19. Sutton

19

SUTTON

The silence echoed off the living room walls and sent vibrations through my ears. Something about the absence of sound was absolutely deafening. I couldn’t move. Even as my brain told me to get up and go after Cope, my body wouldn’t obey.

And maybe that was for the best. Because what would I do once I got there? Spin some lie? Tell him I couldn’t be there for him when he needed me the most? After everything he’d done for me?

Pain radiated through my chest in vicious waves as I lost all feeling in my knees. That pins-and-needles sensation traveled through my legs as the agony spread along my sternum. It would be so easy to say yes, go with Cope, and be the shoulder he needed. But I knew what would be waiting at a funeral of that magnitude.

The press.

The same vultures that were waiting outside the hospital when I was released. It wasn’t as if I’d been major headline material, but it was enough to garner national attention. The ex-wife of a disgraced football player beaten by his seedy connections. Photos of my swollen and bandaged face as a friend wheeled me to their car. The coverage of the trial that followed.

I couldn’t risk that sort of attention now—the kind that would tell Roman where I was. And the risk it would bring if he decided to drop the information on Petrov.

It wasn’t a lie that Luca needed me. He’d bawled his eyes out when he found out his new best friend wasn’t here anymore. He was bouncing back the way kids did, off to play with Keely for the afternoon, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have his moments. Ones where he needed me. The problem was, Cope needed me, too.

A beep sounded from the front door lock. I knew I should move. Stand. I shouldn’t be here when whoever was at the door walked in. It looked ridiculous, me on my knees, just staring at the place where Cope had been.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs as the door swung open.

“Cope—” Arden’s sentence was cut short as he stormed past her, a duffel slung over his shoulder. “Where are you going?” she yelled out the open door.

But he didn’t answer. I heard a door slam in the distance and knew he’d gotten behind the wheel of that fancy SUV. I just prayed he’d be careful. Safe. The miniscule local airstrip designed mainly for hobbyists was only a few minutes away. I’d heard enough of Linc’s offer to know that a plane would be meeting Cope there. That was good. He’d be okay.

The moment I thought that last sentence, I knew it was a lie. Cope might be physically safe, but he was as far from okay as you could get.

“Sutton.” Arden’s voice was soft, not delicate in any way but gentle, nonetheless.

The sound jerked me from the haze of guilt currently holding me hostage. She was close. Standing right beside me. I’d somehow missed her crossing the threshold and coming through the living room. I knew I needed to say something but couldn’t get my body to do that either.

I expected Arden to pull me up and get me sitting on the couch, but instead, she sank to the floor with me. She didn’t make a move to touch me, simply sat beside me, those cool, gray-violet eyes searching. And she didn’t ask even a single question.

That was the thing about Arden. She wasn’t afraid of stillness. She moved and spoke only with purpose, though not because the world around her told her she needed to.

Finally, my knees gave way, and I fell fully to the carpet. My ass hit the floor in a way that jarred my spine and rattled my teeth. “I hurt him,” I whispered.

Arden’s gaze shifted, but there was neither condemnation nor empathy in it, simply understanding. “It’s a messy business being human. We hurt, and we get hurt.”

I pulled my knees to my chest as if I could hug myself and bring some of the comfort I so desperately needed. “It was the last thing I wanted to do. Not when he was already in so much pain.”

I caught a flicker in Arden’s gaze this time, an echo of Cope’s pain in her because she loved her brother so deeply. “Something tells me you didn’t do that for shits and giggles.”

“He wanted me to go to the funeral with him.”

The words were barely audible, but Arden’s focus still jerked to the door as she realized where her brother had gone. “Hell,” she muttered, then turned back to me. “And you’re not ready for all that attention.”

No, I wasn’t. That sort of focus had never been my thing. But I would’ve paid the price again and again if it meant being there for Cope. Unfortunately, it was way more complicated than that. “It’s not about being ready. I can’t .”

I bled every ounce of feeling into that last word, hoping Arden would somehow understand without me telling her the story.

She tensed, her hands squeezing nothing as I watched the mental pieces come together. “There’s someone you don’t want to find you.”

I nodded in answer.

“Are they a risk to your safety?” Arden asked instantly, and I understood why. Thea had just been through an ordeal with her ex, which made the Colsons incredibly aware of what people from our pasts were capable of.

But when I thought about whether Roman was an actual danger to me, I wasn’t sure. He might try what he could to bleed me dry. Could give my location to Petrov. But would either of them get on a plane and cross the country? For what? To make an example out of me? It wasn’t like I had money to spare.

“I don’t know.” It was the first time I’d said the words out loud. The first time I’d admitted, even to myself, that I might be running from shadows.

Arden moved slowly, her hand covering mine. “I know what that’s like,” she whispered. “Is there a reason to fear, or have we simply stopped living?”

Something in those words told me she understood better than most, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. I didn’t know the circumstances around Arden coming to live with the Colsons, just that she had come into foster care at the age of twelve and was the youngest of them.

But she didn’t seem young as I looked into those swirling eyes. She had an old soul, one I knew had been through more than its fair share.

“I feel like I can’t trust my perception of things anymore,” I admitted. I remembered a psychiatrist who had come to see me in the hospital. A kind man with graying hair and smile lines around his eyes. He’d told me I may have PTSD from the incident and said I’d need to be kind to my brain as it tried to protect me.

Arden’s mouth pulled into a half-smile. “Sometimes, those monsters seem worse simply because we haven’t turned on the lights.”

God, was that ever true. “I’m tired of living in the dark.” Tired of feeling like I was running when I’d done nothing wrong.

That half smile on Arden’s face grew into a full one. “Then maybe it’s time to step into the light.”