Page 134 of Jayson
Allegra’s voice pulls me back. “You know,” she says, from the armchair by the window. Her accent lilts like silk pulled over a blade, low and deliberate. “When they told me I was going to marry Scar Gatti, I thought it was the end of the fucking world.”
All eyes turn to her. Even Tayana raises a brow.
“I cried,” she admits. “Cursed my father. Fought the engagement tooth and nail. I’d heard the rumors—what Scar was like. What he’d done. He was a monster wrapped in Armani. Cold-blooded. Untouchable.”
Maxine hums. “Still is.”
Allegra nods. “Yes. But he’smymonster now. And that changes everything.”
Her gaze flicks to me—slow, deliberate.
“I thought it was a prison sentence. But it was the first time in my life I was given a cage with no lock. Scar never made me stay. He just made sure no one else could touch me. And that kind of loyalty…” she trails off, eyes burning with something I can’t name, “that kind of devotion ruins you for anything less.”
The room goes still. My chest tightens. Because I know that devotion. I’ve seen it in the way Jayson watches me like the world’s already tried to take me once and won’t get a second chance. I’ve felt it in the roughness of his hands, in the violence he wears like skin. In the way he never once pretended to be good, only mine.
And still, I’ve fought it. Pushed it away. Been too afraid to hold it and call it what it is.
Not a trap. But a home.
My fingers curl in my lap as something inside me shifts.
Because every woman in this room has found her place beside a man with blood on his hands—and instead of softening them, they’ve sharpened together.
And maybe I was never meant to be saved.
Maybe I was meant to be chosen.
Maxine passes me a small bowl of toast bites, golden brown with cinnamon sugar. “Eat something. You’ve barely touched a thing.”
I nod. Take a piece. I don’t know why it tastes like safety, but it does.
After a while, the conversation dips into quiet.
And I sit there—surrounded by women carved from wreckage and rage and resilience. Not a single one of them is whole. And none of them are pretending to be.
Something inside me cracks.
I want to tell them I’m not like them. That I didn’t fight. That I let it happen. That I froze. That I didn’t run.
But Tayana looks at me then. Sees it in my face. And shakes her head.
“You survived. That’s all the proof you need.”
Lula nods slowly. “Each one of us survived life, one way or another.”
Maxine leans over and squeezes my hand. “Whatever it is, just believe that you’ll come back from it. The way we each did.”
I look at them, all of them.
These women are not delicate. They are dangerous. They are divine. They are mine.
For the first time in years, I let myself believe I might not be drowning.
And that maybe—just maybe—if I can’t find the light…then I can follow theirs.
52
JAYSON
