Chapter 4

I barely slept that night, Royce's protective presence the only thing keeping me from completely falling apart. He'd stayed on my couch, insisting I shouldn't be alone after what I'd discovered.

"You're not going to that gym alone," he'd said, his jaw set in that determined way that reminded me why we'd always been close despite our four-year age gap. "If you want answers, I'm coming with you."

Now, as we pushed through the glass doors of Elite Fitness the next morning, I felt a strange calm settling over me. The kind of calm that comes when you've already lost…