“I talked with Kimber,” he continues, his voice softening. “She—uh—she asked about Mom. Said she kept having nightmares last night about the way things ended. I told her it’s not her fault. That none of it is. And she cried, but she listened.” His throat tightens, and he pauses, swallowing hard before he can go on. “She said she misses the way Mom used to sing when she was happy.” His voice cracks on the last word, and the sound of it tears open my chest. I reach out and take his hand, squeezing gently until he meets my eyes.
“You did good,” I tell him quietly. “That’s a hard conversation to have, but she needed it. You both did.”
He nods, jaw tight, but his eyes soften. “Yeah. It helped. I think it helped me, too.” He glances toward Kimber, who’s nowlaughing at something Ronan says. “Thank you, Berk. For being here—for her, for us. For forgiving us when you had every right not to. You didn’t have to let her in—let any of us in—but you did.”
My chest tightens at the sincerity in his voice. “Don’t thank me,” I say, giving his hand another squeeze before letting go. “She’s a good kid, Em. And she deserves better. We all do. None of us asked for this life, but we’re in it together now.”
His eyes meet mine again, darker but steadier. “Together,” he repeats.
I glance back at the others, the small makeshift family that somehow grew out of the ashes of our broken worlds. “They ruined all our lives, Em,” I whisper, the words tasting like iron. “And that’s exactly why they’re going to pay for it. Every single one of them.”
For a moment, neither of us moves. Then he reaches out, brushing his fingers across mine before stepping away to join the others. And as I watch them together—laughing softly, pretending for a second that the world isn’t as cruel as it really is—I know one thing for sure. We may be broken, but we’re far from finished.
Chapter Nineteen
Rowan
After the chaos Bryce unleashed the other night—after he put Emerson and Kimber’s mother up on a screen for the world to see and die—a raw pit grows in my stomach. The replay of that footage crawled through my dreams, jagged and relentless, and I can still taste the coldness it left behind. Ronan sits beside me, all tight jaw and coiled muscles, eyes burning like he wants to tear the world apart with one look alone. Emerson is smaller somehow, the fight in him shorn down to a stubborn ember. Kimber hugs a blanket to her like it’s a shield, and it kills me a little more every time I look at her.
Bryce didn’t stop there. He admitted that he and Dean were the ones who killed our mom. Berk’s mom too. Those words landed like stones, heavy and ugly, and for a moment the room went absurdly quiet. We haven’t really dealt with that yet. We haven’t sat down and untangled what that means for any of us, for the things that shaped us, for what we owe to the ghosts that still follow. It’s a conversation we keep sidestepping, one of those fractures under the surface that could split us if we let it.
When Kimber excuses herself from the living room, her compact frame disappearing down the hall, the silence she leaves behind feels heavier than the conversation we’re about to have. The soft click of her door closing echoes through the space, and I take a slow breath before speaking.
“We need to talk about what happened the other night,” I say, my voice low but steady. “About our moms.”
Ronan shifts beside me, his jaw tightening, but he doesn’t speak. Emerson gives a curt nod, the kind that says he’s been waiting for this, even if he’s not ready. He pushes himself off the couch. “Let me just make sure Kimber’s okay for the night,” he murmurs, already heading toward her room. “I’ll be right back.”
We watch him go; the door closing softly behind him, and helplessness twists in my chest. He’s a good brother—steady, patient, the kind of man who carries other people’s pain without complaint. I respect the hell out of him for it, even if I know it’s eating him alive.
The quiet stretches between me and Ronan until it feels like a living thing. My gaze drifts to the dark window, where the reflection of my face stares back at me. “I keep thinking about Reign,” I admit, the name scraping out like glass. “How we failed her.”
Ronan’s hands clench on his knees, and for a long moment, he doesn’t look up. “Don’t,” he mutters, but there’s no bite to it—just exhaustion.
“She was our sister, Ro. Our triplet.” I press, voice trembling despite the anger behind it. “Her abuse had been happening for at least a month before Berk was dragged into it. A month. And we didn’t see it. We didn’t stop it.”
He finally looks at me, eyes hard but wet around the edges. “You think I don’t know that?” His voice cracks. “You think I don’t replay it every damn night?”
I swallow hard, my throat tight. “They tried to erase them. Both of them. Tried to silence the whole thing by taking them out.” The words hang in the air, sharp and heavy, too real to pull back.
Ronan drops his head into his hands, the sound of his breath breaking the stillness. I sit beside him in silence, because there’s nothing I can say that would make any of it easier. We both carry the same guilt—the same wound that never healed.
Berk steps into the room, and the tension snaps tight. The threads fray, the easy noise dies away. She has a way of walking in and reading the room—like a sixth sense—and before she even speaks, I can tell she knows something’s wrong. She pauses at the doorway, hips jutting out, one hand on her waist, and asks in that direct, soft way of hers, “What’s going on? It feels heavy in here.”
Ronan doesn’t answer with words. He just flicks a finger at her like a kid daring her over, and she crosses the floor without hesitation, dropping into his lap as if she belongs there as much as the air we breathe. He presses a slow, gentle kiss to the crown of her head and tucks her bright hair over her shoulder. I watch him do it, and my chest unclenches. I’ve seen Ronan rip people apart with his bare hands; I’ve watched him become a storm and not even blink. But with Berk he’s careful and quiet, and the sight of that softness knocks the wind out of me in a way I don’t expect. She has that effect on all of us.
“We were talking about Reign, baby,” Ronan says, his voice low. Berk’s smile dissolves and her eyes go distant, the memory cutting right through her. For Berk, Reign was more than a name; she was family. “We’re having a hard time,” Ronan adds, the wordsclipped, honest. “Ronan thinks we failed her.” He presses another kiss to Berk’s temple like he’s sealing the admission away. “I think he needs you more than me right now.”
Before I can argue, Ronan lifts her with that effortless ease he has and settles her onto my lap instead. She lands against me like she was made to fit there, and I curl my arms around her without thinking, burying my face into the warm slope of her neck. Her scent—something vanilla and caramel, familiar and safe—steadies me. The tightness in my throat stutters my voice when I try to speak; the words catch like glass.
Berk hushes me with a hand that smells faintly of frying oil and sweetness. She runs her fingers through my hair, slow and steady, like she’s combing out the knots in my chest. “You didn’t fail, Reign,” she says, firm and gentle all at once. I start to protest, the words already pressing against my teeth, but she doesn’t give me the chance. “She didn’t tell me either. I was with her almost every day, and she still kept it to herself. She never talked about it—never hinted—until that night, when there was no time left.” Her voice tightens, emotions threading through every word. “She apologized over and over. They threatened her. She stayed quiet because she thought it would keep us safe. She carried it alone to protect us.”
Each sentence she gives is another blade, and I feel it—the way my breath stalls, the rawness that’s been sitting under my skin since we first heard the name. I squeeze her tighter because if I don’t, I might fall apart right there. I glance over her shoulder and catch Ronan’s face; it’s the same wrecked map of guilt and anger I’m wearing. Berk watches us both, reading us like an open book,then turns and pulls Ronan closer until she’s sitting across both of us, commanding like she always does without really trying.
“Listen up, boys,” she says, the tone sharp enough to cut through the fog. “Our girl died to protect us. Shit went down, and we’re not unscathed, but we’re still here. She kept us alive. Scarred, yes, but alive. Instead of laying into her for what happened, I want us to be proud of her. Thank her. Remember her.” Her voice softens, and the hard edge folds into something dangerous and steady. “We’re going to make it right. We brutalize those bastards just like they brutalized us.”
When she looks at me, it’s like she can see straight into the places I keep hidden. Her eyes move between Ronan and me, anchoring us. “I love you,” she whispers, and the words are quiet, but they land like a promise. “All of you.” She wipes a single tear away like she’s embarrassed by it, but she doesn’t stop looking at us.
“I love you. We’re seeing this through—every step, all the way to the end.” My voice catches against her skin, rough with emotion I don’t bother hiding. Her certainty seeps into me, slow and burning, like an ember finally given air after years of being smothered. I press my forehead to hers, and the sound that breaks from my chest is jagged and raw, part breath, part promise. “They’re going to answer for all of it,” I swear, the words settling heavy and unyielding, hardening into something I can wear like armor.