He nods. Then his expression shifts—sharpens. He reaches for the duffel again, methodical now. “Okay,” he says. “We’ve got maybe forty minutes before we move. We need a faster exit plan than the front door. We need fresh clothes. We need to kill any pattern.”
I stare. “How do you get so calm so fast?”
He pauses. “Because you’re watching me,” he says simply. “And I refuse to be the man you regret trusting.”
My chest tightens. “Knight?—”
He steps closer. His voice drops. “Listen to me, Birdie. Northstar, Serafina, Luka—whatever name they want to wrap around this—none of it changes the core truth.”
“What truth?”
He cups my face with both hands, steady and warm. “That you’re not prey,” he says. “And I’m not done building a future with you.”
I swallow. My throat is too full of feelings for words. So I do the only thing that makes sense.
I kiss him. It’s a kiss that sayswe’re still here.
He kisses me back with that same desperate certainty, like he can lock us together hard enough to keep the world out.
When we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine. “Okay,” he murmurs. “We run smart now.”
“Together,” I say.
“Always.” He grabs the burner again.
I grab the bat.
And the two of us start packing our survival into one bag like this is just another night. Like hit lists and ancient ops and revenge ghosts are problems we can solve. Maybe that’s delusional. Maybe it’s the only reason we’re still breathing.
Either way?—
We’re done hiding.
We’re going to end this.
Before Northstar turns our love story into a body count.
NINETEEN
AEGIS
KNIGHT
I tell myself I’m calm.
I tell myself I’m in control.
I tell myself I’m not spiraling into the kind of protective madness that makes men do stupid, heroic, deeply unwise things.
Then Lark yawns in the passenger seat and tucks her hand into my thigh like she belongs there, and my brain immediately starts mapping fifteen different ways to keep her alive even if I have to become the villain in my own story.
Arrow’s drop route came in the way he promised it would—fragmented, clean, annoying.
A street name.
A landmark.
A time window.
