CHAPTER 177

CHAPTER 177


ASHLEY

The silence in the car didn’t bother me.

Not the kind that settled after fire. Not the kind that came after truth. This silence wasn’t empty—it was full. Full of everything we couldn’t yet say.

Kyle sat in front, his hands on the steering wheel, not moving even though the engine was off. Lucian was beside him, jaw tense, face turned toward the window like he couldn’t bear to look back. I didn’t blame him. If I’d been locked in that house, lied about, blamed for everything… I wouldn’t want to look back either.

I stared at the rearview mirror, watching the back of Kyle’s head, the tension in his shoulders, the quiet devastation in the slope of his neck.

He’d just walked away from the man who raised him. Not with rage—but with a kind of grief that wasn’t loud or messy.

It was old.

Familiar.

The kind that you fold inside yourself so deeply it becomes part of your bones.

And still, he stood there. Still, he faced it.

Still, he chose to fight for something better.

God, I didn’t know what I felt.

Everything I thought I knew about the Blackwoods had been turned inside out.

And Kyle? He wasn't the cold, closed-off man I once begged to open up. He wasn’t the polished executive or the tragic ex-husband trying to make amends.

He was just... human. Flawed. Wounded. Stripped bare..

And I had no idea what to do with that.

My hands were still in my lap. I hadn’t spoken since we left that godforsaken house. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because everything felt too big. Too sharp. I didn’t know where to begin.

How do you comfort someone who just cut the cord tying him to his past?

How do you offer solace for a kind of pain you can’t even imagine?

I looked out the window. Trees blurred in the distance. The city was still miles away. It felt like we were driving through a space between worlds—between the people we’d been and the ones we were about to become.

Lucian broke the silence first. “You think he’ll come after you?”

Kyle’s voice was low. “He won’t get the chance.”

That was it. No elaboration. No threat. Just certainty.

I glanced at Lucian who turned out to be Kyle's brother I had no idea he has. There was something raw behind his eyes now. Like that confrontation didn’t give him peace…it just cracked the door open to everything he’d buried to survive.

And then I looked at Kyle.

Really looked.

He looked tired.

But not defeated.

Just... emptied.

Like he’d finally spilled the weight he’d been carrying for years, and now he didn’t know who he was without it.

That scared me more than anything.

Because I loved him.

Still.

Even after everything.

He glanced at me in the mirror.

Our eyes met.

And I said, softly, “Are you okay?”

His lips parted. Then closed. Then opened again.

“I don’t know,” he said.

I didn’t push. I just reached forward and placed my hand on his shoulder. Not to steady him. Not to guide him. Just to remind him he wasn’t alone.

Not anymore.

By the time we dropped Lucian off, the sky had darkened, heavy with the kind of clouds that didn’t cry until you were finally home and unprepared for the rain.

Kyle didn’t say much. Neither did Lucian.

They exchanged a look—a whole conversation packed into silence—and then Lucian just nodded once, pulled the door shut behind him, and disappeared into the lobby.

And then it was just us.

The city flickered around us as we drove. Neon signs. Horns. People moving too fast to notice two ghosts floating through it all. Kyle’s hand stayed on the wheel like it was the only thing tethering him to the present.

He didn’t ask if I wanted to come back to his place.

He didn’t need to.

Somewhere between the ruin of that family and the silence that followed, we’d reached a quiet understanding:

We weren’t done.

Not with this conversation.
Not with each other.

When the elevator opened at the penthouse, I followed him inside.

It was dim. Warm. Still the same mix of glass and steel and clean lines—but it didn’t feel sterile tonight. It felt lived in. Haunted, maybe. But softer. Quieter.

Kyle dropped his keys in the tray, shrugged off his coat, and said nothing.

Neither did I.

I watched him walk to the window, stand in front of the skyline like he was trying to remember how to breathe again.

And I let him.

He needed this moment more than he needed words.

So I gave it to him.

But after a while, I crossed the room, my footsteps quiet over the hardwood, and stood a few inches behind him. Close—but not too close. He could close the gap if he wanted to.

“I meant what I said earlier,” I whispered.

His shoulders rose and fell slowly.

“You don’t have to carry it all,” I added. “Not anymore.”

He didn’t look at me, but I saw his reflection in the glass—tired eyes, clenched jaw, a war still echoing behind his ribs.

“I don’t know who I am without it,” he admitted, voice hoarse. “Without the weight. The fight. The legacy. The lie.”

“You’re you,” I said. “You’re the man who told the truth even when it hurt. The man who stood beside his brother instead of in front of him. The man who left that house not with revenge, but with resolve.”

He turned to me then. Finally.

And something cracked in his expression. Not a breakdown. Just the smallest flicker of vulnerability—raw and exposed.

“I keep thinking I’ll feel better,” he murmured. “Now that I know the truth. But it’s like… I don’t know how to live outside the lie. Like it became my compass. Even when I hated it.”

I stepped forward. Closed the space.

“Then let’s figure it out,” I said softly. “Together.”

He didn’t respond right away. Just looked at me—really looked.

And then he reached for me, quietly, like he was afraid to break something between us. His hand slid around my waist, his forehead touched mine.

“Don’t leave,” he whispered.

“I won’t,” I promised.

And I meant it.

Not because he needed saving.

But because, maybe, we both needed someone who saw the truth—and stayed anyway.