I opened my mouth to respond, but she cut me off, stepping forward until we were inches apart. “No, don’t make excuses. You left, Trent. You left us here with fake names and a pat on the head, and now you’re back because of some mission, not because of us.”
The accusation stung because it wasn’t entirely wrong. NeuroLink had brought me here. If not for her name on the auction documents, I wouldn’t have come back. “That’s not fair, Evelyn. You know what I do. You know the stakes if I fail.”
“Fair?” She was shaking now. “Was it fair to make Sophia think you cared about her, then disappear? Do you have any idea what it does to a child when people keep vanishing from her life?” Her voice cracked. “What it does to anyone?”
The heat of her anger warmed the small space between us. I could see the pulse point at her neck jumping, the flush creepingup her throat, the slight shine in her eyes that she blinked away furiously. Six months, and still I remembered every detail of her face. How her eyes darkened when she was angry. How she chewed the inside of her cheek when holding back words.
“I had to leave.” It sounded hollow even to me.
“Bullshit.” She stepped closer, finger jabbing into my chest. “You chose to leave. Just like every other man who made me promises. At least Langston was honest about being a monster. You played hero, got us to trust you, then walked away the second your mission was complete.”
Each word found its mark as unerringly as a sniper’s bullet. I’d spent six months telling myself I’d done the right thing, that distance kept them safe, that my work was too dangerous to involve them. Now I stood looking at the damage those decisions had caused, written in the tired lines around her eyes, the wounded fury in her voice.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what, exactly? The outside world?” Her bitter laugh held a lifetime of betrayal. “Or from yourself?”
Both. I had been protecting them from the danger that followed men like me. But I’d also been protecting myself from the terrifying possibility that I might actually care about someone more than the mission. That I might not be able to walk away when the time came.
“Sophia asks about you.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, the shift in volume somehow more devastating than her shouting. “Every night. ‘When is Vigi coming back? Did he forget about us? Doesn’t he like us anymore?’” She swallowed hard. “What was I supposed to tell her, Trent?”
“You’re right.” The admission scraped my throat raw. “I’m sorry.”
Her shoulders stiffened, surprise flashing across her face before she masked it. She hadn’t expected honesty.
“I told myself it was about protecting you. That my work was dangerous, that staying in contact would put a target on your backs. But the truth is, I was scared.” The words felt foreign in my mouth. I’d never admitted fear to anyone. “Not of the danger. Of what I felt when I was with you and Sophia.”
Evelyn crossed her arms, but I could see her pulse fluttering at her neck. “And what was that, exactly?”
“Like I belonged somewhere.” I turned away, unable to look at her as I said it. “Like I was more than just a weapon pointed at a target. During those two years with you at Hope’s Embrace…” I shook my head. “The situation was fucked. Everything about it. But being there with you like we were a family…”
Evelyn remained silent, waiting.
“I’ve never had that before,” I admitted. “Never wanted it. Never thought I needed it. Then suddenly, there it was, and I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“So you ran.” Her voice was quieter now, the anger banked to a smolder.
I nodded. “I ran. Told myself you were safer without me. That I was doing you a favor by staying away.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“I know that now.” I turned back to face her and closed the distance between us. “I was a coward, but not anymore.”
Her eyes widened slightly as my hands came up to cup her face. “Trent?—”
We stood too close in the small room, the air between us charged with something that wasn’t just anger anymore. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. I could smell her shampoo, see the gold flecks in her brown eyes catching the afternoon light through the curtains.
I don’t know which of us moved first. Maybe I did. Maybe we both did. But suddenly the distance between us vanished, and my mouth found hers with the desperate certainty of adrowning man finding air. Her lips were soft, warm, tasting faintly of coffee and something sweeter. For one terrible second, she stiffened against me, hands flattening against my chest as if to push me away.
Then she made a small sound in the back of her throat, and her resistance collapsed.
Her hands curled into my bare skin, nails biting hard enough to remind me she could still draw blood if she needed to. My body answered without thought, every muscle thrumming with hunger and regret and everything I’d denied myself for years. Her mouth was so fucking alive beneath mine—angry, wild, impossibly soft. She tasted of heartbreak and fury, and I drank it like a man who’d been crawling the desert.
She broke the kiss first, shoving me so hard I staggered a step, the back of my knees hitting the edge of the mattress. Before I could recover, she followed, crowding into my space, gripping my jaw with both hands.
“Don’t you ever leave again,” she breathed, voice ragged. “You don’t get to just walk away?—”
I cut her off with my mouth, swallowing the rest of her sentence. She yielded and fought all at once, teeth scraping, hands fisting in my hair as I took control and backed her toward the wall. I let her take her pound of flesh—I deserved it—but I wasn’t letting her go.
