Chapter 154: A Secret. [FIXED!]
Darren stepped out of the gym and paused near the entrance, taking a moment just to breathe, genuinely pleased with how the last several days had unfolded. Drake showing up out of nowhere had thrown a curveball into things, sure, but it wasn’t something that actually kept Darren up worrying. He knew what Drake was capable of, and more importantly, he knew what he himself was capable of if it ever came down to that. Drake had never been the one calling shots between them, not back then and certainly not now.
He made his way toward the parking lot, and it crossed his mind briefly that Drake, wherever he was, might have already clocked his car, his plate, some way of tracking him down if the situation called for it. Darren didn’t let the thought linger long.
He had no unfinished business with Drake. Whatever mess Drake had gotten himself tangled up in belonged entirely to him.
He was maybe twenty feet from his car when he noticed the scene playing out near the far end of the lot.
Camille. Arguing with someone — a man Darren didn’t recognize, shorter than him but built stocky, gripping her arm and pulling her steadily toward a more secluded stretch beside the dumpsters.
Darren’s first instinct was to keep walking. Not his circus, not his business, and he’d learned a long time ago that inserting himself into other people’s conflicts without knowing the full context rarely ended cleanly. Everyone had their own mess to sort through.
But he couldn’t quite make his legs cooperate with that instinct.
He sighed, adjusting course, walking toward them with his hands still tucked casually in his pockets.
"Hey, man," he said, voice level, unbothered. "Let her go."
The man turned, sizing Darren up in half a second — not tall, but solidly built, the kind of guy who probably won most fights through sheer aggression rather than skill. His grip on Camille’s arm looked loose, almost careless, the sort of hold that wouldn’t have taken much effort to break free from if she’d actually tried.
"Get lost, you fucking retard," the man barked, "or I’ll hurt you too."
Darren’s eyes dropped briefly to the object in the man’s other hand. A knife, held out with more theater than actual threat behind it. Something about the blade caught wrong in the light — dull along the edge, the kind of prop knife someone bought for cheap intimidation rather than actual use.
He filed that detail away, along with the loose grip, along with the whole general shape of the confrontation, and something didn’t sit right about the entire scene.
Still. Camille looked scared. Whatever this actually was underneath, that part read as real enough.
Darren moved.
It happened fast enough that the man barely registered the motion before Darren’s palm connected with the side of his face, an open-handed slap carrying enough force behind it to snap his head sideways and drop him into a stunned half-crouch, hand flying up to his now-bleeding nose.
The grip on Camille released instantly, and she stumbled backward with a theatrical little gasp, collapsing conveniently into Darren’s arms rather than simply catching her own balance.
"Y-yo! What the fuck, Camille!" the man barked, blood trickling steadily down over his lip, staring up at her in genuine betrayal. "You said he wouldn’t hurt me!"
Darren froze for half a second, processing that sentence fully.
You said.
Ah.
That confirmed exactly what had already started nagging at him — the dull blade, the loose grip, the performance of it all dressed up just convincingly enough to read as real from a distance. Whatever this was, it hadn’t been a random attack. It had been staged, and staged specifically for his benefit.
He glanced down at Camille, still nestled dramatically against his chest, waiting — he assumed — for some reaction that matched the script she’d apparently written for this moment.
He didn’t give her one.
Darren simply stepped back, breaking the embrace without a word, expression flat, unreadable, entirely unmoved by whatever performance she’d been counting on landing.
Behind him, the man was still sputtering, nursing his bleeding nose and directing a stream of confused accusations toward Camille, who’d apparently miscalculated just how convincing a "blunt knife mugging" needed to look in order to sell it properly.
"You told me a light slap, not—" the man’s voice rose, cracking slightly, "—this is actually bleeding, Camille!"
"Shut up," Camille hissed back at him, abandoning the damsel act instantly now that it had clearly failed to land the way she intended.
Darren didn’t stick around for whatever explanation she was scrambling to construct. He turned, walked back toward his car without a single backward glance, and left the two of them still arguing behind him, the whole scene shrinking steadily in his rearview mirror as he pulled out of the lot.
-
Rachel sat on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, staring at Liam’s contact for the third time in the last hour. She’d already called twice. No answer either time, not even the courtesy of a voicemail acknowledgment afterward.
She told herself it wasn’t a big deal, the same way she’d told herself that after the last several unanswered messages, and the reassurance landed just as hollow this time as it had every time before.
She considered Darren for a moment — she had his number, technically, filed away from whatever landlord-tenant logistics had required it months ago. But the idea of actually using it now, calling him up to ask where Liam had disappeared to, felt like crossing a line she had no business crossing. They weren’t friends. Weren’t close in any capacity beyond the occasional hallway nod, and if she was honest with herself, Darren’s presence alone was enough to keep her from ever testing that boundary. There was something about him — the size, the quiet, unreadable calm he carried, the way he looked at people like he was already three steps ahead of whatever they were about to say — that unsettled her in a way she couldn’t fully articulate.
No. Reaching out to Darren wasn’t happening. Whatever was going on with Liam, she’d have to wait it out on her own.
She set the phone down and turned her attention instead to the closet, pulling out the outfit she’d already picked earlier that evening. Tonight wasn’t about Liam anyway, not directly. She had somewhere else to be — a meeting she’d arranged herself, deliberate and long overdue, with the man she’d spent the better part of a year emotionally entangled with before her marriage finally collapsed.
She’d never actually met him in person. Everything between them had existed entirely online, carefully curated messages and photos exchanged across months of conversation that had, at the time, felt more real to her than anything happening in her actual marriage. She wondered, standing in front of the mirror now, just how accurate the picture in her head actually was. Social media had a way of flattering people, smoothing over the details that didn’t hold up quite as well in person — angles, lighting, the careful selection of which version of themselves got shared.
She finished getting dressed, checking her reflection one more time, smoothing down the fabric of her dress with a slightly unsteady hand.
Whatever waited for her tonight, she was already committed. The date was set, the plans made, and there was no version of tonight where backing out now felt like the right call.
She grabbed her purse, took one last glance at her phone — still nothing from Liam — and headed for the door.
-
Sophia lay curled against Liam’s side, the quiet settling comfortably between them, and after a long stretch of silence she finally spoke, her voice softer than he’d heard it before.
"Can I tell you something? I’ve never really said this out loud to anyone before."
"Yeah. Of course."
She took a breath. "Our parents died when we were young. Mateo doesn’t fully know the details, but our mom died giving birth to him."
Liam stayed quiet, letting her continue.
"Our dad tried, for a while. He really did try. But he couldn’t handle losing her. The drinking got worse and worse, and one day he just—" she paused, "—he disappeared. Never came back."
Liam turned slightly to look at her. "Does Mateo know any of this? About your mom?"
Sophia let out a small, humorless laugh. "No. And I don’t think I ever could tell him. If he knew she died having him, he’d carry that his whole life. He’d think it was his fault, somehow. That’s one thing I refuse to let him believe. Ever."
Liam didn’t respond right away. He understood, somewhere underneath the instinct to say something comforting, that this wasn’t a moment that needed words filling the space. Sometimes the most useful thing was just staying present, letting her sit in it without trying to fix what couldn’t actually be fixed.
After a while, he finally spoke. "He’s a good kid, Sophia. Whatever happened before, he’s turning out fine. Better than fine."
Sophia’s mouth curved into a small, genuine smile. "You sound like an older brother to him, you know that?"
Liam raised an eyebrow. "Older brother?"
"Yeah. The way you talk about him. The way you look out for him."
"I was thinking more like a father figure, honestly."
The words landed heavier than he intended, and the room went quiet in a way that felt entirely different from the comfortable silence before. Neither of them said anything for a moment, the weight of what he’d just admitted — unofficial, undefined, further along than either of them had actually agreed to — sitting there between them.
Internally, Liam had exactly one thought.
"Fuck."