POV: Jasmine
Finn stood in my living room, climbing through the window like he had that first night weeks ago. Like breaking and entering was just his preferred method of communication.
"Jesus Christ, Finn." My hand pressed against my chest where my heart was trying to escape. "What the hell are you doing here?"
He turned, and there was no grin, no playboy deflection. Just raw concern that stripped away his usual armor. "Checking on you. You didn't come back. You turned off your phone. What was I supposed to do?"
"Not break into my apartment?"
"Technically, I let myself in through an unlocked window." He moved closer, studied my face in the dim light. "You okay?"
The question was so simple. So direct. And the answer was so complicated I didn't know where to start.
"I don't know," I whispered.
His jaw went tight. Something flickered in his eyes. Old damage. The kind that never stops hurting.
"Come here," he said softly, and when I didn't move, he closed the distance himself. Pulled me into his arms like he could hold the broken pieces together through sheer will.
I let him. Because I was tired of holding myself up. Tired of being strong when everything inside me felt like shattered glass. His chest was solid against my cheek, his heartbeat steady when mine felt like it might never find its rhythm again.
"I get it," he said, quiet and serious in a way Finn never was. "What it's like when a family splits apart."
I lifted my head. "What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you about it sometime. When you're ready."
"I'm ready now." I pulled back enough to see his face. "Tell me."
He was silent for a long moment. Then he led me to the couch, sat down, and I curled into his side like it was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it was.
"My mother was perfect. At least that's what everyone says." He stared at the ceiling, voice flattening into something careful. Controlled. "Cheerleader. Straight A's. Beautiful. Everyone loved her."
I stayed quiet, letting him set the pace.
"She fell in love with the football captain. Classic high school story." His jaw tightened. "Then she got pregnant."
"What happened?"
"His parents refused to acknowledge the baby. Said my mother was trying to trap their son. That she'd ruin his football career, his future." Bitterness bled into his voice. "He left her. Didn't even look back. She was seventeen. Pregnant. Alone."
My chest ached for the girl she'd been. For the baby who'd never asked to be born into that situation.
"The pregnancy was complicated. Something with her health." Finn's voice went quieter. "Doctors advised termination. She refused. She wanted me, even if no one else did."
The pause that followed was heavy with grief neither of us could name.
"She died in childbirth. I was a few hours old."
The words hit like a physical blow. This playful, charming man who made everything seem easy—he'd been born into tragedy. Had entered the world taking his mother's life as the price of his own.
"Her older brother adopted me," Finn continued. "Liam and Asher's father. He loved his sister so much. I think I was all he had left of her."
"That's why you're their brother but also their cousin."
"Yeah." He laughed, but it came out hollow. "He raised me like his own son. No difference between me and his biological kids." His voice cracked. "But their mother... she never wanted me there."
I felt him tense beside me.
"Liam and Asher got big birthday parties. I got a cake on the kitchen counter, eaten fast so we could move on." The details came out clinical, but I heard the pain beneath. "They got new toys, designer clothes. I got hand-me-downs and practical gifts. She never called me by name. Always 'boy' or 'nephew.' Never 'my son.'"
"Finn..."
"I fought with Liam constantly. For our father's attention." His voice went rough. "Thought if I was good enough, strong enough, she'd love me. But she never did."
This woman had made a child feel unwanted in his own home. Had punished him for existing, for being the reason her husband's sister died.
"When I was fourteen, she died. Breast cancer." He paused. "Dad grieved, but he never showed it. Just got colder. Harder. Started sleeping around. A lot. I think it was his way of not dealing with it."
Jackson. The man who'd touched me like I was property. Who'd tried to claim what belonged to his sons. Suddenly his cruelty made a sick kind of sense—not excusable, but explicable. A broken man who'd learned to destroy anything softer than himself.
"But then something strange happened." Finn's voice softened. "Liam and Asher became mine. Really mine. Without her between us, we just became brothers. They never made me feel like the third wheel. Even when she did."
I heard the love when he talked about them. The fierce loyalty that had always been there, underneath the jokes and the deflection.
He looked at me then, and his eyes were raw in a way I'd never seen. "You know what the worst feeling in the world is?"
I shook my head.
"Being the kid who killed his mother just by being born." His voice cracked. "Living in a house where one woman would give anything not to have you there. Wondering why you're not good enough to be loved."
His pain shattered something in my chest. All this time, his easy charm and playful demeanor had been armor. Underneath was a boy who'd spent his whole life feeling unwanted. Rejected before birth by his biological father. Rejected throughout childhood by the only mother he'd known.
I reached for his face with both hands, forcing him to look at me.
"You're not a third wheel," I said fiercely. "You were never a third wheel."
Finn tried to look away, but I held him.
"Your mother died giving you life. That doesn't make you a killer. It makes you precious enough that she gave everything for you." My voice was steady despite the tears threatening. "And that woman who couldn't love you? That was her failure. Not yours."
I leaned in and kissed him. Not with passion or lust, but with tenderness. A promise in that kiss: you matter. You're loved. You're enough.
He kissed me back like he was afraid I'd disappear. Like I was something fragile and precious he couldn't quite believe was real. His hands cupped my face with devastating gentleness.
But when I deepened the kiss—needing to feel anything but Jackson's violation, needing to drown in something that didn't make me feel dirty—Finn pulled back.
"Not tonight." His voice was strained, his forehead pressed against mine. "Not like this."
"Finn—"
"You're hurting, Jasmine. And I won't be your escape from him."