eyes was so determined that she kept her mouth clamped shut.

“And second—” he took a deep breath. “You brought her gifts?”

She could probably argue that they weren’t gifts—not really. They were snacks she kept at home and books she already had in her bookstore and—yeah, so maybe the stuffed animal was new.

Instead, she slowly nodded and watched the deep breath he took. Watched as he closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly as if in disbelief.

“You’re—” he clamped his mouth shut, clenching his jaw, and when he opened his eyes, they were filled with so many emotions Violet had trouble deciphering them.

He moved his hand until he cradled her jaw and the side of her neck, and brought his lips to her forehead in a warm, lingering kiss—staying there longer than necessary.

“I can’t believe you,” he murmured against her skin. “I can’t fucking believe you, but you better believe I’m gonna keep you all the same.”

Violet probably should have told him she wasn’t something for him to keep.

Probably should have told him she wasn’t his, to begin with—right?

She didn’t.

She was too distracted by his lips on her skin, and his hands on her face and his body against her.

She was too distracted by her own body, too—her stuttering heart and the weird, burning feeling in her stomach.

That, and his words replaying in her mind, too.

I’m going to keep you all the same.

Gods, she was so fucked.

“You sure you—”

“Yeah.”

Xaden’s words were sharp, rough almost, and she probably would have minded, if she didn’t know exactly why he was so on edge. She placed a gentle hand on his bicep, squeezing slightly to make him pause in his steps.

He did, but didn’t turn toward her.

“Hey, it’s—”

“Don’t say it,” he cut her off. “It’s not gonna be okay. It’s not gonna be alright.”

Violet swallowed, trying to ignore her heart breaking all over again, and when he didn’t answer and glanced down toward her, she almost didn’t see the guilt lining his features, amongst all of the other emotions on display.

“I just—” he shook his head. “I just really can’t relax right now.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I know, Xaden.”

He took a deep breath. “You can’t come down,” he told her, for the umpteenth time. “She can’t see you.”

“Okay. Alright.”

“Promise me, Vi,” he narrowed his eyes on her. “Promise me you won’t leave this room and you—”

“I won’t come close,” she agreed, fighting the need to roll her eyes at him. “I know. Promise.”

He kept his eyes trained on her for a minute, before he apparently decided he was satisfied and nodded—more to himself than to her. He checked his watch then, and shut his eyes for a minute, before he said. “It’s almost time. Want to say goodbye?”

Of course she did.

She nodded slowly, trying to fight the grimace making its way onto her face.

But she couldn’t let him see that—couldn’t show him just how much she was pained, when she knew he felt ten times worse.

So instead of lingering, she let go of his arm and walked the few feet separating them from his office, where Bodhi and Rose were both sitting on the floor.

Cat had agreed to come pick Rose up at his gym, and Violet almost had to fight to be able to come with them—Xaden didn’t want her to see Cat, and she really didn’t understand why, but she humored him all the same.

As long as she was able to be there for him afterward.

“Hey,” Violet said gently as she approached, “Rosie.”

The little girl lifted her head towards Violet at the sound, her face breaking into a huge grin as she started to babble incoherently.

“Yeah,” Violet huffed. “Hi.”

Rose blinked at her, rocking back and forth.

“I uh—” Violet bit her tongue, taking a deep breath. She really didn’t know what she was doing. “I won’t see you for a few days,” she tried to explain slowly. “So I wanted to say byebye.”

Was it normal for her eyes to sting that much?

She really couldn’t tell.

“I thought maybe…” Violet furrowed her brows as she cleared her throat—and it wasn’t exactly easy around the lump that had appeared. “Maybe you can give me a hug?”

To echo her words, she opened both her arms and Rose seemed to understand her before she moved.

Though instead of what Violet was expecting, Rose pushed on her hands and feet to try and get up, before taking a single step to the side—not without Bodhi’s hand hovering on her back. She reached down to the black dragon she had offered Violet a few days ago, before turning back towards her, both hands holding out the dragons as in offering.

Violet huffed as she accepted it in one hand, but didn’t let her arms fall—still held out for the little girl.

Rose signed, VI

“Yeah, Rosie,” Violet smiled, but it was tamed by her wavering voice and the tears absolutely gathered in her eyes. She continued, “We’ll see each other… later.” She paused again, and this time signed as she said, “Hug?”

She had never taught her the word. Still, Rose seemed to understand her this time, as she stepped forward until she could be enveloped by her arms.

Violet didn’t hesitate—she held her tight, held her close. Held her a little too long, too, but also not long enough. She barely managed to contain the tears in her eyes.

When they pulled out of the embrace, Bodhi was gone, but Xaden was closer—crouched down just next to them. His face was as heartbroken as she felt, but she didn’t let herself look at him—she wasn’t sure she would have been able to bear it.

“Byebye Rosie,” Violet murmured as she let her go.

Rose didn’t seem to understand—she was slowly cocking her head to the side and leaning against Xaden without even realizing it.

Violet took a deep breath, still clutching the stuffed dragon in her hands, before she offered it to her.

Rose frowned, shaking her head, and announced, “airn. iet.”

That managed to draw a huff out of Violet.

“Okay,” she murmured as she stood, exactly as Xaden stood up with Rose in his arms. She was still looking at the little girl but it was for him she whispered, “You should probably go.”

“Yeah,” he agreed quietly, although he didn’t take a single step to move.

Violet swallowed, nodded, and then rasped, “Go.”

Xaden nodded in return. He was about to move when she raised a hand and, on half a formed thought, Violet signed, her eyes never leaving Rose,

I love you.

Xaden still didn’t move for maybe a full minute after that.

She didn’t realize she had been clutching the black dragon tight to her chest until after they’d left the room.

“You good over here?”

Liam’s voice was gentle, but Violet couldn’t really register it. She was staring blankly ahead, still clutching the dragon, still feeling absolutely hollow—like she had been for the past few minutes.

“Hey Vi,” he murmured. “You—” he trailed off when their eyes locked—probably because of the silver lining her own. Her friend swallowed, and then offered, “Want to go see?”

She blinked at him.

“What?”

“Do you want to go see?” He repeated, even more gently this time. “They’re in the parking lot. Do you want to—”

“Xaden made me promise…”

“She won’t see you,” Liam countered. “We can go watch them without being seen if you’d like.”

She was nodding before even realizing it.

And perhaps that was the biggest mistake of all.

The room Liam brought her to was on an upstairs floor—a training room she had never been to, filled with machines she couldn’t even try to comprehend. But large bay windows were lining the room and they, indeed, gave the perfect view of the parking lot where Xaden was standing, holding an oblivious Rose in his arms and flanked on both sides by Garrick and Bodhi a few feet behind. A car was slowly approaching them and Violet’s stomach churned on sight.

“It’s her,” Liam murmured with disgust. “It’s—”

But Violet couldn’t hear the rest of his sentence because Xaden’s eyes—as if on instinct—glanced up and landed on her.

He was a little far and with the light of day it was probably hard for him to see her standing in the shadows, but he seemed to recognize her anyway. She didn’t know why the look they exchanged got her heart to squeeze even more painfully in her chest.

And then, Violet could only watch.

She watched as the door to the car slowly opened and as Xaden’s arms seemed to contract around Rose’s frame—almost as if on instinct.

She watched as Bodhi stepped forward, folding both his arms over his chest and starting to speak even before a person—no, Cat—stepped out of the car, and as Xaden brought a gentle hand to cradle the back of his daughter’s head, as if to shield her from the rest of the world—as if only he could.

She watched as another car arrived and another person climbed down, and as Xaden murmured to his daughter, bringing his forehead against hers—and as she finally reacted. It was nothing, at first—a small laugh, and a grin, and a soft smile; all only answered by Xaden’s pained expressions and hard swallows and furrowed brows.

But Violet kept watching as Rose’s tiny hand reached up to land on her father’s cheek, and as her brows slowly furrowed. She kept watching as she cocked her head to the side, observing her dad with the utmost attention before glancing behind her, only for her eyes to land on Cat.

She kept watching as Rose whipped her head towards Xaden again, positively alarmed now and eyes a little wide—and as she started crying.

No, as she started sobbing.

And Violet couldn’t even hear her—couldn’t even make out any sound from the quiet of the room she and Liam were in—but she could hear the heartbreak all the same. She could hear the despair. She could hear the absolute hopelessness and wreckage in this cry.

In Rose’s, but in Xaden’s, too.

He was still cradling her, even as Cat started to walk slowly towards them. He was still carrying her—holding her as tightly as he could even though he would have to let her go very soon. Even though Cat was already placing a hand on her lower back, and reaching out to her when Rose was only clinging harder to her dad.

But Violet could only watch.

She could only watch, and cry, and fucking sob, too, because how could she not?

Liam’s gentle words didn’t register in her mind.

And his soothing and comforting touch didn’t, either.

All she could focus on—all she could see—was those two pairs of onyx eyes.

Those two breaking hearts.

Or maybe three, if she counted hers as well.

Chapter Text

She found him leaning against a wall in his office—eyes closed, fists clenched, taking deep breath after deep breath.

He was alone—she knew as much, she’d crossed paths with Garrick’s locked-on face and Bodhi’s tear-strained one on the way here. Neither of them had spoken to her—not even acknowledging the tears trailing down her cheeks—but Bodhi had nodded toward Xaden half-open office door in encouragement, and Violet hadn’t hesitated, not even for a second.

She didn’t make any noise when she entered the room—walked on quiet feet, didn’t speak—and the only sounds they could hear were the sounds of Xaden’s ragged breaths. And yet, he seemed to know she was there anyway, because he extended a hand to her as soon as she neared him, keeping his eyes closed.

She took it immediately and stepped forward until she was standing right in front of him.

That’s only when she saw it.

The way every single line of his face was clenched so tight—as if locked in place, and absolutely trying to keep his cool when really, it was a lost cause. The way his eyes were shut tight—as if trying to contain whatever emotion she knew was raging inside of him instead of letting go. The way his whole body was almost trembling with how strongly he was keeping himself together.

And she felt it, too.

With the way his hand was clutching hers, very tightly—more tightly than he would have held her in any other situation. The way his heart beat so unsteadily under her palm, as soon as she placed it above his shirt. The way he stiffened as soon as she touched him.

Violet didn’t ask him how he was. She already knew.

Instead, she asked, in a murmur,

“What do you need?”

Which was also very dumb, really, because Violet knew that, too. She also knew she couldn’t give him what he needed right now. Who he needed right now.

When he didn’t answer, she slowly trailed her hand upwards—reaching his neck, then his jaw, then finally stopping on his cheek.

“Do you want to go punch something? Want me to—”

She trailed off when he shook his head, then swallowed.

“Or we can go to your place,” she continued, her voice even quieter now. “And—”

“No.”

His voice was quiet. Yet, it was rough like she had never heard it—all in those two letters.

“Okay,” she whispered, fighting her own tears again. “Alright.”

Xaden’s eyes were still closed—still shut tight, really, as if he was afraid to open them. And the sight was unbearable. The sight was bringing her a feeling of hopelessness she couldn’t refrain, or tame, or contain. The sight threatened to bring her to her knees.

She had to make it better—however she could.

Violet took a deep breath, and tried to think, think, think.

What he needed was his daughter—that was obvious.

And right now, he couldn’t have that.

But, Violet thought, what he needed more perhaps, was to know that she was safe. That she would be taken care of—right?

She swallowed before she murmured, “Xaden.”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t even react.

Again, she called, “Xaden?”

When he still didn’t respond, or make any attempt to move, Violet slowly rose on her toes, her hand still cradling his cheek, and very gently brushed her lips over his chin in a gentle kiss.

“Look at me,” she murmured.

That, at least, got his attention.

He finally—finally—opened his eyes again and met hers.

And oh, she thought she had been heartbroken before. That was before she had seen his eyes. They were absolutely devastated.

His eyes had always been dark—holding so much intensity she’d always felt like she could drown in them. Now, they were just endless. Absolutely wide and deep like they held a storm unlike any other she had ever seen. And the golden flecks in them—they were simply… dimmed. Quiet. They were almost nonexistent, now.

Everything that made his eyes his—was now purely lost.

There were red veins around his pupils, as if he had been crying for a whole night straight without being able to stop—and she thought it was probably only fair, for the intensity of the pain he must have been feeling right now, even when it had only been a few minutes since he’d been separated from his daughter.

Violet’s eyes couldn’t contain her tears anymore—not at the sight of his. And she didn’t try, either. Her tears fell easily, taking the same path down her cheeks all the previous ones had taken.

When she felt like she could trust her voice to keep steady enough to speak, she said, very quietly,

“She needs to keep her safe.” Violet lifted her hand even further, until it met with his temple and eventually, his soft curls. “She wants to convince a social worker and a judge she can take care of her,” she continued. “That she’s happy with her. So she will keep her safe. I’d bet anything that she’ll do everything to try and make her happy, too.”

No matter that Cat would never—ever—be able to provide the happiness Xaden was for his daughter.

Violet didn’t voice it. She didn’t think she had to say it for him to know.

She tracked the motion as he swallowed, and then closed his eyes again. This time though, he moved. Both his hands snaked around Violet’s lower back until he could gently bring her closer to him, flushed against his chest in an embrace more loaded and more meaningful than she had ever experienced. She let him—relishing the comfort as much as he did—and set her head on his chest, her ear resting directly above his heartbeat as her own arms wrapped around him and held him tight.

Eventually, after a few moments of quietness (except from their breaking hearts) and of no movement (except for their shattering souls), Violet murmured, “I’m so sorry.”

Xaden’s first response was to lower his head—his lips meeting her scalp in a not-exact kiss and staying there. And then, he answered in a whisper of his own, articulating each word, “You have nothing to be sorry about, Violet.” His arms contracted around her frame, before he added, “Absolutely nothing.”

Violet didn’t know if that was true. She couldn’t help but think she should have worked more, done more, helped more. Couldn’t help but think that she had been missing something. Something she should have seen before, something she should have noticed and would have avoided them all this pain. All this heartbreak and hurt and despair.

She didn’t tell him. She didn’t think he would take well to it.

And she didn’t think it mattered, right now, anyway.

His daughter was gone. She had been taken away from him—and it was only for a month, but it might as well be forever with the way they were all scarred by it.

Because she could swear a scar was now carved right above Xaden’s heart—a scar as big as her failure, as deep as her heartbreak, as grand as her misery.

Violet didn’t know how long they stayed there—how long they stayed holding each other and breathing each other in—all while sharing pain and fucking agony.

Eventually, she was the one who moved, gently pulling away just enough to look up at him. Xaden’s eyes were already trained on hers.

“Wanna go home?” she whispered, loosening her hold around him.

He swallowed, before he said, “Not really.”

And she knew it, too.

It’s too quiet at my place, he had told her once—and she knew why, now.

It was too quiet without the bubbling laughter and the shrieking sounds coming out of Rose’s mouth. It was too quiet without her babbling and her giggling and just… just without her.

“Or mine?” Violet asked even more quietly. “Maybe we can go to my apartment instead?”

There was a hint of surprise in Xaden’s eyes, but it died quickly. He nodded stiffly without a word. Violet was about to pull away completely, but he didn’t let her—pulling her in again, his hand snaking to the back of her neck and cradling the back of her head to hold her better.

“Just—” he breathed, “Just one minute.”

She let him. She gave him all the time he needed.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he murmured eventually. “Just—really glad you’re here.”

Her answer came out in a breath of her own. An admission she allowed, just because she couldn’t refrain it, when she was nestled in his arms,

“I’m glad you let me.”

Xaden didn’t let go of her hand, for the whole way to her apartment. And Violet kept quiet, because she knew nothing she could offer him would be of any help.

She didn’t have to go through her bookstore to enter her apartment—there was a door beside the shop’s entrance that she could use when she wanted to avoid it. That’s where she had planned to go at first. She didn’t think Xaden would want to enter and eventually be faced with Ridoc, who had wholeheartedly agreed to work in her stead that day.

And yet, as soon as they came close enough to the bookshop to be able to see inside, Xaden’s voice stated,

“Bodhi’s here?”

Violet turned her head to him in confusion, before she followed his line of sight and saw that, indeed, his cousin was inside. He was sitting at her usual spot behind the cashier’s desk—his face looking all the more like Xaden’s now that his pain was on display, too. There was a soft look underneath the worry, though, and it was probably all due to Ridoc towering over him, his hand splayed on the side of Bodhi’s neck. His thumb was brushing back and forth in a soothing motion, and the look they exchanged told her her bookstore could probably catch fire without any of them noticing.

She didn’t know if her heart should burst so much in her chest at the sight.

“Are you surprised?” she asked eventually. “Ridoc’s here. Of course Bodhi wanted to be with him.”

Xaden side-eyed her, for all but a second and she wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn there was the hint of a smirk fighting to make its way onto his lips.

He was already looking back ahead as he said,

“Like I wanted to be with you?”

She opened her mouth to counter, then clamped it shut. Opened again, shut again.

When she still didn’t know what to say to that—because what exactly, did he expect her to respond?—Xaden huffed. The closest thing to a laugh he could probably muster right now.

“Come on, Violence,” he murmured. “Lead the way.”

Despite his words, he led the way—and instead of the direct door to her apartment, he pushed through the door to her bookstore, holding it open for her.

Like she had suspected it, and despite the distinct ding of the front door opening, neither Bodhi nor Ridoc turned their heads towards them when they entered. It was only when Violet cleared her throat that Ridoc, almost annoyingly, looked over to her.

“Oh,” he sighed. “I thought—” he frowned, taking them both in as his eyes landed on their joined hands, before he said, “Are you taking over? Can we—”

“No,” Xaden answered for her, his tone clipped—as if he had only been able to show his vulnerability to her. “She’s not taking over. You can stay here.”

Violet scoffed, but it was small. In truth, there was something about seeing him like this—seeing his usual stiffness and rough edges—that settled something in her. It was a little more like him than the wrecked version she had seen earlier.

Not that she wanted him to pretend—but she was glad he was still there, under the heartbreak.

It also brought her a feeling she didn’t know what to make out of. To know he was showing her—trusting her enough to show all of him.

“Please,” Violet amended with a half-smile at her friend. “If you could stay here? We were just going up.”

Ridoc nodded, but it was Bodhi who said, quietly,

“You’re gonna do something about it, right?”

He was looking at Xaden, but Violet couldn’t tell if his words were meant for him or for herself.

“You’re not gonna let her have Rose for a whole month? Please tell me—”

“Bodhi,” Violet breathed, her brows furrowing.

Because what, exactly, did he think they could do?

And did he truly think Xaden wouldn’t do everything he possibly could to get his daughter back?

How on—

“You have to—”

“Stop,” Xaden cut him off with a sharp look—his hand tightening around Violet’s as if by reflex. “Stop. You know I can’t.”

Bodhi clamped his mouth shut—his jaw working for a few moments. His eyes were still trained on Xaden, and there was almost something in them… Something akin to hatred.

It wasn’t making any sense.

Then again, Violet thought, they were all on edge. All heartbroken.

And heartbreak was like this, wasn’t it?

It didn’t make any sense. It made you do things, and say things, and feel things that didn’t make any sense.

“Let’s go,” she said, in a soft voice again—squeezing Xaden’s hand in response. “Let’s just go.”

Xaden paused as soon as he set foot in her apartment, slowly taking in every inch. It dawned on her then that he had never been there before—and a part of her was glad for the distraction it momentarily gave him.

She had already disappeared in the kitchen when she heard him say, his distant voice coming from the living room,

“I didn’t imagine it like that.”

When she turned around, placing two glasses on the table, he was already there—leaning against the threshold with his arms folded over his chest in a way that felt more like Xaden than what she had seen all morning.

The pain was still there—of course it was. But the change of scenery must have given him some comfort, and Violet could only smile at that.

“Imagine what?”

“Your apartment.”

She huffed, cocking an eyebrow as she filled the two glasses with water.

“What did you imagine it like?”

“I don’t know I—“ he turned his head back, glancing above his shoulder. “I expected way more books.”

Violet chuckled at that—the sound surprisingly light and easy. She made her way to him with the two glasses and handed him one.

“I do have a bookshelf,” she said as he took it. “But I also have all the books I need downstairs,” she paused, then shrugged a shoulder. “And not enough room here for all the books I would like to keep anyway.”

Xaden searched her face as she took a gulp of water, and she noticed how the golden flecks were slowly coming back to life. They were still dim, and nothing like she knew they should be. But it was comforting all the same.

He said, “Noted.”

“Noted?” She echoed in a snort. “What’s noted?”

“You need more room for books,” he replied easily. “Noted.”

Slowly, she narrowed her eyes on him, shaking her head. She gave up trying to understand what he meant though, and made to walk away to discard her glass of water on the counter.

But she couldn’t—she couldn’t, because she was stopped by a hand taking hers, and she barely had the time to place her glass down before she was tugged backward, very gently, and then pulled against him.

“Stay with me,” he murmured—and if he hadn’t been holding his own glass, she somehow knew his other hand would be cradling her face by now.

As it was, he slowly, so slowly let his forehead meet hers.

She swallowed.

At his tone, at his pleading eyes.

At the intimacy.

At the fact that she probably didn’t want anything else than that, too.

“I am with you,” she whispered back.

“Then stay close to me,” he amended.

Violet slowly cocked her head to the side, reaching a hand to his cheek.

“Here?” She teased, but it was lost in a murmur. “In the kitchen?”

Xaden didn’t answer—simply closed his eyes, suggesting that he couldn’t care less about staying right there. For as long as she was close to him, maybe.

She moved, though. Gently, she raised on her toes to place a soft kiss on the cheek she wasn’t already holding. Like the kisses he usually dropped on her, this one was slow. Gentle. Careful.

It was burning her lips, too, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

“Come on,” she murmured. “Let’s go sit down. You have one day.”

His eyes opened at that, both eyebrows slowly rising in silent question.

“One day to feel all of—this,” she explained. “One day to brood, and hurt, and do absolutely nothing but feel this.”

She placed her palm above his heart in emphasis, but his eyes told her he understood.

“And tomorrow,” she continued, “we fight.”

Xaden echoed, “We fight?”

“We fight,” she nodded. “Do you really think I’ll stay still for one whole month?”

He huffed, small and barely audible.

“I’m gonna crush that bitch if that’s the last thing I do,” Violet murmured, “for all the pain she’s causing you and Rose.”

And herself, too, but Violet didn’t say.

Despite her words, and despite the implications, Xaden’s lips slowly curved in a small smile.

“I knew there was a reason I called you Violence.”

Violet didn’t even try to hide it—she grinned. She grinned, and lifted her chin, high and proud.

“You haven’t even seen me start to get violent.”

It was later that day—when they were lying on her couch closer than they probably should, Xaden playing with the end of her hair and Violet reading out loud a book he probably didn’t register a word of—that it clicked, in her mind.

She stopped reading with a loud gasp, straightening out of his arms although he tried to keep her there.

“Shit!”

Xaden was right behind her, straightening too, his chest meeting her lower back with how close they had been lying.

“What?” He asked, and she knew his brows were slowly furrowing even though she couldn’t see him.

But it was dumb, really. It was dumb, and yet, Violet felt a lump growing in her throat at the realization.

“Violence?” He pushed, a hint of worry in his voice now.

“I uh—“ she ran a hand over her face, and sighed when she glanced over her shoulder to finally meet his eyes. It was another second before she managed to murmur, almost ashamed, “I forgot to give it to her.”

Xaden’s brows were still furrowed but his hand brushed over her arm.

“To give her what?”

“I told you I got her a few… things,” she reminded him, very quietly. “I forgot to give it to her.”

A few things happened then.

First, she saw a mixture of expressions cross over Xaden’s face and the sight almost made her dizzy with how many there were. How quickly they changed.

Then, he slowly, so slowly shook his head. In denial? In disbelief?

She couldn’t tell.

And finally, he wrapped both his arms around her—more tightly this time, and pulled her back with him until he laid back down. He had managed to make her turn so her chest was against his, facing him. She was splayed over him, very aware of all the places where their bodies were touching.

And his eyes—his eyes searched her own, devoured her face, found her soul. They flickered down, finding her mouth, too, and then he closed them, for all but a second.

“You’ll give her,” he said eventually, very slowly—his head so close to hers and his voice so quiet but also so loud, to her. “You’ll give her and she’ll be over the fucking moon.”

Violet huffed at his certainty.

“You don’t even—“

“I know,” he countered. “I know she’ll love it.”

Violet sighed, and decided to give up. There was only so much she could do—so much she could say—when he was this determined.

She set her head under his chin, almost above his heartbeat.

“I had a dragon for her,” she said quietly. “Another one. And books, too.”

Xaden kissed her hairline, and she probably shouldn’t be able to feel his smile with the kiss, right?”

“Books to learn more signs,” she continued, her voice even quieter. “I thought she’d like it.”

For a moment, he didn’t answer.

But his arms were still holding her, brushing over her back and his lips were still atop her head, grazing her scalp.

It was perhaps after several full minutes that he said,

“You’ve already taught her the most important one.”

Violet furrowed her brows at that.

Had she?

When she still didn’t understand what he was referring to, she slowly rose on his chest, pushing on her elbows to meet his gaze again. Xaden understood her question without needing her to voice it.

He was slow in his movements when he dragged a hand between them, to her line of sight. He was slow, and almost trembling, too, but she was probably imagining it.

Very slowly, he signed,

I

love

you.

The movement of his fingers was clipped as he raised them to sign. As if he was making a pointed effort to articulate with his hands.

As if he was making a pointed effort to separate the words.

And he was merely repeating the signs she had offered his daughter earlier, right?

Merely telling her what he had been referring to.

Right?

Violet blinked, then huffed, but it was nervous, really.

And when she didn’t know what to say, or do, or feel to that, she simply laid back down on his chest.

Above his heartbeat.

She could swear it was beating more erratically than it had been before.

But then again, she was most probably just imagining things, right?

Right?

Chapter Text

She woke up with a loud gasp—straightening as best as she could, even despite the covers trying to keep her in place.

Chapter Text

Violet was loyal to a fault.

She had been loyal to her mother even when she’d deceived her over and over again; had been loyal to her brother and sister and continued to be even when they let her down; had been loyal to her ex-boyfriend even after he’d been the worst possible person to her.

So she was loyal, and that didn’t stop when she was pained. Or hurt.

Or heartbroken.

Especially when her loyalty extended to a dark-eyed, dark-haired little girl.

So, no.

Violet might have been angry, and frustrated, and pissed at Xaden. She might have been heartbroken, indeed—not that she would have liked to admit it, but so be it.

She might have had feelings about the situation that certainly didn’t evaporate or get any better that night, when Xaden didn’t come, or call, or text—or the day and night after that, when she still didn’t hear from him.

But even despite all of that—despite her deception and her loathing and the knot in her throat that kept growing and growing and growing—

Despite all of that, Violet didn’t stop searching.

She didn’t stop fighting.

She was doing this for Rose after all—at least mainly.

And her feelings (and her deception and her fucking broken heart) shouldn’t get in the way of that.

And perhaps it was for the best, too.

Because the time alone enabled her a few… things.

First, she found it a little easier to concentrate when she didn’t have a hand always splayed on her body—taking her attention away. When she didn’t have a pair of lips on her skin, making her very brains melt and her heart burst and her pulse skyrocket. When she didn’t feel so many things a second—and yet tried very hard to ignore each and every single one of them, just so she could focus on what she was supposed to do.

Violet also realized her mind was a little more… acute. Sharp. Because she’d been thinking about things she hadn’t been thinking before. And she couldn’t tell exactly what it was—if it was the fact that she was alone now (in an apartment she had quickly been accustomed to share), or the fact that every day that came and went filled her with a sense of dread and alarm. Either way, she was rolling, and her mind was working, and it felt refreshing, somehow.

And then, there was the… space. The mental space being alone gave her to… think, sure. But to make decisions, also.

Decisions she hadn’t been able—or ready, or desperate enough to make before.

That’s exactly how she’d ended up in her car—gripping the steering wheel a little too tightly.

How she’d found herself in a fitted two-piece suit she never wore.

How she had decided to come here, of all places. Wearing an outfit she hated and makeup that didn’t feel like her. Holding her chin high and keeping her shoulders back.

Violet took a deep breath.

Another one.

Her childhood house had stopped feeling like a home a long time ago.

Even before her father’s death—and it had only gotten worse after that. The path leading to her front door was lined with deceptions and the porch was painted in disappointments and the door itself was only an opening to every single one of her traumas and flaws.

Her stubbornness.

Her fears and her weaknesses.

Her fucking inability to trust anyone.

It all came from within those walls. From these red bricks and neat furniture.

It all came from this house she had been trying very hard to avoid setting foot in again.

And yet here she was.

Determined.

Her mother had been insisting on inviting Violet over for weeks. Months, even—and Violet had been very good at dismissing her.

So really, she thought as she climbed out of her car, sliding her palms against the fabric of her suit and bracing her shoulders, she would be doing them both a favor.

Her mother was desperate to see her again.

And if Violet could take this opportunity to gain something in return, well…

Great.

Just her luck.

Her steps were slow and careful as she made her way to the front door, and she tried to convince herself it was because she wanted to take her time, and not because a part of her was dreading it.

She tried to convince herself that coming back here, in this suit, wasn’t a setback but a play. Tried to convince herself she was still holding all the cards, here—tried to remind herself she was in control.

Control that her mother had lost over her a long, long time ago.

Violet knew she had never been good enough for her mother. Knew she had disappointed her the minute she had told her the law degree she had forced her to complete would be irrelevant to the opening of her bookstore. Understood it the moment she had announced she was breaking up with Dain and with it—breaking up whatever arrangement her mother had made on her behalf with Dain’s father (a position in a legal practice she wouldn’t need anyway). Realized it, the day of her father’s funeral.

When Violet had been too hurt, too heartbroken (too broken, probably as well), to care about anything else.

And when her mother had merely leveled her cold gaze at her and told her,

He’s gone, Violet. Get over it.

So truly, Violet knew she had never been good enough for her mother. She—

“Violet!”

Violet was wrapped in an embrace so tight, she barely had the time to understand what was happening before her sister continued,

“Gods, I missed you!”

So what was supposed to be a quiet lunch with her mother turned out to be a family dinner.

What was supposed to be something Violet had control over (where she would get to inquire what she had come here to find out, where she would get to roam around the house freely, where she would get to leave the moment she decided) turned out to be something she lost all control of and had absolutely no say in.

Mira dragged her in the house faster than Violet was probably ready—already showering her in a mixture of questions and anecdotes Violet truly didn’t care about.

And before she knew it, she was met with her childhood living room—met with Brennan’s equally smiling face and dragged into the unwanted embrace of her mother’s arms.

Before she knew it, she was sitting at the living room table to eat a meal far more exhausting than she had intended, or expected, or agreed to.

Before she knew it, she was wasting her time and boiling in anger.

At her mother, for one. For turning this supposedly easy and quiet dinner into a gathering of some sort.

At Mira and Brennan, too. For not having checked in with her to know if that was okay.

And, or course, at herself.

Because a part of her should have known this would happen.

Halfway through the cannelloni (You’ve truly outdone yourself, Mom. It reminds me of that time Naolin—) and after their mother had made sure to offer each of them some wine (But, Violet, are you sure? I don’t know that it’s a good idea with your…) and after Violet had reined in more eye-rolls than she had thought possible in the span of so little time (What’s that suit, even? Mira had frowned. It looks… Lilith had overheard them apparently. Oh it looks absolutely lovely).

So, after all of that—after Violet had tried to eat as quickly as possible, and had tried to act as casually as possible, and had tried to smile as genuinely as possible—Mira had frowned.

And her loud gasp had made all the heads turn to her.

“Vi,” she started, lowering her fork in her plate midway through her mouthful, “I forgot to ask you—you closed your bookstore?”

Violet tried not to let her face betray whatever was on the tip of her tongue.

Whatever truth was on the tip of her tongue, really.

She waved her hand in the air dismissively.

“Oh,” she said, “you know. Just for a month or so. I thought I might need a break.”

“No, because,” Mira continued, swallowing her food around her words, “I had an intervention not so far from there the other day, and it was closed. And y’know, we were—”

Like she always did, Mira caught all of the attention as she spoke. She started retelling said intervention, indeed, in between a few mouthfuls and a couple of sips from her wine glass—only interrupted by Brennan’s snickering and their mother’s appreciative hums.

Violet had stopped listening to her sister’s stories about the police force a long time ago.

At least until she turned back to Violet,

“But anyway, I wanted to come say hi, only to find your store closed.” Mira’s frown was back on her face. “It was weird.”

Slowly, Violet shrugged. “Like I said,” she offered with a smile (not so genuine, this one), “I needed a break.”

“Does that have anything to do with the guy you’re dating?”

Violet blinked at her brother’s words.

She fucking blinked, and when she realized it, she clamped her mouth shut and tried to school her face into a neutral expression.

“I’m not—”

“Oh come on,” Brennan rolled his eyes, his smile so wide on his lips, Violet had to grit her teeth. “I saw you with him at that Italian place just last week. And if you’re not dating him, damn, I just might.”

Mira threw her head back in laughter. It only lasted a second, though, before she tried muffling the sounds with her hand.

“I shouldn’t laugh at that.” When Brennan’s eyes flickered to hers and winked, Mira grabbed a piece of bread on the table and threw it at him. “Gods, I really shouldn’t laugh at that.”

From the proud and satisfied look on his face, Brennan was happy with the reaction his comment had drawn out of at least one of his sisters. Still, his eyes landed back on Violet as he continued,

“So, what’s his name?”

Violet leaned back in her chair with a groan.

“Come on, Vi,” He continued before she could even come up with an excuse. “Just tell us—”

“He has no name,” she countered, “because I’m not dating anyone.”

She folded her arms over her chest, too. A way of telling him—telling all of them—that the subject was over.

Brennan apparently didn’t get the hint.

“Oh,” he shook his head slowly, pointing his fork at her. “You can’t make me swallow that. Vi, the guy had his lips glued to—”

“Xaden,” she blurted out through gritted teeth—her cheeks flushing a deep red. “Happy now?” Before he even had the time to answer, she turned to their mother and asked, already standing to gather her plate, “What’s for dessert?”

And she hoped they all took it for what it was.

She was not about to talk about Xaden right here.

Right then.

And especially since he hadn’t even tried to reach out to her in…

How many days, exactly?

Three, for sure.

Maybe even four.

Violet was quick and precise in her movements as she started gathering the plates from the table—ignoring Mira’s quizzical look and Brennan only half-finished plate—and made a beeline for the kitchen.

She set the plates down on the counter, and braced her hands on it.

Not to gain her balance, not really.

But to gather her spirits.

She hated this house, indeed.

She hated who she was inside those walls—hated how she felt inadequate the moment she passed the threshold, hated how her family didn’t seem to understand her, not really. Not entirely. Not like her friends usually did.

And certainly not like a pair of onyx eyes seemed to know her without even trying.

She hated all of it.

And even taking a few steadying breaths didn’t help.

“Strawberry pie.”

Violet was startled by her mother’s voice, no matter how soft it was, for once.

She glanced over her shoulder to watch Lilith round the counter, dragging the pile of plates toward her.

“That’s what’s for dessert. I think it was your favorite?”

It wasn’t.

It had always been Mira’s.

Violet didn’t say.

Instead, she watched as her mother brought the plates in the sink, and started rinsing them thoroughly.

There was a dishwasher in her childhood home, yet her father had always been adamant about rinsing the dishes before placing them in it. A part of Violet strangely hummed at the knowledge that her mother kept up with the habit.

Almost as if her father was still in there, somewhere.

Between the walls and under the lights of this house.

When she glanced back at the living room to find both her siblings engrossed in yet another conversation, Violet didn’t hesitate for one second. If she had only one opening that day, she would take it.

“Mom?”

Her mother didn’t even lift her eyes from the plates she was still rinsing, even as she hummed.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Violet hesitated.

She had prepared a speech—repeated, over and over in her head, the way she would broach the subject.

A pile of books on the kitchen counter made her forget all about it. And instead of the practiced monologue she had prepared, she tried,

“I’ve been re-reading Kramer vs. Kramer, you know that book I love?”

Lilith slowly lifted her eyes to her daughter. She mused,

“That one about the custody case?”

“Yep,” Violet confirmed almost absent-mindedly. “That’s the one.”

Her mother stated—not really a question,

“The mother wins in that book.”

A simple statement.

Yet one that made Violet feel so uneasy it was hard to contain her grimace.

“Right,” she nodded. “I was just uh—” she cleared her throat. “Wondering. If you knew any similar cases where the father won?”

Lilith’s eyes snapped back up to hers.

And if she had been less troubled by the way her heart was thundering in her chest, perhaps Violet would have noticed how her mother was gripping the plate, too. Perhaps a little too tight.

Violet continued, waving a hand dismissively in the air—almost stumbling on the words flying out of her mouth so fast even she had a hard time keeping track of them,

“You know how I get curious about random things,” (half a lie.) “Last week, I got obsessed with the 19th century because I had just re-read Pride and Prejudice. Imagine.” (A total lie.) “But anyway, I was re-reading that book and so I started doing research about similar cases, because,” a small, embarrassed laugh. An anxious one. “It just makes me so mad that most judges would give custody to the mother.” (A truth, this one. an absolute truth.) “Just because.”

Violet’s chest was almost heaving by the time she was done, and she rolled her lips together in an attempt to calm down.

Her mother had stopped filling the dishwasher and rinsing the plates, too—instead observing her with a hint of something in her eyes.

Despite all she had expected (despite her ridiculous and suspicious speech, and despite her not-quite-but-somehow-knowing gaze), Lilith turned back to the sink.

And she asked,

“I’m assuming you’ve already done some research on your own? Found a few… relevant cases?”

Violet let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She nodded, too, before realizing her mother wouldn’t see her.

So she answered,

“Yeah. I found some cases like—” she made a point of hesitating. Just to make her mother believe she didn’t know those cases like the back of her hand. “Johnson vs. Lopez,” she saw Lilith nod. “And Wilson vs. O’Connor. And uh—” Violet wet her lips. “Murphy vs. Murphy. But not many more than that.”

There were a few minutes when Lilith didn’t answer—she only kept loading the dishwasher, almost as if she was taking her time on purpose.

Or thinking, perhaps.

As she straightened and washed her hands though, she confirmed,

“There are only a few, unfortunately.” Violet tried to keep her heart in check. Tried not to let it sink to the bottom of her stomach. “Now, a part of the reason is because in a lot of cases, Violet,” Lilith turned toward her, observing her intently, “In the majority of them, actually, the father is always absent. And the child will be better cared for with their mother.”

Perhaps she shouldn’t have. And yet Violet couldn’t refrain her instincts from retorting,

“Not all the time. The father is sometimes much better suited for—”

And she didn’t know who she was trying to defend, anymore.

She didn’t know if she was speaking about Xaden or about her own father.

She didn’t think it made a difference anyway.

“Indeed,” Lilith slowly nodded. She turned completely toward Violet, leaning against the counter behind her. “And some judges might have a hard time realizing it, too.”

“Do you?”

“Excuse me?”

Violet swallowed—albeit with a little more difficulty than she should.

“Do you, or your colleagues, let yourselves be biased by—by this—”

“No,” Lilith answered with a voice more assured than ever, perhaps. “I only look at the evidence that is presented.” Violet was already opening her mouth to speak when Lilith took a step forward, and continued, her voice almost clipped. “You have to understand, Violet, how this works.”

But she did—she knew all of that.

“Judges can only make a decision and issue a ruling based on the evidence that is presented to them,” Lilith articulated slowly, almost as if reciting words. She shook her head. “We need evidence, Violet.”

She felt like this conversation was useless.

Violet hadn’t heard anything that she didn’t already know—she had spent her childhood overhearing her parents discuss her mother’s cases, had spent her teenage years discussing them with her father when her mother was too busy to be home, had spent her years at university learning all of that—and yet here she was.

Without a single clue as to what could come next.

She closed her eyes—trying and trying and trying to make her mind work.

To make it connect the dots she could see so clearly, yet couldn’t seem to bring together. To make it understand what she felt like she should already have understood.

She tried—and when it didn’t work, she pressed her eyes tighter.

In her head, she flipped through images and memories and texts she had read through. She catalogued everything she had tried to understand, time and time again.

And she asked her mother the one question she hadn’t thought she would dare to ask,

“Why would a judge stall before giving a final decision?”

And she wasn’t talking about the book anymore—that much was clear.

She didn’t care.

Violet opened her eyes again to find her mother already looking right back at her—an almost gentle smile on her lips.

Lilith didn’t reply right away.

“That Xaden Riorson,” her mother asked instead, “is he treating you well?”

Violet frowned, but didn’t make sense of the words her mother had offered her.

Didn’t really notice, either, the use of the last name she hadn’t offered earlier.

Instead, Violet continued in her line of thought,

“Why would a judge stall?” She huffed as her mother turned toward the fridge, reaching for the strawberry pie without a word. “What would make them—” Violet fisted her hands at her sides when her mother started making her way back into the living room—and she didn’t even care that she was almost screaming, or snapping when she called, “Mom!”

Lilith finally stopped.

She finally looked like she was listening.

“Answer me,” Violet demanded, in a voice a little more pleading than she would have wanted. “Please.”

At that, Lilith slowly—so fucking slowly—turned back to Violet.

She cocked her head to the side, observing her.

A smile was still on her lips, though it was small.

And she asked,

“I don’t know, Violet. Why do you think a judge would stall?” She paused. Kept her eyes trained on Violet. Almost expectantly. “Why would I stall?”

If Violet’s chest was heaving, it was most probably because of the suit she was wearing—the material a little too tight and a little too uncomfortable.

If her heart was thundering, it was most probably because of this house and this place and those memories.

If her head was aching, it was most probably because of her siblings, too—still bickering in the living room.

And if her palms were sweaty—

Well.

It was most probably because it was a little hot, in this house.

Right?

Violet breathed,

“What?”

“Why would anybody stall?” Lilith repeated as if she hadn’t offered a very different choice of words just a few seconds ago. “Why would—”

“Because they need evidence,” like a useless puppet, Violet repeated her mother’s earlier words.

And she felt dizzy, now, too.

Though it was certainly not because of the suit, or the house, or her siblings.

Violet repeated, a little breathless now, “They need evidence.”

Lilith slowly nodded. So Violet continued—her mind working on its own accord to understand things Violet had perhaps not understood yet,

“And they have to make a decision based on the evidence that is presented to them.”

Violet was merely repeating the words her mother had offered her a few minutes ago, and yet, somehow...

It made sense, now.

Satisfied, Lilith nodded again.

She offered,

“I always knew you would have been a terrific lawyer.”

And for once in her life, Violet didn’t hear any bite, or disappointment, or resignation in her mother’s words.

No, there was only pride.

And acceptance, somehow.

The strawberry pie still in hands, she started walking to the living room again.

One, two, three steps.

On the fourth, she paused, and glanced at Violet over her shoulder.

She said,

“I hope I’ll see you again soon, Violet.”

And Violet hadn’t even made up her mind, yet apparently, her mother knew she needed to leave even before Violet did.

Lilith took another step.

She paused again.

“And I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.”

Just like she had done too many times to count, Violet was back in the gym.

She was back walking those halls; she was back pushing open those doors; she was back looking for him.

And it didn’t really matter, that she hadn’t talked to him for a few days.

She knew he would be there.

She just knew it.

And indeed,

“—believe that you—”

Liam trailed off with a grunt when Xaden landed what looked like a particularly violent hit, then took a few steps to the side to avoid a jab. He continued, almost as if they had never been interrupted, “—would do that to her. What—” He was the one to punch Xaden, this time, “—were you—” He took a step back just in time to avoid another, “—thinking?”

It wasn’t so surprising to Violet, that Xaden didn’t answer.

His back was to her—giving her a perfect view of the way his muscles contracted around the tattoo that was splayed onto the entirety of his back—but she could swear his jaw was set in the tightest lock she had ever seen.

And just before Xaden started to land another hit, she took another step toward the mat they were training on and quipped in,

“I would love to hear the answer to that question, too.”

Both men froze on the mat.

And if Liam immediately moved to look at her—his face a weird mixture of anger and guilt—Xaden didn’t turn to look at her at all.

Violet took a few steps forward.

She repeated,

“That is, if you are talking about the fact that he left me wondering what he was playing at in the middle of Basgiath Park.”

From a few steps away, Violet saw the way Liam folded his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes on Xaden.

“That,” her friend confirmed, “and why he stayed alone and miserable ever since.”

Violet hummed contentedly, slowly lifting her chin.

“Then,” she continued, “yeah. I would love to hear about it.”

Xaden had still not moved a single inch.

And a part of Violet—the part that knew him so well, the part that had never hated him, not even for a single second… that part ached for him.

She knew what this was hiding.

She took a deep breath, taking a couple more steps forward. She stopped just in front of the mat.

“Liam,” she called quietly, “Will you give us a moment?”

Judging by the look on his face, Liam hadn’t exactly been expecting this.

Still, he searched her face for a second, and finally tipped his head in a nod.

He took a few steps toward her, and as soon as he was beside her, he offered, his face apologetic,

“I didn’t know, Vi.” His voice almost sounded pleading. “Believe me, if I had, I would have kicked his ass sooner.”

Violet huffed, though it was nothing humorous.

“Don’t worry,” she turned to him and gently squeezed his bicep in silent support. Silent gratitude. “And thank you.”

Liam was almost out of the training room when Violet kicked off her shoes beside the mat and slowly made her way in front of Xaden.

She had expected it—yet being faced with him, standing on the mat with his eyes closed and with his face tightly locked, did painful things to her heart.

Violet took a deep breath.

And then she started,

“I looked it up.”

As if he hadn’t expected her to say those words, Xaden’s eyes snapped open and landed on hers.

And again, she had expected to see the heartbreak and pain in his eyes—she only hadn’t expected the way she would feel at the sight.

“I looked it up,” she repeated, “what it means when someone runs away in the middle of a kiss.”

In addition to her words, she started slowly circling him, and just like she had thought he would, he followed her—his eyes never leaving her tracks. She landed her first hit at the exact moment she came back to stand in front of him—her flat palm hitting right in the middle of his chest and knocking the air out of him.

Xaden stumbled a few steps back, and as he did, Violet silently thanked Rhiannon and the few training sessions she had insisted on giving her.

“Some say,” Violet continued as if she had never been interrupted, “that it could be because the kiss was not good,” she lifted one finger in the air, almost casually. “Others,” another finger, “say that it could be the fear of commitment. The realization of what the kiss might mean.”

Violet rounded Xaden again, though this time, he didn’t follow her movements. And when she was back in front of him and lifted her arm, preparing herself for the punch she was about to land, he closed his eyes.

“Then, there are some who believe the person realized they didn’t have feelings.”

Despite his still closed eyes, Xaden intercepted her fist exactly as she hit him—mere seconds before it collided with his chest.

And Violet didn’t exactly want to, yet her pulse was already a little skyrocketing as he kept her fist locked in his—his hold around her hand firm and strong.

She tried to catch her breath.

A lame attempt.

“Tell me Xaden,” she breathed eventually. “Which one was it?”

Like any other day, Violet had to crane her neck up to be able to look at him.

And she was already doing it, although Xaden’s eyes were still closed.

Even though he still hadn’t let go of her hand.

Even though he was holding her in place—close to him and unable to move.

“I think,” she continued, in between a few other breaths. “What we have here is actually secret option number four.”

Violet moved her hand in Xaden’s—releasing her fist and sliding her palm against his instead.

She held tight.

And when she took a step to the side, looped a foot around his leg and pulled, bringing him to his knees with the swift motion, she still didn’t let go of his hand.

Violet was no fool.

She was quite aware of the fact that Xaden had gone willingly. That, or the fact that maybe he was simply out of strength.

So she asked, her voice barely louder than a breath now,

“Do you know what secret option number four is, Xaden?”

His chest was heaving, too.

He was panting, too.

He didn’t answer. So she lifted her free hand and cupped his face. His cheek first, brushing her thumb over his cheek once, then dragging it a little higher and tangling in his hair.

She breathed,

“Look at me.”

Surprisingly enough, he did.

Violet searched his face—for a heartbeat or for a lifetime or for a decade.

She asked,

“Why did you kiss me?”

His throat bobbed—she only then realized he was swallowing. Hard.

“Tell me, Xaden,” she asked again, pulling gently at his hair, “Why did you kiss me?”

He pressed his eyes shut, then opened them again. Shut again, open again.

And finally, he said,

“You know why.”

His free hand found her hip at his words, and Violet perhaps should have minded.

She didn’t.

“Stop being cryptic,” she demanded. She repeated, her words a little rougher now. “Why did you kiss me?”

In front of her, he hesitated. And when he was done searching her face for a whole minute, he offered,

“Because I wanted to.” Violet was already opening her mouth to speak when he continued, “Because I’ve been wanting to ever since that very first day I stepped into your bookstore, for those renovations Liam dragged me along to help with.”

It wasn’t quite what she had expected.

It made her heart tighten in her chest anyway.

And as if in response, Xaden’s hand on her waist tightened as well.

His eyes were still pleading.

And Violet’s chest was still heaving—at least mostly.

“Was it a bad kiss?” She asked, then continued even when Xaden started shaking his head, “Was that first entry on the internet correct?”

“No,” he breathed. “Of course—”

“Or did you realize your feelings have changed?”

As if to assure her they hadn’t, Xaden slowly leaned his head against her palm—still tangled in his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he told her instead. “I’m so fucking—”

“And are you afraid of committing?” Violet continued, cocking her head to the side and observing each and every single fleck in those onyx eyes of his. “Somehow, I doubt it. Because you have a daughter, for one. So you know what commitment is. But also because of the way you act with me behind closed doors—” she cocked an eyebrow at him, almost as if sharing a wild thought. “You know what I’ve noticed, Xaden? Rather, what I’ve been thinking?” She didn’t wait for his answer to continue, “I’m quite sure you would have kept kissing me if we had been in my apartment that day.”

His eyes flickering to her mouth before fluttering closed was the only confirmation she needed.

And on half a thought—half a thought formed and shaped by months and months of want; by days and weeks of push and pull; by years, at least almost, of feelings—Violet slowly leaned in.

She lowered her head to his, from where he was still kneeling before her, and she closed her eyes as well as soon as her lips started brushing against his.

So featherlight.

So slow.

So right, too.

It didn’t take long for Xaden to kiss her back—for his lips to answer to the kiss, almost as if he couldn’t exactly do anything else. Almost as if he was too weak to resist.

Almost as if he had been waiting for this ever since that very first day, indeed.

Violet smiled softly against his lips.

She breathed,

“That’s what I thought.”

It was, in itself, a torture to draw back and leave his expectant lips. A torture to not linger against him and press him close and continue the kiss—deepen it, and relish in it, and never break it.

It was torture, but Violet was strong-minded.

She replaced her mouth with her thumb, gently grazing Xaden’s lips.

Enjoyed the way they were soft and perfectly shaped beneath the pad of her finger.

Adored the way his face looked slightly more relaxed, now that she had pressed her lips against his.

And she asked, her voice still so low,

“Do you know what secret option number four is, Xaden?”

His breath was hot on her thumb when he answered—his voice almost rough.

“No.”

Violet smiled—an almost satisfied smile at him.

“Secret option number four is,” she started with a very deep breath, “the guy is a frightened dad caught in a fight for custody, who is afraid of the repercussions it might have if anyone caught him kissing the judge’s daughter.”

Xaden’s eyes snapped open.

Finally, he was looking at her—really looking.

And for once, she saw in his eyes everything he had never wanted to tell her. Everything he had been trying hard to hide from her.

Everything he had been very cautious to protect, too.

Because it all made sense, now.

All of it.

Violet’s mind hadn’t truly formed the thought before she had been sitting in her car—already making her way to his gym.

And yet once the thought struck her—when she let her mind wander to that possibility, when she let her brain imagine and comprehend, and realize, when she really allowed herself to think… There was no denying it.

It explained…

Well.

Everything.

The reason why he had never wanted to tell her about Rose, and—Why didn’t you say anything Xaden? You know I could have helped. You know I would have. But, It’s not something you say on your first date.

The reason why he hadn’t wanted to involve her in the case and—You shouldn’t help me, Violet.

The reason why he had never given her the judge’s name—always avoiding her questions instead.

The reason why he had been so careful to keep her away from it all. From the trial, and from Cat, too, and—You can’t come down. Promise me you won’t leave this room.

The reason why Bodhi had thought Xaden might be able to go against the orders for the temporary custody, too—You’re gonna do something about it, right? You’re not gonna let her have Rose for a whole month?

The reason he had been downright terrified once he’d realized he had kissed her in the middle of town. For all eyes to see.

Please, Vi. Please.

It all made absolute sense now.

Xaden swallowed with difficulty.

And his eyes had never been more struggling.

To his credit, he didn’t try to deny.

Instead, he asked,

“How did you figure it out?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Violet countered, “Why didn’t you tell me yourself?”

Xaden searched her face for a few moments.

He tried to read her—just like she was reading him.

Eventually, he said,

“Your relationship with your mother is complicated enough.” That was an understatement. “I didn’t want to be yet another burden on that pile.”

“You know I would—”

“You would have wanted to get involved anyway,” he countered, with perhaps a little more certainty than he had displayed all day. On her hips, his hands brushed gently, almost a way to remind her of how well he knew her. “You would have, and then you would have tried to convince your mom that—”

“Wrong,” Violet slowly shook her head, bringing her other hand to cup his cheek. She was holding him from both sides now, brushing her thumbs on his cheekbones and giving him the comfort she hoped he needed. “I would have known what I was up against a little better.”

Because she knew her mother. She knew how she was thinking, knew how she worked. Knew her ways and where to look for the information she might need, too.

This answered… Well. Almost everything.

“But,” Violet added, looking at Xaden pointedly—cocking an eyebrow at him, “You were right about one thing. We can’t—” she slowly shook her head. “We can’t be seen together. At all. My mom would be accused of a conflict of interest. So at best,” Violet cocked her head to the side, “the case would be appointed to another judge.” She took a deep breath as Xaden slid his hands to really envelop her, this time. “And at worst…” she trailed off in a deep sigh. “You’d lose.”

Xaden’s eyes fluttered closed.

And at the sight of it—of his heartbreak and of his pain, splattered on his face for her to see—Violet gently leaned in to rest her forehead against his.

To breathe alongside him.

To delight in the way she felt purely home, when she was with him, too.

“We’ve already been tiptoeing the line a little too much, Xaden,” she murmured. “Holding hands, and touching me and—and kissing my neck in a restaurant—” she tried not to roll her eyes as she remembered Brennan and their earlier conversation. “We can’t do that. I’d argue we can’t even walk side by side anymore, it—” she shook her head against him. “It’s too risky.”

They were so close now that Violet could feel his heartbeat beneath his chest.

She loved the sound of it—loved how soothing and grounding it felt.

“I know,” he admitted quietly, his eyes still closed.

He took a deep breath. She mimicked him.

“And,” Xaden continued, this time opening his eyes to find hers, “I know I hurt you too. I know I was an ass, but I just—” he lifted a hand to brush his knuckles against one of her cheeks. “I just wanted to avoid this, and then—” a sad half-smile spread his lips. “Then, I couldn’t resist you, somehow.”

Before her, he hesitated.

And when he spoke again, his voice was as vulnerable as she had ever heard it.

“I can feel her being taken away from me,” he murmured—scared and weak. “I can’t resist you and—and not have you with me, either. Not—not right now.”

“Good.”

Violet’s voice had perhaps come out with a little more force than necessary.

And as she looped her arms around his neck, somehow pulling Xaden a little closer to her, she continued,

“Because you don’t have to resist in here.”

He didn’t have to be told twice, apparently.

He didn’t have to, yet he took his time all the same.

First, his hand on her cheek moved, but only enough to cup the back of her neck. And he was observing her, too—searching her face, as if he was wondering if that was okay. Or maybe he was simply allowing himself to look at her, really look at her.

Look at her with those eyes full of stars and this face full of an emotion Violet could read clearly, but she didn’t dare to name.

Look at her and devour her—entirely.

And then, he dragged her a little closer.

And she could still feel his heart—and even more so when he straightened, pushing on one knee so Violet wouldn’t have to bend too low.

And then, finally—finally—he kissed her again.

And the world made sense.

Just like that first time, his lips against hers felt perfect. And just like the second time, they were soft, too.

This kiss was different, though.

It was different because she was.

She felt more confident, and more at ease, and at peace than she had in a long time.

And perhaps Xaden felt it too.

Against him, she murmured,

“No more secrets.” She chased after him to keep kissing him around her words. “Please.”

He promised, “No more secrets.”

“And no running away.”

He huffed against her lips—a disbelieving sound that she felt all throughout.

“Believe me, Violence,” he assured her with the smallest smile dancing on his lips, “I don’t have any more strength in me to run away from you.”

She kissed away his smile.

Tried to imprint it on his lips.

Tried to make it hers.

And when she thought she might forget all coherent thought, she voiced the most important one.

She pulled away from him to do it—just slightly.

She made a point of looking him in the eye.

And she told him,

“We’re gonna bring her home.” She sealed it with a kiss. “I promise we’re bringing your baby home.”

Chapter Text

“What are you doing?”

Violet didn’t look away from the computer resting on her lap.

And she didn’t lift her head, either, even when Xaden lowered his to her neck. From where she was sitting on the couch, she couldn’t be sure, but she was quite certain he had knelt behind her and was now dead-set on keeping close to her.

It wasn’t so surprising—he hadn’t been capable of keeping his hands or lips away from her in the few hours since they’d left his gym.

Violet had left first—making her way to her apartment quickly, walking the quiet streets alone and trying not to get irrationally annoyed at the fact that he couldn’t walk with her.

Xaden was knocking on her door exactly ten minutes after that. And the first thing he did when she opened it for him was kiss her—almost as if to check if he was still allowed.

She wasn’t even surprised.

So, truly, she couldn’t say she was surprised, either, that his lips were glued to her skin now, too. That his mouth was brushing her neck, teasing and trailing a line of kisses up to her jaw.

“I’m doing research,” she offered him quietly, trying as hard as she could to hide how much his ministrations were affecting her.

How her pulse was skyrocketing and her eyes threatening to flutter closed. How her breathing was becoming a little difficult, too, and how the deep, persistent heat in her core was becoming more and more overwhelming.

And yet, as soon as her words reached his ears—as soon as he made sense of them, perhaps—Xaden paused. His face was still buried in her neck, but he retreated slowly, and if she had to guess, she could have sworn he was looking at her screen over her shoulder, by now.

He guessed,

“For her?” Violet didn’t really have the time to answer. And she assumed he didn’t really need to, either, because he continued, “What is left to research?”

She could hear the frown in his voice.

“I thought you’d already looked at absolutely—”

“That,” she cut him off gently as she turned her head to him, just enough to be able to see him, “was before I knew who was presiding over the trial.” She placed a palm on his cheek in a soothing motion, then pressed a gentle kiss on his other cheek.

She could feel his slight stubble against her lips—the proof of the disastrous last few days, she guessed.

Violet continued,

“I’ve just downloaded every single judgment ever issued by Judge Lilith Sorrengail.”

Xaden placed one last kiss on her, pressing his lips to her hairline before he moved, rounding the couch and sitting down next to her.

Sitting a little closer than necessary, too.

Neither of them said. Neither of them complained.

And when he slid an arm around her, it all seemed more natural than anything, too.

“What can I do?” He asked immediately, nodding to her computer. “What can I—“

“Nothing,” Violet shrugged, repositioning the computer on her lap.

She managed to shift a little closer to him and smiled a small smile when he tightened his hold around her.

“You could go back to bed, actually,” she said—as if he would agree. “It’s late. You could—“

“No.”

Violet didn’t find it in herself to argue, or counter, or try to convince him.

“I’m helping,” he said, with a little more certainty than necessary.

And when Violet took a minute to look at him again—to look at the way the circles under his eyes were still dark and the way his face was still tight and painful—she moved, too. She reached a hand to his face again, cupped his cheek gently for one, two, three seconds, and brushed her thumb over his cheekbone.

Xaden’s face was already starting to relax when she leaned in to brush a delicate, tender kiss on his lips.

“Okay,” she murmured against his mouth. Violet lingered there—stealing one more kiss and relishing the way her whole body seemed to relax against him. A small smile was stretching her lips by the time she pulled away. “Alright.”

They spent the night reading.

Violet gave him some papers to read as she did the same, taking note of anything and everything that could be useful—trying to find a pattern, to understand something that was just on the tip of her tongue, to fully form this thought that was just there.

“You’re sure about this.”

There was a tightness to Xaden’s tone—a bite in his words, a clippness in his voice.

Violet guessed it made sense. It was, in itself, half a bluff. Half a gamble.

Something that could go either way—and yet she could feel they had to at least try.

“It’s the only thing that makes any semblance of sense,” she repeated, for what was perhaps the third time. Xaden’s eyes were trained on her, searching her face and pleading. Pleading her to be right, pleading her to have the answer to this whole thing. Pleading her to bring his daughter back home, too.

She paced the floor of her apartment relentlessly, the gears of her mind turning over and over again as she kept trying to make sense of it. As she kept thinking about what she’d told him—checking and double-checking and hell, even triple-checking.

Bodhi was leaning on her poor excuse for a bookshelf, observing them from afar, and Liam was a few feet behind. It was Garrick, though, who tried,

“Let’s go over it again, will you?” None of them turned at the sound of his voice, all their eyes instead solely trained on Violet. “Just—let’s just make sure it makes sense before we try to—”

If looks could kill, Violet was quite sure the one she shot at him would be enough to end him. He lifted both his hands in the air, an almost apologetic expression on his features, even as he stated,

“Just trying not to make things any worse, that’s all,” he said slowly. “I know you want to help, but you said it yourself, this could either help or… Not help.”

He was right.

Fuck, he was very right.

Not that she was willing to admit it.

Violet took a deep breath, turning to Xaden once more, from where he was sitting on her couch.

Just like they had been a few seconds ago, his eyes were still observing her—as if she was the only person in the room. As if she was the only one capable of solving this. As if she was the only person he trusted.

Perhaps she was.

She didn’t know what to feel at the thought.

Violet took a deep breath.

Another one.

On the third, she closed her eyes and started saying,

“Judge Lilith Sorrengail is known for having a great record in cases involving custody trials.” Her words were slow, calculated, the voice of someone reciting something they had learned by heart and not of someone who had thought this through for weeks. “She is one of the rare judges whose verdict rate for similar cases is almost evenly balanced between granting custody to the mother and to the father.”

Xaden already knew all of that. She felt like she’d already explained all of it a couple of times. He was the only one she’d told about it, though.

“Now,” she continued with a deep breath, “her cases also usually last longer than most.”

At that, Violet opened her eyes slowly—finding Xaden’s again.

Liam was the one to try,

“Meaning…”

Violet didn’t give him the time to finish his thought, though. She said,

“Meaning,” she took a deep breath. “With any other judge, chances are…”

“Cat would already have been granted custody.” Xaden paused. “Probably a long while ago.”

It had been unspoken.

Most judges didn’t stall for that long, didn’t look for that much evidence, didn’t even try to understand the dynamics of the families in front of them.

They granted custody to the mothers because they thought it was the next best choice—no matter that it wasn’t always.

Violet tipped her head in a nod at Xaden’s words.

She said,

“My mom’s been stalling for a reason.”

“So you’ve said,” Bodhi quipped in quietly, earning him a sharp side glance from Violet. It only lasted a second before she turned to Xaden again, eyes finding his for the strength she needed to say,

“I’ve reviewed every single evidence presented by both parties in the trial so far.” Violet took a step forward, reaching for the pile of papers and the collection of folders sitting on her living room table. It was useless to grab them—she knew everything by heart by now. She parsed through them anyway—a way to keep her mind rolling.

“Most of the evidence supports Xaden’s side,” she said, nodding slowly as if she wasn’t mainly speaking to him. “The financial reports and the housing situation. The last couple of months and the proof that Cat left. The—” this time, she shook her head slowly. “The fact that you’re all there to help out, too,” Violet continued, glancing at Bodhi, Garrick and Liam one by one. “It makes for a great support system and any judge would be able to see this.”

There was a pause between them—a silence that hung in the air, an unspoken truth, an inadmissible fact.

Violet slowly lowered herself to the floor, folding both her legs underneath her as she let out a long sigh.

“But,” she continued eventually with a deep breath—her eyes landing on Xaden’s once more and looking at him with pain and compassion. “She has money, too. She has a family as well. And in her testimony, she’s tried to make the point that leaving for a few months didn’t mean she wanted to abandon her daughter.”

Xaden rolled his eyes. Not at Violet, they all knew, but at her. Bodhi scoffed dirtily.

“That’s—”

“I know,” Violet interrupted him with a hand raised in the air, making him pause. “And that would probably be overlooked by the judge—” she paused, her attention dragged to the folder still in her free hand like a magnet, “—if only a social worker wasn’t supporting the point.”

Again, silence.

Silence enveloped them, wrapped over the room, overwhelmed her.

“Judges can only make a decision based on the evidence that is presented to them,” Violet repeated the words her mother had told her a few days ago.

She lifted her head toward Xaden across from her again, and for a moment she could have believed they were the only two people in the room.

“And right now,” she shrugged a shoulder slowly, “It might look as though Rose feels good with her mother.”

The darkness in Xaden’s eyes was betraying everything he didn’t voice—all the hatred, all the pain, all the anger. Violet could read it all.

She continued,

“I don’t know why your lawyer hasn’t asked for a counter-assessment,” she kept her eyes trained on him, kept her voice low, kept her breathing even. “But I think it’s about time we do this.”

“Counter-assessing…” Liam’s voice was hesitant, “the social worker’s—”

“It wouldn’t invalidate it,” Violet explained gently, turning to glance over her shoulder and find him frowning. “But it could add to it. Prove another point. Bring the sides equal once more.”

Because right now—right now, Cat had this social worker’s assessment on her side, and Xaden didn’t.

“It seems…” Garrick hesitated—his voice bearing none of the spite and tightness it had before, “straightforward enough. Why do you think it might be a risk?”

With gentle hands and careful motions, Violet started gathering all the papers in a neat pile on her coffee table. She took a deep breath. Then another one, simply to convince herself she was doing the right thing.

And finally,

“My suspicion is that Cat and Tecarus did something…” she shrugged slowly, avoiding anybody’s stares on her, “I don’t know what, but something—to get that statement issued. No social worker in their right mind would have seen what I’ve seen between Rose, Xaden and Cat, and written down something like that.”

The ruffling of the papers she was still sorting through was the only thing they heard in the room for the couple of minutes it took Violet to continue,

“And if we ask for a counter-assessment, we can only hope that it doesn’t go in that same direction.”

“Why?”

Bodhi again.

Instead of turning to him, Violet’s eyes snapped up to Xaden’s. There were questions in his eyes, worry etched in his face, exhaustion painting his expression. She hated the sight of it.

She hated that she couldn’t do anything about it even more.

“Because doing this could either truly help Xaden,” Violet said slowly, her eyes never leaving his, even as she spoke words she didn’t really want him to hear. “Or make him lose the case entirely.”

“At least he gets to see her.”

Violet turned her glare on Liam—her cold, absolutely deadly glare.

“At least—”

“Stop,” she breathed, words clipped, “trying to reassure me.” She took a deep breath. “You really can’t, right now.”

Beside her, Liam sighed heavily.

He was sitting beside her on her couch, hands curling and uncurling into fists at his sides.

He was restless, she knew. But not as much as her, anyway.

“You should have gone with him,” Violet muttered, for what was probably the fourth time. “You should have—”

“No,” he disagreed, his side glance only lasting a second before he turned back to look forward. “You should have gone with him. But you couldn’t, and so I had to stay with you.”

Violet rolled her eyes at him, blowing out a long breath again.

“Well,” she announced after what felt like an eternity, “I’m probably the worst company to be with right now.” She leaned back against the couch and pressed her eyelids shut.

Xaden had left her apartment almost three hours ago, having to stop by his to make sure he was presentable enough for this meeting. And although the rational part of Violet knew exactly why she couldn’t be with him, it was killing her.

Downright killing her.

“Vi,” Liam called gently—his voice soft and gentle like it always was. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be—”

“I told you to stop trying to reassure me,” Violet cut him off, her voice bearing an edge to it even despite the softness of her tone. “Please.”

Even with her eyes closed, she heard her friend’s hard swallow.

“Why?”

At that, finally, she turned her head to him.

She searched her friend’s face, didn’t let herself linger on the worry painted in his every features as she said—words Xaden had offered her once before,

“Because hope is a fickle thing.”

And because her heart wouldn’t truly relax until the day the trial was officially over.

And until she’d brought little Rosie home.

***

His head was pounding.

It had been for a few days now. Weeks, even.

Ever since Rose had been taken away from him.

Ever since she’d left his arms in tears—the exact same sounds that kept him awake at night.

He took a deep breath, squared his jaw as he tried to keep his heart in check.

The room he was standing in was foreign and unwelcoming—adding to the uneasiness in his chest and in his lungs. Xaden turned around on his heels, taking in the emptiness in this room, taking in the tight space, taking in the gloomy light. Taking in the screen, too. The screen where he knew his daughter would appear in just a few moments.

The social worker who’d greeted him had already explained everything—the exact same things Violet had told him the day before. Cat would be coming in with Rose and would spend exactly one hour with her in this room—enabling the social worker to observe them and their interactions. And then, he’d get to do it too—and the thought made him unable to stand still, unable to keep quiet, unable to calm down.

Because he would see his little girl again, and he couldn’t fucking wait.

“They’ve just arrived, Sir,” the woman behind him announced from behind him. “My colleague is welcoming them.” Xaden glanced at her over his shoulder as she stepped next to him, continuing, “Miss Cordella has already been told how the assessment will proceed. So she—”

The woman trailed off at the same moment Xaden turned back toward the screen, his eyes landing on the movement of the door opening and closing.

And perhaps the social worker kept talking beside him, but Xaden tuned it out—he couldn’t hear anything anymore, couldn’t see anything anymore. At least, nothing other than the streak of dark hair that had just appeared on the screen—the waves of black falling around a tan face, the dark eyes slowly observing the room she’d just stepped in.

Rose’s head was slowly moving, eyes roaming over the room she didn’t know.

And Xaden’s heart ached to a whole new level at the sight of her.

“Sir,” the woman behind him called, for what was probably not the first time. It’s not like he had been able to hear her, though. He’d been a little too obsessed with the way his daughter looked, with the way she was acting, with the hands she kept around her stuffed Sgaeyl.

“Sir, it’s time for you to go, now,” the woman continued with a sympathetic smile. “Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to witness this part.”

Because that could bias the assessment, or so Violet had told him.

With a stiff tip of his head, he turned on his heels, not without glancing one last time at the screen where his daughter was slowly turning to look at Cat, as if waiting for her next move.

“My colleague will call you when your turn comes,” the woman continued when he passed by her. “And just like you, Miss Cordella will not be allowed to watch your interactions with your daughter.”

Xaden left the room with a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves and to relax his muscles.

He took a few steps in the corridor he was allowed to wait in, but instead of sitting in one of the chairs waiting for him, he leaned against a wall, crossing both his arms and his ankles.

A part of him knew he had only been shown the room for legal reasons—to make sure he understood the terms, to make sure he knew what the assessment was about, to make sure he agreed to what would come out of it.

And yet a part of him almost wished he hadn’t been granted a glimpse of Rose before being in a room with her.

He felt so much worse, knowing that she was just a few doors away.

And now—well.

Now, he had to wait one hour.

One hour until he could finally hold his little girl.

When he stepped into the room, his head was pounding again. His heart was screaming once more. His palms were sweating all over again.

And yet—

And yet nothing had prepared him for the gasp Rose let out the moment she turned to him, nothing had prepared him for the way she took off in a run the minute her eyes saw him, nothing had prepared him for the tears welling in his own eyes the second she collided against his chest, the second his arms encircled his daughter, the second he pressed her close.

Xaden forgot everything.

He forgot about the trial and he forgot about the ache in his heart and he forgot about the last couple of weeks.

He forgot about all of it—because she was in his arms, and she was snaking her tiny arms around his neck and clinging to him so fucking tight it felt like he could finally breathe again.

“Hi, Baby,” he murmured against his daughter’s neck, pressed his eyes shut tight and ignored the tears trailing down his cheeks. He pressed a kiss to her neck. “Hi.”

There was the sound of a babble against his skin, the press of fingers at the back of his head, the feeling of tears wetting his shirt.

A couple of Dada, muffled against his chest, a few me, even a single iet.

Xaden thought he understood everything Rose was trying to say. Every one of her, I missed you and each of her, You weren’t here. Every, Can we go home? and every single, Stay with me, please.

He ached to answer each of her questions, explain every single thing as best as possible, soothe each of her fears however he could.

And yet he knew—a part of him knew they were being watched, they were being tested. They had to play the part.

He took a deep breath, slowly plastering a warm smile on his face—the ones he reserved for his daughter and a pair of hazel eyes only. He pulled away from her, gently scooping her up in his arms and felt his smile widen the moment their eyes met, exact same pools of darkness sharing the exact same sparkles.

“How about,” he offered gently, taking a couple of steps farther in the room, “we play for a little while, huh?”

Violet had told him what was expected of him. Their interactions would be scrutinized, dissected, analyzed. Every single thing he said, every single movement he made, every single moment he shared with his daughter during this hour would be judged and could potentially help him or doom him.

So as much as he ached to simply keep her in his arms, to simply enjoy the one hour they had together and forget the rest of the world… Xaden knew he couldn’t.

He sat down on the carpet in the middle of the room, settling Rose beside him despite the frown on her features, and chuckled softly at the way she kept babbling things he was probably the only person to understand.

“Yeah,” he agreed once she stopped, reaching a calloused thumb to her face to wipe away the tears that had been trailing down her cheeks. “I missed you too, Baby.”

Xaden stopped the movement of his hand when Rose wrapped hers around his wrist, tugging at him to scoot a little closer.

“Gaeyl?” she asked, turning around and glancing at the stuffed dragon discarded carelessly in the room. “Airn, iet?”

“Mh,” Xaden hummed in confirmation, leaning in around Rose to reach for Sgaeyl and hand her the stuffed animal. “She’s still got Tairn, you don’t have to worry about him.”

Rose simply observed Xaden at that, big bright eyes looking right into his very soul, and the only thing he could do in answer was lean in to brush a kiss to her forehead. A lingering one. A loving one.

One he’d ached to give her for too many days and nights to count.

“Wanna play, Rosie?” he asked gently when he pulled away, taking in the toys scattered all over. “There’s quite a lot of things in here. And here I thought your room was already packed with toys.” he huffed quietly, grabbing a toy train on the floor, and showing it to a now grinning Rose. “Guess your uncles still have a lot of work to do if they want you to have that many toys.”

As if what he’d said was the funniest thing in the world, Rose burst out laughing—the sound wrapping around his heart in a way he had thought he might never hear again. He joined her in a chuckle, then observed his daughter when she sobered up slowly, blinking at him and standing up on uncertain feet.

Rose was less clumsy in her movements than he remembered—and he guessed it made sense, too. He knew how fast she’d always grown up. Knew how much she could change in the matter of days, let alone weeks.

Knew exactly how much he’d missed out on, even in the little time they’d spent apart.

He knew it. He simply hadn’t truly been ready to witness it.

He watched as she turned on her heels, slowly walking to a corner of the room where a tiny bookshelf was packed with colorful books. Xaden huffed as she did, biting his lower lip to keep his mouth from voicing the words that were on the tip of his tongue—words that sounded a lot like, Of course you’d go for the books, or like, Violet is already starting to wear off on you.

He kept his mouth shut instead, and kept his eyes trained on his daughter.

His eyes were on her when she picked a book, holding it with both hands and clutching it to her chest. His eyes were on her when she turned around on her heels, walking back to him almost excitedly with another mingling of sounds in the shape of a babble. His eyes were on her, still, when she settled down on his lap mindlessly, handing him the book without a word and snuggling against his chest like they’d always done.

And, of course, his eyes were on her again when she slowly tilted her head up until her eyes met his.

Until he felt overwhelmed with a feeling of home unlike any other.

Until he had no other choice but to snake his arms around her and press a kiss to the top of her head.

“Of course, we can read a book, Baby,” he whispered. “We can always, Rosie.”

Instead of looking at the book that Xaden slowly opened in front of both of them, Rose tucked her head against his chest, cheek pressed against his beating heart, and breathing slowly evening with each word he started reading out loud.

Xaden, too, could hardly make out the words he was articulating. He was far too busy feeling the way he had missed his daughter, realizing how much he had needed this, understanding that they’d have to part again soon.

He kept reading anyway. Kept pressing kisses to the top of her head, kept one of his hands brushing up and down her arm.

If Rose moved on his lap, he didn’t even blink. If she turned to him to watch his face, he offered her a warm smile in return. If she cocked her head to the side and frowned, he stopped reading, asked her what it was about, and answered her babble as best as he could.

At one point, she yawned audibly and snuggled a little closer to him. Xaden simply dragged her a little closer.

When she straightened and asked for water, hands slowly moving in front of her and asking for what she couldn’t voice with a sign, Xaden didn’t even hesitate before reaching for the baby bottle on the table and handing it to her.

And when he noticed her eyelids grow a little heavier and her breathing turn deeper, he stopped reading.

He started rocking her, very slowly. He started murmuring things in her ear, low enough for her only to hear. Because he wasn’t truly willing to share this piece of his heart and of his home with anyone else.

Things he’d told her ever since she was a baby.

Things he’d murmured ever since she’d stolen a part of his heart.

Things he wished he could keep murmuring to her until the day he died.

Never had Xaden felt an hour pass so fucking fast.

Never had he felt time slip away from his fingers as it did that day.

Never had he felt his heart break so deeply as when the door to the room opened, as when one of the social workers entered, as when she told him it was time to go.

He tried as best as he could not to wake Rose as he scooped her up in his arms and walked her to the awaiting stroller in the hall. He ignored Cat who was sitting beside it, instead focusing solely on the slowly opening eyes of his daughter and on his slowly constricting heart.

The frown was back on Rose’s face when she took him in, her sleep-filled expression asking the questions written all over her face.

“You’re going back with Cat baby, alright?”

He willed his voice to stay even, willed his eyes to stay dry, willed his heart to keep from breaking.

“And I hope—” he breathed, the pad of his thumb brushing back and forth on Rose’s face, “I really hope I get to see you again soon.”

One, two, three blinks of her eyes were enough to bring tears back into her pupils.

Four, five, six others were all it took for the tears to roll down her cheeks, for the sobs to shake her body, for the sounds to break his very soul.

Xaden brushed Rose’s tears away from her cheeks, did his best to plaster a smile on his face he didn’t believe, to hide how deeply he was aching, too.

“Hey,” he tried, “You’re alright, Rosie. You’re—”

“Dada!”

“You’re okay,” he tried again, a little quieter this time. “You’re—”

He stopped voicing the lie on his tongue when her cries turned wilder, when he saw movement from the corner of his eye, when he noticed Cat crouching down beside him.

“Hey, we had fun, you and me,” Cat tried with a gentle voice, lifting a hand that Rosie pushed away with a shriek. “We—”

“Dada!”

Xaden’s throat felt so tight it was hard to breathe. Seeing his little girl in so much pain was torture, hearing her despair was ten times worse than feeling his own—he felt powerless to a whole new level.

And it dawned on him, right then and there, that he would do anything and everything for his daughter. He would bend all the rules, break all the laws, do everything he was not allowed to do if it meant he could—

“Dada!”

“I’m here,” he breathed as he gently grabbed Rose’s outstretched hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I’m right here, Rosie, I—” His voice broke on the word when she leaned in against him, grabbing his neck again and slipping away from the stroller.

He pressed her close to him, not even caring that he was supposed to let her go. Not even trying to pretend that he wasn’t fucking breaking alongside her.

Pressing her tighter still, and holding her close.

“I’m right here, baby,” he breathed in her neck.

And it killed him.

It killed him to be worthless. To be powerless. To be useless.

It killed him and yet—

“I have to go, Rosie.”

It fucking killed him that he had no other choice.

That he had to break his little girl’s heart, that he had to make her feel like he wasn’t willing to do everything for her, that he had to abandon her.

“You have to stay with Cat for now,” he breathed against her neck, disgust lacing his words and pain making his heart break. “You have to stay with her and I have to go.”

Like the first time he’d parted with his daughter, she screamed. And like that second time, she cried.

Xaden couldn’t care about the looks, didn’t care about the social workers behind them or about the tight lines of Cat’s face.

He couldn’t fucking care—and a part of him hoped this would help Cat understand all the pain she was causing.

Rose was still crying by the time Cat started walking away with her.

And Xaden was still boiling with rage by the time they were by the door.

Still, his voice was soft when he called after her.

“Cat.”

His words were still slow when he articulated,

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

His hands were curled into fists when he asked,

“Are you that heartless—that you see her like this and you feel nothing?”

His tone was laced with dread, and cold anger, and quiet threat when he claimed,

“Take her away from me, Cat—” he swallowed, ignored all of the reasons why saying this was wrong, then bit out, “—and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

It wasn’t exactly surprising that Cat didn’t answer.

It wasn’t and yet—Xaden didn’t feel any better.

He couldn’t.

Not with the lingering sound of his daughter’s cries.

Not with the lingering taste of bitterness in his mouth.

Not with the lingering tear in his heart.

Violet was sitting cross-legged on her couch when he entered her apartment.

A book was on her lap and one of her fingers was between her teeth—probably gnawing on the raw skin in the sole attempt at doing something.

Liam was sitting beside her, elbows on his knees and phone in hand—scrolling up and up and up simply for the distraction it enabled him.

Of course, Xaden saw none of that.

The moment he took Violet in, the moment his eyes met hers, the moment she stood—he pulled her close.

He pressed his head against her neck.

He bit down on his tongue and made himself focus on the taste of blood in his mouth. He pressed his eyes shut and made himself focus on the pool of darkness behind his eyelids. He pressed her closer and made himself focus on the feeling of her body against his.

And he breathed,

“Fuck.”

He took a couple of breaths. Shallow, weak, choked.

It was hard to breathe, but it was even harder to feel.

And because he knew he could, because he knew she had him, because he knew Violet was the only one who could hold him through it, Xaden broke,

“I can’t, Vi.”

It was hard to tell if the sound muffled in Violet’s neck was a sob, if the coldness trailing down his cheeks were tears, if the fist twisted in his chest was his heart.

“I can’t survive this world if I lose her.”

It was hard to tell, too, if Violet’s answering words were whispered or yelled. If her answering truth was murmured or shouted.

If her voice was reassuring or dooming.

“I know.”

It was hard to tell.

And yet he didn’t think it really mattered.

“I know, Xaden.”