Page 51 of Yours to Break

I smiled like I meant it. He had looked so sure, so lit up from the inside, so in love. I hadn’t once seen him like that throughout our entire friendship. And that kind of happiness—raw, unfiltered—was so damn beautiful. He deserved that. But he’d also just confronted and killed his abuser. Greyson and him had kissed and acted like everything was perfectly normal and wonderful—with Lane literally still sitting on the cooling body.

Like… what the fuck?

And beneath my shock and confusion, there was another pressing concern. Fear.

Greyson was terrifying, and to add to that, it was clear that he hated me. He’d point-blank told me that if I wasn’t Lane’s best friend, he would’ve killed me. He was the catalyst of the most frightening and traumatic night of my life. He gave me to his brothers like I was a piece of meat he was throwing to the wolves.

My hands shook as I tried to push the memories from that night back into the depths of my mind. I was going to throw up.

But then Lane looked at me.

He looked at me with that stunning happiness just oozing out of his skin and eyes full of hope for the future. He always reminded me of a fox when he smiled. His eyes would go all squinty, and his face would scrunch inward a bit. Something about it had always called to me. It felt both strikingly innocent and mischievous.

I was learning that Lane himself was a kaleidoscope. The Lane in front of me was someone I’d never met before, but it was still distinctly him. The Lane who had written that manic goodbye letter to Greyson was new to me, too. Hell, I hadn’t known the extent of the abuse he’d gone through until recently.

Still, when he hobbled over to me and squealed, literally throwing himself on me, I couldn’t not be excited for him. And a part of me was. In some fucked up way, this was a happily ever after in his story. His prince had rescued him, the villain had been slain, and now it was time for the happy couple to pull away in a carriage, riding off into the distance with bells ringing.

All Lane had ever wanted was to be loved.

Adored.

Worshiped.

I was unsure if what I was feeling was protectiveness, jealousy, or just the ominously quiet dread of seeing someone you love sprint toward something you can’t quite believe in.

I kept thinking back on all the nights we’d stayed up drinking, talking about what we wouldn’t settle for—what we thought love should feel like. Maybe he had found that in Greyson.

He looked at me with eyes that had seen too much and still managed to shine. There was something unbreakable in him, even if it came in a fragile, glittering form. And maybe that’s why I said nothing. Maybe that’s why I just hugged him back and let his excitement wash over me like it was mine, too. Because if anyone deserved a little magic, it was Lane. He’d clawed his way through so much darkness—he deserved his damn fairytale, even if the script felt off to me. Even if there was a dead body or two involved, and psychopathic brothers who had been holding your best friend captive.

I wanted to believe in it for him. Itried. But the truth was, I didn’t trust the plot—the way Greyson looked at him like a prized possession.

Still, I didn’t say anything negative. Because that’s what you do when someone you love finds what they believe is happiness. You don’t drag them back from it, even when it terrifies you. You smile. You listen to him throw out honestly insane wedding venue ideas.

And maybe—just maybe—you wait. Not to sayI told you so,but to be there if it all comes undone. Because some part of you hopes it won’t. But another part—some quiet, shameful corner—hopes it will.

Realistically, though, I knew someone like Greyson wouldn’t just let a relationship fizzle out. I wasn’t positive that he wouldn’t kill Lane only to ensure that no one else got to ever have him. That wasn’t healthy.

It wasn’t.

No matter what.

It was scary. It was scary that even my own mind kept trying to gaslight me into thinking that it was okay. It was scary that I’d started to develop feelings for Hayes and Hudson. It was scary that I was in such a similar situation to Lane—just without my captors loving me.

It was scary that, for some ungodly reason, my chest hurt when I thought about that. Why did I want them to love me? I didn’t love them. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I wouldn’t.

Falling in love with a psychopath meant condemning yourself to a life never hearing those words back. Falling in love with two? Loving two people and never being loved back? It was suicidal.

And yet… sometimes, when one of them looked at me for just a second too long—when Hudson’s gaze softened while he was trying to soothe me, or when Hayes was so incredibly gentle with me—I felt the traitorous ache of wanting more.

Wanting them to love me.

Wishing that our story was different—that they weren’t psychopathic, but just two men who could love me.

It was too easy to let myself get drunk on the attention, the obsession. I’d never been wanted like this before. Well, I’d never been wanted at all. I wasn’t someone who people looked at. I was just a side character, never being enough to take attention away from the main characters. I wasn’t deserving enough of my own happy ending.

I kept telling myself I didn’t actually like them.

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