Blaze's POV
Two of my exes in the same room. No, not weird at all.
I survey the cramped hotel room where Sophie's been staying since our spectacular fallout a week ago.
It's one of those extended-stay places that tries to look homey but feels hollow—generic artwork, beige everything, the lingering smell of industrial cleaning products trying to mask whatever happened here before.
Sophie looks exhausted. Dark circles beneath her eyes speak to sleepless nights, and there's a brittleness to her movements that wasn't there before. But her spine is straight, her jaw set with determination that makes me think of someone preparing for battle.
Asher stands near the window, arms crossed, radiating the kind of tension that makes the air feel electric. He keeps glancing between Sophie and me like he's trying to solve a puzzle he doesn't have all the pieces to yet.
The three of us together feels like a bomb waiting to detonate.
"Show him," Asher says quietly.
Sophie pulls out her phone, scrolling through the photos she took of Jackson's documents.
As she lays everything out, the printed emails about digital routing services, the screenshots of threatening messages, the clinical notes about psychological manipulation, my blood gets colder with each revelation.
"This is what I found in his bag," she explains, her voice steady despite the gravity of what she's showing me. "He's been documenting everything. Asher's responses, emotional triggers, optimal timing for maximum psychological impact."
I stare at the images on her phone screen, trying to process the scope of what Jackson's been doing.
"He positioned himself as my closest friend while systematically trying to destroy my sanity." Asher adds. I can hear the hate and tension in his voice. He’s mad at Jackson, but also at himself for being a fool for so long.
"But this is worse," Sophie continues, swiping to another photo. "Someone texted him about a video. Said it was ready to be released."
The blood drains from my face. "What video?"
"Definitely nothing good. Presumably about you and Asher." She trails off, but the implications are clear enough.
My mind races through possibilities, each one more devastating than the last. Jackson's had access to both of us for years. Team events, private conversations, moments when we thought we were safe because we trusted him completely.
"The cottage," I say suddenly. "He knows about the cottage. He's been there before."
Asher's face goes pale. "You think he..?"
"I think he's had years to gather whatever evidence he needed," I say grimly. "And now he's ready to use it."
The anger toward Sophie still simmers beneath the surface—the betrayal too fresh, the wound too deep to heal in one conversation.
But watching her risk everything to warn us, seeing the genuine fear in her eyes when she talks about what Jackson could do to both of us, something shifts in my chest.
Not forgiveness, I'm nowhere near ready for that, but recognition that whatever her motivations were before, right now she's trying to do the right thing.
"I'm not forgiving you," I say flatly, meeting her eyes so she understands exactly where we stand. "But Jackson needs to be stopped."
Sophie nods without argument, accepting the terms of our temporary alliance. "I can help. I know how the media works—how stories spread, how to control narratives. If we're going to beat him at this game, we need to be strategic about it."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we can't just expose him and hope for the best. We need to think about timing, about presentation, about getting ahead of whatever story he's planning to tell."
She moves to the small desk, pulling out a legal pad covered in notes. "I've been thinking about this since I found those documents."
We spend the next three hours developing a plan. Gathering additional evidence. Identifying potential allies within our respective teams and organizations. Figuring out how to expose Jackson's manipulation without destroying ourselves in the process.
Sophie proves surprisingly tactical, mapping out media strategies with the precision of someone who's given this serious thought.
Asher contributes details about Jackson's methods, his patterns, his psychological approach to manipulation. And I find myself filling in gaps about team dynamics, about who might be trustworthy and who might be compromised.
It's strange, working with them like this. Two people who've been central to the most complicated parts of my life, now united in trying to protect me from someone I never saw coming.
The conversation flows more easily than it should, muscle memory of shared history making coordination feel almost natural.
"We need to move fast," Sophie says, checking her phone. "If he's got that video ready to release, there's no telling what his timeline looks like."
"Agreed," Asher says. "But we also need to be careful. One wrong move and we're playing right into his hands."
"Then we don't make any wrong moves."
The determination in Sophie's voice surprises me. This isn't the same woman who confessed to months of deception in my living room. There's something harder here, more focused. Like she's found a purpose that goes beyond her own survival.
When we finally run out of things to plan, the exhaustion hits all of us at once. It's past midnight, and we've been talking for hours about scenarios that could destroy all our careers and possibly our lives.
"I should go," Asher says, reaching for his jacket. "We all need sleep before we put this in motion."
"Yeah," Sophie agrees, gathering her notes. "I'll start reaching out to my media contacts tomorrow, see what I can find out about Jackson's connections."
They're both moving toward the door when something stops me.
"Stay," I say quietly, the word directed at Asher. "A little longer."
He freezes halfway into his jacket, surprise flickering across his features. Sophie pauses too, looking between us with an expression I can't quite read.
The air in the small room thickens with everything unspoken. All the conversations we haven't finished, all the feelings we haven't resolved, all the history we can't seem to escape no matter how hard we try.
Sophie catches my eye and smiles—small, knowing, genuinely warm for the first time since I've known her. Not the practiced expression she wore during our relationship, but something real.
"I'll see you both at the next meeting. Take this room for tonight. I have some stuff to do in the town anyways." she says, slipping past us toward the door.
She pauses with her hand on the knob, looking back at us with something that might be hope. "We have a snake to destroy."
The door clicks shut behind her, leaving Asher and me alone with the weight of possibility and the echo of everything we've never been able to say to each other.
He's still standing there with his jacket half on, caught between staying and leaving, between what he wants and what he thinks is safe.
"Take it off," I say softly.
For a moment, he doesn't move. Then, slowly, he shrugs out of the jacket and lets it fall to the floor. We're alone. Finally, completely alone. And for the first time in months, that doesn't feel like something to run from.
It feels like something we might actually deserve.