"I know what they were going to do." I'd been on those tables. "We need to burn this place."
"Agreed. But first—" He caught my chin, tilting my face to the light. "You okay?"
"Gabriel's alive."
The words hung between us like a blade. Nathan's hand tightened slightly. "You're sure?"
"Dmitri had documents. New identity, Moscow address. He staged his death." I laughed, the sound scraped raw. "I grieved him. I fell apart when he abandoned me, only to find out that he is dead, and he wasn't even dead."
"Bunny—"
"I'm compromised." The clinical words, the safe words. "My psychological baseline is corrupted. I can't—"
He kissed me. Hard, desperate, tasting like gunsmoke and the copper edge of violence. It shocked me out of spiraling, grounded me in the now instead of the shattering then.
"You're not compromised," he said against my mouth. "You're angry. There's a difference."
"I want to hurt him. Want to take him apart piece by piece until he understands what he made me." My hands fisted in his tactical vest. "Is that angry or compromised?"
"That's human."
The word broke something in me. Human. After everything, still human.
I kissed him back, needing the anchor of his taste, his heat, his solidity in a world suddenly shifted off-axis. He pressed me against the wall, hands careful of my ribs but desperate everywhere else.
"The women," I gasped when we broke for air.
"Anonymous call to paramedics once we're clear." His mouth found my throat. "Five minutes."
"Here?"
"Need you." His voice had gone rough. "Seeing you like that—Christ, Bunny. I've never seen anything more terrifying and beautiful than you in that room."
The praise hit different in this context, tangled with adrenaline and blood-scent. I yanked at his vest straps. "Stairs. More privacy."
We stumbled to the stairwell, hands pulling at gear and fabric. He pressed me against the brick wall, its rough surface scraping through my shirt. I welcomed the sensation—real, grounding, mine.
"You're sure?" he asked, hands bracketing my face.
"Stop asking. Start doing."
He spun me to face the wall, hands yanking my tactical pants down just enough. I heard fabric tear—my underwear, soaked through with adrenaline and want. His fingers found me ready, making me gasp against brick.
"Fuck." His voice broke. "You're—"
"Please." I pressed back against him. "Need you inside me. Need—"
He pushed in without further preamble, the stretch burning perfect. My hands flattened against the wall, brick dust grinding into my palms as he set a pace that had nothing to do with gentle mornings and everything to do with still being alive.
"Watched you," he gasped against my neck. "Watched you move like death itself and thought—mine. Thought—"
"Yours." The word ripped from me. "In this. Yours."
He fucked me harder, one hand tangled in my hair while the other gripped my hip hard enough to bruise. I welcomed the marks, evidence of choosing this, wanting this, taking this because I needed it and not because anyone commanded it.
"Close," I gasped. "So close—"
His hand found where we joined, fingers circling that bundle of nerves that made lights explode behind my eyes. I came with a sound that might have been a scream, might have been his name, might have been pure animal triumph at surviving another night.
