I spent the next few days torn between the warmth of Ashton's promise and the cold weight of those photographs.
I hadn't confronted him yet. Hadn't found the words to ask who those men were, what the documents meant, why someone would slip evidence of his secrets under my door. Part of me was afraid of the answers. Part of me was afraid that asking would shatter whatever fragile thing was building between us.
So I watched him instead. Looking for signs of deception. And hating myself for doubting the man who'd caught me when I fell.
Nate had been quiet for weeks. Too quiet.
I'd grown used to his absence, his fear of Ashton keeping him at bay. I'd let my guard down.
That was my mistake.
After Monday practice, I lingered in the equipment room organizing gear, waiting for the rink to empty. Ashton had a call with my father—I'd seen him step outside, phone pressed to his ear, face grim—and I figured I'd wait for him to finish.
I didn't hear Nate approach until it was too late.
"There she is." His voice slithered through the shadows. "My favorite little whore."
He stepped out from behind a row of lockers, blocking my path to the door. He looked different—wilder, unhinged. Like something inside him had snapped during his weeks of enforced distance. His eyes were bloodshot. His smile was wrong.
"You think I didn't see you with him?" He advanced slowly, savoring my fear. "The way you look at Coach Jennings like he hung the goddamn moon? The way he watches you like you belong to him?"
I backed up, heart hammering against my ribs. "Nate, don't do this."
"You were supposed to be mine." His voice cracked with rage. "I had everything planned. And then he showed up and ruined everything."
I tried to dart around him. He was faster.
His hand closed around my arm like a vise, and he slammed me against the wall. Pain exploded through my shoulder, my head cracking against concrete. Stars burst across my vision.
The baby. Our baby.
Terror unlike anything I'd ever felt flooded my veins.
"Nate, please." My voice came out broken. "Let me go."
"I don't think so." His breath was hot against my face, his grip bruising. "I've been patient, Lyra. Staying away, biding my time, waiting for your boyfriend to let his guard down. He's been glued to your side for weeks—but not tonight."
His smile made my skin crawl. "You owe me, remember? You've owed me since that night. And I'm done waiting to collect."
His free hand clawed at my shirt, fingers tearing fabric.
I screamed. Raw. Desperate. The sound echoed off the concrete walls.
The door exploded inward.
Ashton was there in an instant, ripping Nate away from me with a violence that stole my breath. He didn't speak. Didn't threaten. Just slammed Nate into the lockers with a sound like thunder.
And started hitting him.
The first punch shattered Nate's nose in a spray of blood. The second dropped him to his knees. The third, fourth, fifth—they blurred together as Ashton became something I'd never seen before.
Cold. Methodical. Terrifying.
His eyes were empty. His face was blank. He was a machine built for destruction, and he would not stop until Nate was broken.
"Ashton." My voice came out thin, shaky.
He didn't hear me. Nate was barely conscious now, gurgling through the blood filling his mouth, and still Ashton kept hitting him. Each impact was precise. Calculated. The work of a man who knew exactly how much damage he was inflicting.
"Ashton, stop!"
I grabbed his arm, pulling with all my strength. Finally—finally—he froze. His fist hovered in midair, trembling. When he turned to look at me, I saw the killer beneath the man.
Cold eyes. Calculated violence. Hands that could end a life without hesitation.
This was who he really was. This was what my father's world created.
But I also saw what had triggered it. Nate's hands on me. The threat to me. To our child. This violence wasn't random cruelty—it was protection. Raw. Primal. Directed entirely at someone who would hurt what was his.
I thought of all the times I'd felt powerless with Nate. How his manipulation had made me small and scared and broken. How I'd begged and cried and said no, and he'd never stopped. Never listened. Never cared.
Ashton's actions didn't make me feel small.
It made me feel safe.
And I thought of the baby growing inside me—a child who deserved a father willing to burn the world down to keep them safe.
Nate groaned on the floor, barely conscious. Blood pooled beneath his ruined face. Ashton stepped back, chest heaving, knuckles split and bleeding. He looked at me like he was waiting for me to run. To scream. To look at him with the fear and disgust he clearly expected.
Instead, I took his hand.
"Come on," I said quietly. "Let me clean you up."
We sat in his truck in the empty parking lot, engine off, silence heavy between us. The sun was setting, painting everything in shades of orange and red. Blood red.
I found a first aid kit in his glove compartment and tended to his knuckles, wiping away the blood, applying antiseptic to the torn skin. He flinched at the sting but didn't pull away. Just watched me with something like wonder. Like he couldn't believe I was still here.
"You should be afraid of me," he said finally. "You saw what I am."
I didn't look up from my work. "I saw what you did. There's a difference."
"I almost killed him."
"But you stopped." I wrapped gauze around his knuckles with careful precision. "When I asked you to stop, you stopped."
"Barely."
"Barely is still stopping." I finally met his eyes. "That's the difference between you and him, Ashton. Nate never stopped. Not when I begged him. Not when I cried. Not when I said no." My voice cracked. "You did."
Something shifted in his expression. The cold killer retreated, replaced by the man who'd held my hand on that bench. The man who'd promised not to leave.
He reached out and cupped my face in his bloodied hand, his touch impossibly gentle after the violence I'd just witnessed. "I would kill anyone who hurt you," he said quietly. "Anyone who threatened you or our child. I need you to understand that. This is who I am."
Not a warning. A confession.
I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm, tasting copper and antiseptic.
"I know," I whispered against his skin. "And I'm not going anywhere."
He pulled me across the center console and into his arms, holding me like I was something precious. Something worth protecting. I buried my face in his chest and breathed him in—sweat and blood and that familiar cologne that had haunted me since the first night we met.
"What happens now?" I asked. "With Nate."
"He won't talk." Ashton's voice was flat, certain. "He knows what happens if he does."
"And if he does talk?"
"Then I'll handle it." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "I'll always handle it, Lyra. That's my job. That's my purpose. Keeping you safe."
I thought of the photographs hidden under my mattress. The questions I still hadn't asked. The doubt that kept crawling back no matter how many times I buried it.
But here, in his arms, with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear and his child growing inside me, the doubt felt smaller. Quieter. Almost manageable.
Almost.