Page 221 of Cross Checked
Knox dragged both hands over his face. “I know.”
“No,” Lyon said, stepping forward. “You don’t know. None of us knew. That’s the point, right? We didn’t fucking know. Bliss knew. Bliss had to sit there and watch us love him.”
The words gutted the hallway.
Briggs turned away, one hand covering his mouth. Rider’s expression went flat and deadly. Easton stared down the hall like he was memorizing every place a man could run. Ryan watched me, because Ryan always watched me when the room tilted toward violence.
Ryker looked at me then, his eyes bloodshot. “You hit him.”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Knox made a sharp sound. “This is not helping.”
“It helped me,” Ryker said.
“It didn’t stop him.”
“No,” Ryker said, voice breaking for the first time. “Because I should’ve been the one to do it years ago.”
I stepped closer before that sentence could swallow him whole. “You didn’t know.”
Ryker’s eyes snapped to mine. “He was my best friend.”
“He was a predator.”
“He stood next to me at my wedding.”
“He fooled everyone.”
“He didn’t fool her.”
“No,” I said, holding his stare. “He trapped her.”
Ryker’s throat worked, and every Bennett brother around him went still because that was the part none of them had room to fight. Not without making it worse. Not without turning her silence into something she had done wrong instead of something Luke had built around her.
I kept my voice low. “If he shows up at Hockey House, I’ll make him hit first.”
Knox stared at me. “What?”
“I’ll make him hit first,” I repeated. “Then you have a why.”
Ryker’s mouth parted slightly.
Ryan muttered, “Mercer.”
I didn’t look at him.
Knox stepped toward me. “That is not how this works.”
“It’s exactly how it works if he comes into my house with a warrant out and threatens her.”
“You are not baiting him into assault.”
“I didn’t say bait.”
“You implied it.”
