Chapter 1
Lainey
I knew something was wrong the second I stepped inside.
It wasn’t silence.
It was the kind of silence that feels staged.
Like the apartment was holding its breath.
My heels clicked softly against the hardwood as I shut the door behind me, takeout still warm in my hands. I’d picked Jackson's favorite place—the one he always said had “better takeout than most five-star restaurants,” which I used to roll my eyes at until I started memorizing his order without trying.
It was stupid, really.
How easily you can build a life around someone without noticing you’re doing it.
“Hey,” I called out, forcing a lightness into my voice. “Don’t tell me you’re still buried in work. I brought food.”
No answer.
I frowned, shifting the bag slightly on my wrist.
“Seriously?”
I took a few more steps down the hallway.
That’s when I heard it.
A sound from the bedroom. A laugh—soft, unfamiliar.
Then his voice.
And just like that, something in my stomach went cold.
I don’t know what I expected my mind to do in that moment. Denial, maybe. Confusion. Something slower than reality.
But my body moved before my thoughts caught up.
The bedroom door wasn’t even fully open when I saw them.
I stopped breathing.
Time didn’t exactly slow down—it just… detached. Like I was watching something happen through the glass.
He was there.
And so was she.
And everything I thought my life had been building toward was shattered in a way that didn’t make noise. Not at first.
My fingers loosened around the takeout bag.
It hit the floor with a dull thud I felt more than heard.
That was what broke the spell.
His head snapped toward me.
“Lainey—”
I don’t remember stepping forward.
I only remember stopping.
Because suddenly he was between me and the room, like that could undo what I had already seen.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said quickly.
And I actually laughed.
Once.
Sharp. Disbelieving.
“Don’t,” I said.
My voice didn’t sound like mine.
He ran a hand through his hair, already panicking in that controlled, lawyerly way he always did when he was trying to build an argument out of something that didn’t have one.
“I can explain.”
“No,” I said again, quieter this time. “You can’t.”
The woman behind him shifted like she wanted to disappear into the sheets.
I couldn’t even look at her for long.
I didn’t need to.
My eyes stayed on him.
On the man I thought I was going to marry.
On the man I had built my entire future around without realizing it.
“I trusted you,” I said.
Something flickered in his expression—guilt, maybe. Fear. I don’t know.
Then he stepped closer.
“Lainey, please—”
“Don’t come near me.”
He stopped.
For half a second.
Then he reached for my wrist anyway.
That was the moment everything changed.
The second his hand closed around my arm, something inside me snapped into focus.
Not panic.
Not sadness.
Clarity.
I yanked my arm back hard.
“Let go of me.”
“Lainey, we’re going to talk about this—”
“I said let go.”
His grip tightened instead.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to control.
Enough to make it very, very clear what he thought I was going to do next.
And that was the moment I looked at him and realized I didn’t know this person as well as I thought I did.
My voice dropped.
“If you don’t let go of me right now, I swear to God—”
He released me abruptly.
Too abruptly.
Like he remembered where he was standing.
Like he remembered what this could become if anyone else ever heard about it.
Then, suddenly, a hard smack came across my face.
I took a step back immediately, putting space between us like it was oxygen.
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out this time.
I looked at him for one more second.
And then I did the only thing I could think to do.
I reached up slowly, touching the now painful spot on my face.
And took off the ring.
It felt heavier than it should have.
Like it had weight beyond metal and promise and everything I had been pretending it meant.
I placed it on the dresser without looking at him again.
Then I grabbed my purse.
My keys.
Whatever dignity I still had left.
I didn’t say goodbye.
I didn’t scream.
I didn’t ask why.
Because none of those answers were going to change what I already knew.
I walked out.
I don’t remember the drive.
I just remember my hands shaking so badly I had to pull over twice.
At some point, I stopped pretending I was okay enough to keep going.
At some point, I just… stopped.
Walker’s apartment was the only place my mind could land without permission.
So that’s where I went.
He opened the door after I knocked.
And I knew instantly that he knew something was wrong with my face.
Because Walker Blackwell didn’t ask questions first.
He looked at me.
Really looked at me.
And his expression changed immediately.
“Jesus,” he said under his breath. “Lainey—what happened?”
I tried to speak.
I couldn’t.
My throat closed like it had been waiting for that question all along.
He stepped aside instantly.
“Come in.”
I walked past him on autopilot.
The second the door shut behind me, everything I had been holding together started to crack.
Walker turned toward me fully now.
“Talk to me.”
I shook my head once.
That was all it took.
Because the second I did, it was like something inside me finally gave up trying to hold itself together.
And I broke.
Not neatly.
Not quietly.
Walker moved instantly, like he’d been trained for emergencies his whole life.
“Lainey—hey—hey, look at me.”
I couldn’t.
My hands were shaking too hard.
He guided me toward the couch without forcing it, like he was afraid I might disappear if he moved too fast.
“Where is he?” Walker asked, voice tight now. “I swear to God, I’ll—”
“Don’t,” I choked out.
That stopped him.
Not because he agreed.
Because I said it like I couldn’t handle anything else breaking tonight.
Walker exhaled sharply through his nose and sat down next to me, closer now but not touching until I leaned forward first.
That’s when he pulled me in.
And I lost it completely.
It wasn’t elegant.
It wasn’t controlled.
It was everything I had been holding in since I walked through that bedroom door. Since Jackson hit me.
Walker didn’t say anything at first.
He just held me.
After a while—minutes or hours, I don’t know—my breathing started to slow.
The crying didn’t stop all at once.
It just… softened.
Like a storm finally running out of strength.
Walker spoke quietly then.
“Tell me,” he said.
I swallowed hard.
And for the first time since it happened, I said it out loud.
And nothing was ever going to be the same after that.
