“You okay?” I ask, my voice husky.
He huffs a breath that is almost a laugh. “I’m… somewhere between okay and completely ruined,” he says. “In a good way.”
I smile against his skin. “Same.”
His fingers pause their tracing and curl just a little tighter into my shoulder. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
“For what?” I ask.
“For trusting me,” he says. “For choosing me. Even for a little while. You didn’t have to.”
I lift my head and look at him. His hair is a mess, his mouth is kiss swollen, his eyes are wide open and unguarded.
“I didn’t do this out of charity,” I say. “I chose this because I wanted you. I still do.”
His throat works. “Even with the uncles and the chaos and the fact that I’m technically your almost stepbrother and the universe has a twisted sense of humor?”
“Yes,” I say. “All of that. Exactly that.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Okay.”
I rest my head back on his chest. His hand resumes its slow pattern on my skin, and I close my eyes.
For a few minutes, maybe an hour, I let myself exist in this narrow slice of time where the world is quiet and I’m wrapped around a boy who makes me feel both safe and on fire.
Tomorrow will come.
The clinic, the plan, the panic, the consequences.
For now, there’s Talon’s heartbeat under my ear, the slow rise and fall of his chest, and the knowledge that in a life built on secrets and survival, I chose this moment for myself.
Chapter Thirty-Four
SILAS
Gideon’s beenat the dining table for two hours, his fingers working the keyboard and mouse like a maniac. Fake clinic badges and clearance stickers are spread out between us, all perfectly aligned because chaos makes him itch. I move between the counter and the window because sitting still isn’t an option. The printer spits out another sheet. Gideon snatches it mid-air and scans it.
“That’s the last of the clearance stickers,” he mutters. “Color codes match the clinic’s.”
I nod, jaw tight. “Double check the badge formatting.”
“Doing it.” His tone’s clipped, but then again, so is my patience. “Everything matches.”
“Nothing matches,” I tell him. “We’re forging our way into a medical facility that launders children’s trauma. There’s nothing clean about this.”
He doesn’t argue, which tells me he agrees more than he wants to.
I drag the blueprints toward me and trace the hallways again. I’ve already memorized the entire layout, but staring at it keeps my body from rattling apart.
Gideon finally lifts his head. “Your jaw keeps locking. Stop grinding your teeth before you crack something.”
I breathe in through my nose and out through my teeth. “We need flawless timing tomorrow.”
“We’ll have it. Penelope and Talon stay out of sight. We walk in with credentials. We redirect the escort into the staff hall. We walk Minxy out. Smooth extraction.”
My phone pings with a notification from Penelope. A picture of her notebook. Proof she didn’t run into danger today. Talon sends a middle-finger emoji after it.
The chat buzzes again. Talon’s forwarded the call recording from St. Helen’s.
