Chapter Twenty-Five

CLINT

Stephen and I hadn’t had a blow-up like that in years. Yeah, I knew he was pissed with me—but hell; I was fucking mad, too. I remembered far too well being on the receiving end of this same situation five years ago. He’d pushed me with Mia. Forced me to open up, to face my shit. And look how that turned out?

Mia and Trinity weren’t like most women. They weren’t leeches or opportunists sniffing around for men with deep pockets. They were strong, brilliant, and fiercely independent. We were lucky as hell—spoiled, even—to have found queens like them. And deep down, I think Stephen knew it, too.

I shouldn’t have lashed out, but fuck. I was scared. Scared that he was about to lose the best thing that had ever happened to him. And the worst part? I’d almost lost him once. It took years to bring Stephen back from the darkness. But then Trinity came along, and it was like watching a light flicker back into the eyes of a man I thought we’d lost for good.

If he lost her now … there’d be no bringing him back. They were it for each other. You could see it from a mile away. They breathed through each other.

I hated this blowout had to happen tonight—Mia’s wedding night, of all things—but maybe, just maybe, it had to. Maybe Stephen needed to feel the full weight of what he was risking.

“Come on, bro,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Let’s head back up.”

“Thanks, Clint. You’re a good man.” His voice was low, a shadow of the strength he usually carried.

“I love you, man. Mia does too—you know that.” As we made our way back toward the house, a chill passed through me. The moment I saw Mia’s eyes, my stomach sank. I knew that look. I’d seen it before, and it was burned into my memory.

Mia had told Trinity.

Stephen must have felt it too—he went still beside me. I felt the shift in him, like a slow collapsing of structure from the inside out. When we reached the edge of the patio, we heard them. The words. Trinity’s voice—broken, uncertain.

“He didn’t trust me … all this time, Mia.”

Fuck.

“He made my choices for me. Based on what he wanted to show me … not who he really was. How can I know everything we have said, we have done, is real? He was always holding a big part of who he was from me.”

The knife twisted.

I looked at Mia, who was sitting beside Trinity. Her eyes met mine, and I nodded slightly. She was doing the right thing. Telling the truth. Holding space for her. If anyone could help her understand, it was my wife.

But beside me, Stephen was crumbling. I saw the colour drain from his skin, the vacancy in his stare as he checked out of reality and into panic. His breathing shallowed. Shoulders tightened. He was folding in on himself.

~Fuck, not again...~

“Breathe,” I whispered, placing my hand gently on his shoulder. I felt the tension beneath my palm like a wire pulled too tight.

Then … he stepped forward.

“Baby?”

Mia’s eyes flashed to him—warning clear. Tread carefully.

“She knows…” she said softly.

And that’s when Stephen dropped.

Knees to wood, the sound thunderous in the silence.

“Stephen—” I crouched down beside him, trying to reach him, but he was gone—lost inside himself. A million worst-case scenarios flooding his head, every image of life without her cycling through like a never-ending reel of hell. He was empty. Void of reaction. Just a man suspended in the terror of loss.

Mia appeared next to me, her presence grounding. She spoke gently, but he didn’t hear her.

“Babe … what do we say?” she asked me, eyes searching.

“We can’t,” I whispered. “There’s nothing we can say right now. They have to find each other in this.”

And then … she moved.

Trinity.

Graceful, slow, but certain.

She knelt in front of him, not with fear—but with knowing. Like she was searching for the man she loved underneath the debris of his panic. I held my breath as she reached out and placed her small hands on his cheeks. The gentlest touch. Like a balm.

And that’s when I saw it. A single vein at his temple twitched—his body reacting to her, his calm in the storm.

“Tell me…” she whispered, voice trembling. “Tell me it was real, Stephen. Tell me we were real … that this wasn’t all just a figment of a life we both dreamed of.”

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

~Stephen was crying.~

In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him cry. Not when his father forced him to run drugs as a child. Not when the old man used his fists like weapons. Not even when he was abandoned, forced to survive on the streets. But here, right now, in front of this woman—his knees on the deck and his heart in his hands—he broke.

He swallowed the war raging inside him, his fingers gripping hers as he lifted his gaze to meet hers. Vulnerable. Raw. Terrified.

“Everything about you is real,” he whispered, voice choked with emotion. “Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve said … everything I’ll do to make this right—it’s all real.”

He paused, pressing his forehead to her hand.

“My heart bleeds for you, Trinity. I once told you that you had the power to make or break me. And I didn’t say that as a warning—I said it as a ~truth~. I’m just a man … a man who is ~nothing~ without you.”

She sobbed, quietly, eyes searching his as if trying to decide if the man in front of her was worth the fall. I’d seen that look before. It was the same one Mia gave me all those years ago—the one that said I could walk away … or I could choose to stay and fight for you.

Mia’s hand found my chest, grounding me.

I hadn’t even realised I was shaking.

We watched as Trinity lowered her head to his touch. Then … she began to rise.

My stomach dropped.

Was she walking away?

Her hand stretched toward him—a silent offering.

Stephen looked up through wet lashes and placed his hand on hers. She pulled him gently to his feet. No words. No promises.

Just presence.

And then … they walked inside.

Together.

I stood there, arms wrapping tightly around my wife, as we heard the bedroom door softly close.

Mia looked up at me. I looked back at her.

And in that moment, I realised just how lucky I was … to have made it through that fire with the keeper of my heart still by my side.