Page 123 of Knot Unwanted: Part One

“It flooded the entire back patio,” Stone mutters, but there’s fondness in his voice I haven’t heard in months.

“Details.” Finn waves this away, then turns to Hailey with thatbrilliant smile. “So, what do you think? Ready to brave the wilderness of our backyard?”

She nods, something like excitement flickering across her face before she catches herself. Her gaze darts to me again, checking for…permission? Approval?

I force myself to soften my expression, to look as non-threatening as possible. I don’t think it works.

Finn beams. “Maybe we should focus on the vegetable patch I wanted to start!”

“V-vegetable patch?” Hailey’s voice is so soft it sounds like she’s whispering.

“Yup.” Finn nods. “I tried growing cabbage, but by now they’ve probably gone wild and completely feral. Like Ren before his morning coffee.”

I choke on my tea. Jax actually snorts. Even Stone’s lips twitch.

But it’s Hailey’s reaction that catches my attention. The way she looks at Finn with growing amazement, like she can’t quite believe someone like him truly exists. Someone who can joke with alphas, who can make them laugh, who can be so utterly, beautifully himself without fear.

I remember feeling that way once. Still do, sometimes, when I let myself.

“Well,” Jax says finally, pushing back from the table, “maybe we could help with the garden today.”

Finn pauses mid-gesture, fork hovering over his plate. “Help? Aren’t you going to the office?” For just that moment, I see a crack in his facade.

“Maybe not today.”

“Oh.” There’s something in Finn’s voice—just the slightest waver that probably only we would catch. I watch his fingers tighten around his fork, the way his smile stays fixed in place. He’s been performing all morning, keeping things light, pretending everything’s normal. But I can see the cost of it in the tension around his eyes.

The silence stretches. Hailey’s scent spikes with anxiety, and I watch her curl slightly closer to Finn. His shoulders ease just a fraction at her proximity.

“It’s not safe,” Jax says finally, “leaving you two alone.”

Finn doesn’t laugh or argue. He just looks tired suddenly, the bright mask slipping. “We’ll be fine,” he says quietly. “I think…I think we both need some space today.”

I understand what he’s not saying. That maintaining this cheerful facade is exhausting. That he needs time to just exist without three alphas watching his every move, analyzing every expression. That maybe Hailey needs that, too.

“Actually,” I say slowly, “changing our routine might draw attention.” When they all look at me, I immediately feel like I’ve revealed too much. I’d already decided to take care of it. Spent half the night planning exactly what I would do. How I would keep them all safe. They don’t need to know how deep this goes. How deep it all goes. Clearing my throat, I continue. “Wherever Hailey came from, they could be looking for her.”

Silence fills the room and when my gaze shifts to Hailey, her eyes are on the floor, heart beating so hard it’s like I have dog ears and can hear it from across the table.

Jax sets his mug down. “What do you suggest?”

My gaze shifts to him briefly. Is he actually asking for my input? Putting trust in me and what I have to say?

Thank god he’s our alpha and not me. My first instinct is always to burn everything to the ground and sort through the ashes later. But Jax—Jax is the thread holding us all together, his steady presence the only thing that’s kept us from imploding these past months. If I were in charge, we’d have self-destructed long ago in a blaze of terrible decisions and even worse follow-through.

I release a slow breath, feeling the mood Finn had worked so hard to set quickly seeping away. “Hailey was on foot. There’s been no reports of any accidents on the roads near here for at leastfifty miles. No missing persons reports with her name or picture. I checked. Which means…”

“Which means this ‘Academy’ cleaned it up before the authorities arrived,” Jax finishes.

I nod. “And anyone with even basic use of their cellphone can pull up their maps app and find that we’re one of the houses near whenever she crashed.”

Silence again. Jax nods slowly. “So, you think we should maintain normal patterns.”

“I think,” I choose my words carefully, “Stone could stay. You and I go to work as usual.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Finn mutters, but there’s less heat in it. Then I remember the scar on his wrist. The way he gasped for air as they pulled him from the wreckage. The way his blood looked so black in the moonlight, as I?—

“No,” Stone agrees quietly. “But maybe I need to be here.”

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