“I should have left her a long time ago, but I didn’t care about any of that until you. Emily stopped being my wife the moment she fucked Calvin.” I saw Braxton’s surprise as her shocked gaze darted from Rich to Houston and then me for confirmation. All my fault. “If that’s not enough to convince you,” he continued, “it’s been over four years since I’ve seen or heard from her. I owe her nothing.”

“No?” Braxton challenged, suddenly pushing away from the door. She was in his face now, all fire and no mercy, while Rich gazed down at her, pleading for some. “Then what about me? If not the truth, what did I deserve?” Her tears ran freely down her face as she stared up at him. Rich couldn’t look away, and neither could I. “You promised you were mine, but you were only pretending.”

She broke his restraint, and I tensed when he grabbed her hips and yanked her into him. I relaxed only when he simply pressed their foreheads together.

“If nothing else, Braxton, please believe that I wasn’t,” he pleaded with his eyes closed. “I haven’t always been truthful, but I’ve been honest about that.”

“Why did you lie?” She didn’t pull away from him, but her tone made it clear that her guard was still up. I think it was the first time Braxton’s ever had it up this high with Jericho. The wall she’d built in seven mere days towered higher than the one she’d been building for seven months. She had only started to let us in.

“I—”

“Don’t tell me,” she cut in when he tried to speak. “Tell them.” My brows dipped when she nodded toward Houston and me. “Tell them the reason why you still hesitated to leave your estranged wife even after you drew up the papers and decided to be with me.”

Rich let her go, and her dead gaze followed him as she watched him back away with no emotion. His legs seemed to give out, so he sank onto the arm of the couch with his gaze fixed on the floor. The four of us waited in the heavy silence that followed, and I wondered if they could hear my heart beating out of control.

“I wasn’t going to leave her,” he eventually whispered so low I almost didn’t catch it.

As I sat up, my confused gaze flew to Houston, who gave no obvious reaction. He was pissed, but he didn’t seem surprised.

What the hell had I missed?

“Come again?”

Rich looked at me, and I was surprised to see the same plea in his eyes that he’d given Braxton moments ago. “Emily. If her baby was mine, I wasn’t going to go through with it. I wasn’t going to divorce her.”

I can’t explain why I suddenly smiled when nothing was funny about what he said. Houston moved away from the window as soon as I stood because he knew what was on my mind. Jericho knew it too, but he didn’t move to try to defend himself if it came to that.

He’d let me beat him.

Jericho deserved every broken bone and ounce of blood lost after what he just admitted to, so he’d allow me the pound of flesh.

“Let me make sure I heard you correctly. While Houston and I were risking everything, you were plotting behind our backs to leave us and ride off into the sunset with Emily?”

“Yes.”

I stood there in the wake of his confession, waiting to hear him explain or make excuses.

He didn’t.

He simply sat there. He let me see his shame. I couldn’t hide my hatred or the betrayal I felt, so he welcomed it so that I wouldn’t succumb to it.

I was as furious with myself as I was with Jericho. I chose to trust my best friend instead of this very suspicion that had been prickling my mind for months. I’d underestimated him again, but not in the way I could ever respect.

Or forgive.

The truth had been there the entire time. I refused to believe it because I trusted him. Jericho had built enough evidence a long time ago to get a court-ordered dissolution without Emily. She’d run for no fucking reason other than to keep Jericho in her claws. She knew he’d never divorce her without confronting her first. And without knowing if the kid she may or may not have had even belonged to him.

After Braxton, I assumed only the former still held.

I believed he hesitated for the reason his surname implied.

He had to be so goddamn noble.

He had to give Emily the honor of telling her to her face that he should never have married her, that he wasn’t in love with her anymore, and that Braxton was the woman he should have fucking waited for but didn’t.

Jericho hadn’t just been playing Braxton.

He’d been playing us all.

“Fuck you.”

I didn’t allow myself to say more. I didn’t allow myself to look at Braxton, Houston, or even Rich.

When I stormed through the door, I didn’t just walk out on our fight. I knew in my heart that I’d just walked out on us.

On Bound.

THE BOUND & BELLICOSE TOUR HAS BEEN POSTPONED

Sources report difficulties among the band. There are also rumors circulating that Bound’s newest guitarist, Braxton Fawn, is dating not one but all three of the band’s original members. Could this be the end of Bound?

I clicked out of the article and hit the ignore button as soon as Xavier started calling me. I’m sure he wanted to see where my head was, but there was nothing he could do about the answer. Climbing out of my truck, I stared up at the country chateau that had taken me an hour of driving and pondering to reach.

I still didn’t know what I was going to say.

Loren had made us buy and restore that monstrosity in the woods so that he could tell his father that his was bigger.

I hope he got the chance because I wasn’t leaving here without him.

It had been three goddamn weeks.

I thought the last six years had been rough, but it was nothing compared to the feeling of actually being without your best friends and losing your girl all in one week.

Braxton had shut down, Loren had run back to Portland, and Rich…he was a fucking ghost. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping, and he had an episode whenever he did. None of that was what concerned me the most.

Jericho hasn’t spoken a single word in twenty-three days.

My fear had reached the point of being irrational. I was afraid he’d forgotten how. I was terrified he’d lost his will—for anything. I was watching our best friend waste away so, yeah. I’d hogtie Loren and drag his ass back if he forced me to.

No, you won’t.

Loren’s claim that I was no better than his father was a blow I hadn’t been expecting. I still hadn’t recovered. This insatiable need to control my universe and everyone in it was rooted deep.

All I had left of the source was a newspaper clipping and my grandmother’s memories of Susan and Jake Morrow. I’d been left behind to survive on my own in a world too cruel and chaotic to endure. I’d spent the last fifteen years since their deaths trying not to repeat the cycle, so whenever my world began to spiral, I grabbed the reins, and I held on tight. I never paid attention to who I was hurting or stifling. I only cared about my survival.

But what if I had looked beyond myself just once?

Would Rich have trusted me when I warned him not to marry Emily? Would I have convinced my friends to take Savant’s deal? Would Loren have pushed aside his pride and come to me rather than ruining our best friend’s marriage?

If I hadn’t indirectly caused all of the above because of my obsession with control, would Calvin have been able to turn them against me? Besides fucking Emily, all Everill had done was force to light resentment already brewing in the dark. Tearing Loren, Rich, and I apart was how he’d punished us for keeping him out.

Our past was four runaway trains heading to four destinations, only to crash and burn at one intersection.

As much as I was struggling with our turbulent present, my persistent thoughts wouldn’t allow me to push away the most important question of all. If our past had played out differently, would we have ever met Braxton?

I hated that the answer wouldn’t allow me to regret my actions fully. I wasn’t convinced the universe I fought so hard to rule would have found another way to place her in our path.

The love of our life would have slipped us by, and that would have been my fault too.

Fuck.

Ringing the front doorbell, I crossed my arms as I leaned against the pillar and waited. Here’s to hoping Loren still cared enough to come back on his own.

I didn’t have to wait long since Orson James insisted on round-the-clock staff. Loren, Rich, and I hired a cleaning service twice a week and someone to handle the landscaping, but other than that, we fended for ourselves.

Out there in the woods, we were able to pretend that we’d carved out a world only the three of us inhabited.

Braxton, when we got her back, would know what that felt like too.

“What do you want?” Loren asked.

He’d taken me by surprise answering the door himself, but it was the beard adorning the lower half of his face and the blond hair covering his forehead and eyes, making him look like a wet dog, that caught me off guard. He wore stained gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt, one sock, and smelled like he hadn’t showered in three or four days.