Back in her car, she sat for a full minute with her forehead against the steering wheel. Not crying. Breathing. Just breathing, because rage without air becomes useless fast.
Then she opened the banking app on her phone and canceled every recurring payment one by one.
Each confirmation screen asked if she was sure.
Carissa pressed yes with the calm of a woman signing exit papers for parts of her life that had already died.
When she got home, Damen was in the kitchen waiting.
“You went to Nikki’s.”
Carissa set her keys down. “Yes.”
“What did you say to her?”
“The truth.”
He gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “So you did something stupid.”
She looked at him. Really looked. The handsome face. The tired eyes that still somehow imagined themselves misunderstood rather than responsible. The body she had once wanted simply because it was his.
“What did you tell her about us?” Carissa asked.
Damen spread his hands. “That things have been bad for a while.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s close enough.”
“And what exactly have you told your brother?”
The question landed.
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you talking about Jackson?”
Carissa hadn’t meant to ask it yet. But the name was out now, and she watched the smallest shift move through him—wariness, possessiveness, insecurity. The Cross brothers had spent their whole lives living in each other’s shadows, except only one of them acted like light was finite.
“I’m curious,” she said. “Does he know you’ve been lying about your life for a decade?”
Damen scoffed. “Jackson thinks he’s better than everybody.”
“Maybe he just is better than you.”
His face hardened.
The silence that followed had edges.
Carissa went upstairs, packed two overnight bags, then unpacked them again because she suddenly remembered something essential: she did not need to leave her own house.
That night she slept in the guest room again. At 2:14 a.m., her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
An unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then a second message arrived from the same number.
Jackson here. Damen called me ranting. Are you okay?
Carissa stared at the screen in the dark.