Chapter 81 Laid Claim
Violet
The car ride away from the furneral home feels heavier than the one there.
No one is joking now.
Theo stares out the windshield. Camille keeps glancing back at me like she’s gauging whether I’m about to break. Devin is quiet in the front seat beside the driver, fingers laced together, thinking.
Rowan sits next to me in the back.
Close.
Not touching.
But close enough that I feel him.
“I want to go home,” I say quietly.
Not his house.
“Camille’s,” I clarify.
Devin turns slightly. “Already?”
Theo snorts lightly. “Probably needs a break from Rowan’s brute energy.”
Camille elbows him. “Theo.”
Rowan doesn’t laugh.
“No,” he says.
Just that.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not going back there,” Rowan says evenly. “Not while Calder is still breathing freely.”
“Internal Affairs is handling it,” I argue.
“He’s not behind bars,” Rowan replies.
“They’re investigating—”
“He is not in custody.”
His voice doesn’t rise.
But it sharpens.
“I can’t live locked in your house,” I snap. “I’m not a hostage.”
“You’re a target,” he fires back.
“According to who?”
“According to the man who put his hands on you.”
Theo shifts uncomfortably in the front seat. Camille watches us with wide eyes.
“Internal Affairs said—”
“I don’t care what they said,” Rowan cuts in. “He is not contained.”
“You’re being impossible,” I say, anger finally burning through the exhaustion.
“And you’re being reckless.”
“I want to go home!”
“You are home,” he snaps.
The words hang there.
Too heavy.
Too loaded.
“That’s not your decision,” I say.
“It is when your safety is on the line.”
“There it is,” I laugh bitterly. “Control dressed up as protection.”
His jaw flexes.
“That’s unfair.”
“Is it?” I shoot back. “You decide where I sleep. Who drives me. Who I talk to. When I leave. When I stay.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to breathe.”
“I wouldn’t have to be so fucking controlling,” he says low and dangerous, “if you would just listen to me.”
The car goes dead quiet.
Theo slowly turns his head forward again.
Camille’s eyes flick between us like we’re about to explode.
“I am not your employee right now,” I say, voice shaking but steady. “You don’t get to order me.”
“And you don’t get to pretend this is optional,” he snaps.
The air between us is electric.
Fractured.
Then I say the one thing I shouldn’t.
“I don’t need you to save me.”
That does it.
Rowan moves before I can process it.
One second I’m sitting upright in the seat.
The next, his hand is around my waist and he pulls.
Not rough.
But not gentle either.
Firm.
Decisive.
I gasp as he shifts me sideways and into his lap.
“What are you—” I start.
His arms lock around me.
Not crushing.
But unmovable.
“You don’t get to fall apart alone,” he says quietly against my ear.
I freeze.
My body is rigid at first.
His chest is solid behind me.
His hand spreads over my back, anchoring me.
“You don’t get to push me away because you’re scared,” he continues, voice low enough that only I can hear it clearly. “And you don’t get to decide I’m the enemy because I won’t let you put yourself back in danger.”
My breath stutters.
“Rowan—”
“I am not trying to cage you,” he says. “I am trying to keep you breathing.”
The anger drains out of me so fast it makes me dizzy.
His grip shifts.
Loosens.
Not trapping.
Just holding.
“You don’t have to be strong every second,” he murmurs.
And that’s it.
That’s what breaks me.
I stop fighting.
The tension bleeds out of my limbs like someone cut a wire.
My hands fist in his shirt.
God, it’s soft.
Expensive.
Probably costs more than my old rent.
And I don’t care.
The first sob hits me before I can stop it.
Then another.
I turn into him without thinking, pressing my face against his chest.
He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t shush me. He doesn’t command me. He just holds me.
One hand steady at my back.
The other sliding up to cradle the back of my head.
Careful.
Fragile.
Like I might shatter.
Theo clears his throat softly and looks out the window.
Camille wipes at her own eyes.
Devin remains silent, but I can feel the weight of his awareness.
Rowan ignores them all.
“You don’t have to go back there,” he says into my hair. “Not today. Not until he’s gone.”
I shake my head against him, crying harder.
“I just wanted something to be mine,” I whisper. “My house. My space.”
“I know.”
“I can’t lose everything.”
“You won’t,” he says immediately.
“How do you know?”
“Because I won’t let you.”
His voice isn’t arrogant.
It’s factual.
His hand moves in slow circles between my shoulder blades.
Steady.
Measured.
He isn’t embarrassed. He isn’t defensive. He isn’t trying to prove anything. He’s just… there.
Holding me like I’m something precious.
And something inside me shifts.
Slowly. Dangerously.
I lift my head.
My face is probably a mess, blotchy, tear-streaked, swollen, and I should care. But I don’t.
He’s already looking at me. Not concerned. Not pitying. Hungry.
Not the kind of hunger that strips.
The kind that claims.
His thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching a tear before it falls.
“You don’t get to disappear on me,” he says quietly.
The words aren’t loud.
But they land like a vow.
“I’m not yours,” I whisper, but it sounds weak. Uncertain.
His jaw tightens.
“You keep telling yourself that.”
My pulse spikes.
The car feels smaller.
The air heavier.
Theo clears his throat again, very deliberately looking anywhere but at us. Camille mutters something about giving us a second. I don’t even register when the privacy divider slides halfway up.
It’s just us now.
Rowan’s hand slides from my back to my jaw.
Firm.
Warm.
His thumb presses lightly beneath my chin, tilting my face up.
“You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” he asks.
“Doing what?”
“Trying to outrun me.”
I swallow.
“I’m not—”
His mouth crashes into mine.
It isn’t gentle.
It isn’t hesitant.
It’s messy.
Desperate.
Controlled chaos.
His hand tightens at the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, holding me exactly where he wants me. His other arm locks around my waist, anchoring me to him like I might try to float away.
I gasp against his mouth, but he doesn’t slow down.
He kisses me like he’s been holding it back for weeks.
Like he’s been swallowing it down every time I argued with him.
Every time I defied him.
Every time I walked away.
There’s grief in it.
And anger.
And something darker.
Ownership.
His lips move against mine with brutal certainty. No question. No permission.
And the terrifying part?
I kiss him back.
My hands slide up into his shirt, fisting into the fabric. I feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the tension coiled beneath his skin.
The world outside the car ceases to exist.
It’s just heat.
And breath.
And the taste of salt from my tears mixing with him.
He slows only slightly, just enough to deepen it, to drag it out instead of devour it.
My chest tightens.
Not from lack of air.
From realization.
He isn’t just kissing me.
He’s staking ground.
His forehead presses against mine when he finally pulls back.
His breathing is controlled.
Mine isn’t.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he murmurs.