“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say automatically. The lie is too smooth. Practiced.
Havoc’s eyes narrow.
“You don’t trust me yet. I get that.” He pushes off the door, walking toward me. “But you need to understand something.”
He stops inches away. Heat radiates from him, steady and grounding, chasing the chill from my blood.
“I would burn the world before I let someone take you from me,” he says. “So you need to decide if you’re going to let me protect you… or keep running until there’s nowhere left to go.”
My throat tightens. Tears sting my eyes, hot and sharp.
“I don’t want to run anymore,” I whisper.
His hand lifts, thumb brushing under my eye, catching a tear I didn’t realize had fallen.
“Then tell me,” he says, voice rough. “Tell me who’s after you. Let me handle it. Let me be what you need.”
I inhale shakily. Then it comes out, all at once.
“I worked at a hotel. In the bakery. I delivered a cake to a suite and walked in on a judge taking money from cartel guys to throw a murder trial. They saw me. I ran. Packed a bag and left everything.”
Saying it feels like stripping down to bone.
“I’ve been hiding ever since. I use my middle name. My last name is fake.” My voice wavers. “My real name is Naomi Sage Bartlett.”
The silence is heavy. But Havoc doesn’t flinch. He just… absorbs it. Something in him locks into place.
“How long ago?” he asks.
“Three months. I called the police, but someone must’ve tipped the judge Flores off. No one came. That night, men broke into my apartment. I saw them from across the street. I took a bus out of town.”
His jaw tightens.
“You got family?”
I let out a brittle laugh. “Parents who forgot I exist once they remarried. Cousins I haven’t seen in a decade. No one would even notice if I disappeared.”
“Bullshit,” he growls. “I’d notice. Ghost would. Viper would. Every damn man in this club would.”
He cups my face in both hands, thumbs grazing my cheeks.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” he says, softer now. “But you’re not alone anymore.”
Something inside me cracks open. Relief, fear, want… all tangled together.
I step closer until my chest brushes his.
“Why?” I whisper. “You barely know me.”
He exhales. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.
“I wasn’t joking before,” he says. “You’re mine now. My woman. Mine to protect. Mine to put babies into. Mine to marry.” His eyes burn. "You have no idea how hard it is not to pin you against something right now.”
My pulse stumbles. Heat flares low. And yet, I believe him. Every raw, possessive word.
“But,” he adds, grounding himself, “we handle this first.”
I nod, heart pounding. No one’s ever said they’d burn the world for me. I don’t know what scares me more, that he means it… or that I want him to.
