It arrived in a plain white envelope.
No return address.
Just my name written in my father's sharp, slanted handwriting.
I stared at it for a long time.
It had been months since I'd last thought of him without flinching. The night Kyler stormed into our house, demanding repayment in blood, still haunted me.
My father was the beginning of all this.
The man who ruined everything… and then died with his secrets.
But something about the envelope made my hands tremble.
I opened it.
Inside, there was a single piece of paper.
And six words that shattered everything.
"I never meant to sell you."
I sat in the quiet.
Reading the letter over and over again, until the words blurred.
He wrote it weeks before he died.
Said he'd gotten in too deep with people far worse than Kyler. That he'd tried to protect me the only way he knew—by offering himself instead.
But it hadn't been enough.
So he made a deal.
A lie.
He told them I'd be payment.
Knowing Kyler wouldn't go through with it.
He said he'd seen Kyler once. As a child. "He had eyes like someone who'd lost too much. I knew he'd never hurt a girl."
When Kyler came home that night, I didn't say anything at first.
I just handed him the letter.
Watched his eyes move across the page.
And then watched him sit down like the weight of it all had finally crushed him.
"He used me," I said quietly.
Kyler didn't look at me.
"He used both of us," he whispered.
We sat in silence for a long time.
Until I asked the question I'd been holding back for days.
"Do you still want this?"
He looked up. Confused.
"Us," I said. "Even with everything between us? My scars. My father. Your world."
He got up, walked to me, and took my hand.
"I don't want this, Ash. I want you."
I looked into his eyes—stormy and soft—and knew it was real.
Even if the world tried to burn us again…
We would burn brighter.