Page 95 of Down Knot Out
This is my story. Not the publisher’s sanitized version or the marketable mess the Sinclairs want to spin, butthis. A couch full of people who chose me. A house full of love that doesn’t care about bloodlines or headlines.
They can keep their timelines and liability clauses.
I’m exactly where I belong.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Blake
When Sadie finally contacts me herself, she doesn’t text.
She sends an email.
Full sentences.
Capital letters.
A polite subject line.Requesting a visit with Quinn.
The timestamp says it was sent a little after six this morning. No emojis. No typos. No half-sent follow-ups.
I’ve read it four times. I recognize the language. I’ve read the handbooks and sat through the family workshops.Clear communication. Direct intention. Accountability.
If this came from anyone else, I’d call it progress. But I’ve seen Sadie do thirty days drybefore. I’ve listened to her say all the right things with shaking hands and a hangover still seeping from her pores.
So I don’t know what this is.
She says she just wants to talk.
She always just wants to talk.
Until she wants more.
The baby monitor beeps from my nightstand, too quiet for anyone but an anxious uncle to notice.
I need to replace the batteries. Quinn’s probably too old to need one, but I still check it every night.
It whines again, nagging. I reach over to shut it off, and silence settles around me, but it doesn’t stay quiet long. The sound of Chloe’s laughter drifts from downstairs. She’s up early, but our Omega has been spending extra time with Holden, and the gentlest of our bondmates has been thriving because of it. I think Chloe needs it, too. It gives her a focus now that everything stalled after her editor’s call.
Grady hadn’t been able to fix things for her, and the Beta has been walking around with a dark cloud over his head for days now.
Out in the hall, doors open as my other bondmates rise to start their day, and I take it as my cue to do the same.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and rub ahand over my face, scruff catching on my palm. The air in my room still carries a hint of cedar and cotton from the laundry Holden did yesterday, clean and grounding, but it doesn’t settle the churn in my gut.
My jeans are already draped over the back of the desk chair, dust-streaked from yesterday’s site work. I yank them on without much thought, muscle memory taking over where energy should be. I get a clean undershirt from the dresser, tug it on, and grab a flannel. It has two missing buttons, but it’s still serviceable.
Nathaniel will give me shit about it later, and Dominic will want to order me a new one, but it’s soft in a way new flannel takes months of hard wear to achieve.
I reach for my work boots by the door, the laces stiff from dried mud, but I don’t bother swapping them. No one’s going to care about my appearance down at the work site. I clip my utility knife to my belt, the familiar weight grounding me.
But Sadie’s message still buzzes in the back of my head.
She just wants to talk.
I shove the thought aside and head for the door.
As I walk toward the stairs, the light from Chloe’s open door draws me over. I can still hearmy Omega downstairs, and I push it wider, intending to turn off her lamps, but I pause in the doorframe.
