“I hate this,” she says into my shirt. “I hate that someone is out there raising my price like I’m some limited-edition Funko Pop.”
“They picked the wrong girl to commodify,” I say.
“Damn right.” Her hand finds mine, fingers weaving. “Hey, Knight?” she murmurs after a beat.
“Yeah?”
“Promise me something.”
“Careful,” I say. “You’re going to end up with a contract.”
She elbows me lightly. “Promise me that if this gets worse—like, really worse—you won’t try to shove me out of the way and go lone wolf,” she says. “I know your type. You’ll decide the noble thing is to sacrifice yourself and ‘take them down from the inside’ or some bullshit. And I’ll be here, furious and useless and planning suboptimal revenge.”
Part of me wants to give her a clean promise.
The other part knows what I’m capable of when people I love are in danger.
“I’ll promise you this,” I say instead. “I will not make any big, stupid, martyrdom-level decisions without talking to you first. No disappearing, no ‘for your own good’ vanish, no solo ops. If I do something idiotic, you’ll be cc’d.”
She considers that. “Not perfect,” she says. “But better than what I expected. I’ll take it.” She squeezes my hand.
“And you promise me something,” I add.
“What?”
“If it comes to a moment where it’s you or me,” I say quietly, “you pick you. Every time. No arguments. No cinematic ‘we go together’ bullshit. You run. You live. You build something new. You piss on Luka’s grave when they finally put him in one.”
Her head snaps up. “Wow,” she says. “Hate that. Absolutely do not accept. Try again.”
“Lark—”
“Nope.” She twists, sliding one leg across my lap so she’s straddling me, hands braced on my shoulders. Her eyes are fierce now. “We’re not doing the ‘if I die, live a beautiful life without me’ script. I want the ‘we both live, make them regret ever breathing our names, and get a dog’ script.”
Despite the pounding in my chest, I feel my mouth twitch.
“A dog, huh?” I ask.
“Don’t dodge,” she warns. “Promise me you won’t throw yourself on any metaphoric grenades without at least letting me help redirect the shrapnel.”
“You have a very specific fantasy life,” I say.
“Knight.”
She’s not letting this go.
I’m not sure I want her to.
“Fine,” I say. “I promise… to try very hard not to go full sacrificial idiot. I promise to remember that my life is not some disposable asset. And I promise to factor in the part where you will absolutely haunt me if I screw this up.”
Her expression softens. “That’s all I ask,” she says. She leans in and kisses me, slow and sure.
For a moment, the bounty, the mob boss, the hitmen— all of it recedes.
It’s just her.
It’s always just her.
When she pulls back, she rests her forehead against mine. “We stay,” she says softly. “We work. We wait. We trust the people who’ve never let us down yet. And when this is over, we make Luka regret ever typing your alias into his little murder board.”
