He nodded like that was the most normal thing in the world.
After a lifetime of analyzing every single move she made, thinking of pros and cons and good and bad outcomes, it wasn’t possible not to do the same with this situation. Her mindprocessed all the reasons why she shouldn’t mark herself—and a lot more reasons why she should.
She’d already shattered whatever oaths she’d made to any government agencies. It was time to live for herself.
“My time at the FBI is probably coming to an end, so there’s no reason not to do what I want.”
Emotions flickered across his face—concern, restraint, maybe disagreement—but he let it go. That alone made her chest ache with affection for Sinner.
He set up with practiced ease, movements unhurried and confident. She watched him the way she always did, absorbing details without meaning to—noting the steadiness of his hands and the care he took cleaning the skin on her upper thigh, the spot she chose for the ink.
“Do you trust me?” he asked quietly.
The question struck her harder than it should have.
Trust was a liability. It got people killed.
“Yes,” she said almost immediately—and startled herself with how true it was.
He didn’t smile. He just nodded and switched on the machine.
The hum filled the room. When the needle touched her skin, she barely registered the pain. It was sharp, yes, but familiar in a way that made her shoulders loosen instead of tense.
“That’s…weird,” she muttered.
“What is?”
“That I trust you.” Her eyes stayed fixed on the far wall as he laid in a line. “You could put anything on me. A penis. That ‘no regerts’ thing people think is funny. I’d be stuck with it until I’m ninety. If I live to ninety.”
He huffed softly. “You’re not flinching.”
She shrugged. “Smith always said if you’re in pain, push through it. Pain is temporary. Getting out safely matters more. No one’s coming to save you.”
His jaw tightened as if he disagreed, but he kept working, gentle even as the machine buzzed against her skin.
“He taught me how to dislocate my thumb to get out of handcuffs,” she went on, the words spilling out now that she’d started. “How to break zip ties. He said pain is just information. You can use it or let it stop you.”
Her voice stayed even, but she felt a pang low in her chest when she said it out loud. She’d never thought much about what it meant until now.
She felt Sinner’s sadness like a pressure in the air. Not pity. Never that. Just the quiet grief of a man realizing how much she’d had to endure alone.
She drifted in a fog of all that had happened, lulled by the hum of the needles.
Before she knew it, Sinner spoke. “You’re done.”
She looked down.
On her upper thigh, riding just above the sheath where she carried her knife, was a small ice cream cone.
She blinked at the simple lines, the swirl on top unmistakably orange and pink together. “Orange sherbet…and pink lemonade.”
Their gazes connected, and her breath caught.
“Dammit,” she muttered. “My eyes are doing that weird leaky thing again. How do I make it stop?”
He leaned in and brushed a kiss to her shoulder. “I love you, Opal.”
“Nope,” she said thickly, shaking her head. “That made it worse.So muchworse.” She sniffed hard, then laughed weakly. “I love you too.”
