Ronan Mercer

Ronan grew up in a house where raised voices meant broken doors and flinching became survival. At nineteen he put his drunk father through a wall and walked out for good. He spent the next decade building himself into something no one could hurt or move, working max security overnight at Ironhead and living alone in an apartment where every surface is clear and every angle is square. Cara Booth was the one person who got under his guard at twenty-four, but she needed warmth he couldn't give and left for someone gentler. Now he's terrified that wanting someone means handing them the power to break him, and he'll only say it aloud to someone who stays when he pushes hardest.