He's her enemy. Her obsession. And the only man who has the power to destroy her.
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My name is Frank Monroe, and I am the most dangerous woman in Chicago. Not because I kill, but because I make it legal. I'm the lawyer the Irish mob calls when...
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Sleeping like a baby after last night's emotional three-car pileup must have been some twisted Christmas miracle. I almost let out a dry, cracked laugh at the absurdity of it.
The sheets were still warm. For a single, suspended moment, the world was quiet.
"Frankie?" Noah's voice, tentative but clear, cut through the door just as I was stretching the last of the sleep from my bones.
I was upright in a heartbeat, a spring-loaded response. "Please," some desperate part of me prayed, "let him be on the other side of the wreckage. Please let him be okay."
"Come in, baby. I'm up."
The door swung open and Noah walked in, with Sawyer a silent, looming shadow behind him, filling the doorway. But the second my eyes landed on my little brother's face, the intricate, high-tension wiring that had been pulled taut in my chest all night finally, mercifully, went slack.
Noah was smiling. A real, unforced, warm smile. The kind that actually reached his eyes, lighting them up from the inside.
Relief didn't just wash over me; it crashed into me, a tidal wave of it, heavy and overwhelming and so fucking welcome I could have wept from the sheer force of it.
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. Sawyer remained in the doorway, granting us this moment.
"I'm sorry about—" Noah began, the words already heavy with a guilt he had no business carrying.
I didn't let him finish. I pulled him into a hug, cutting off the apology at the source. "Don't, baby," I said, my voice soft but firm. "We were all at our breaking point last night. We don't get to blame each other for that. And we sure as hell do not apologize for it." I leaned back, holding his shoulders, making him look at me. "We love each other. That's how we fix each other. It's the only way we ever have."
His smile stretched even wider then, a little lopsided, a little goofy, and it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a month of Sundays. Just like that, the morning didn't just feel lighter; it felt brighter, like someone had turned up the contrast on the whole world.
"You guys wanna join me for breakfast?" Sawyer's voice came from the doorway. "Olivia's not here, so I had to... improvise." The way he said 'improvise' suggested a potential culinary crime scene in our kitchen, and the prospect was strangely endearing.
Noah nudged me with his elbow, a playful grin spreading across his face.
"Alright, alright," I said, shaking my head in mock surrender. "Go ahead, I'll change and be right there."
It was a strange alchemy, this feeling. To feel new, almost reborn, after being ground into dust just hours before. Like we had all walked through the same fire and somehow came out on the other side, not just unscathed, but forged.
