I almost touch the bandage on her cheek. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you’d told him.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he would’ve killed me either way. I couldn’t be sure. Really, all he did was slap me a few times, and honestly, I’ve endured worse trying to stop children’s tantrums.” She makes a face, baring her teeth and extending her fingers like claws. “They’ve got sharp little teeth and nails. Anyway, I think he was working himself up for bigger things, but you got there first.”
Gone is the woman who only saw good in the world while ignoring the blatant evil. She’s finally opened her eyes.
“But you’re certain enough to risk your life on it.” I pinch her chin between my thumb and forefinger and tilt her face up to mine. “Why didn’t you tell him? Save yourself?”
Her unwavering eyes meet mine. “Because I didn’t believe him when he said you were in the next room about to be tortured. I couldn’t ‘feel’ you there. That might sound silly, but?—”
“It doesn’t.” My heart swells with emotion I struggle to contain.
“I just knew you’d come for me. And you did. You risked everything. I couldn’t betray that.”
This woman. This impossible, contradictory woman. She withheld information that could have saved her from torture, from death, to protect diamonds that mean nothing to her. To protect me.
Wait.
“You figured it out before you were taken. The keys to the car weren’t locked up. I was asleep. You could have tried to escape, gotten the money, and skipped town.” The realization dawns slow and heavy. “Twenty million dollars. New identity. New life.”
Her laugh and the genuine amusement brightening her face startle me. “I don’t want those cursed things. Besides, you need to give them to Roman so you can complete your job.” She shifts closer, her legs sliding between mine on the concrete step. The borrowed sweatpants hang loose on her frame. She looks smaller, more vulnerable. But there’s nothing vulnerable about the steel in her spine or the steady way she holds my gaze. “And I’m not a thief.”
“No.” I cup her unhurt cheek in my palm. “You’re not.”
And she isn’t. She’s exactly what she’s always seemed to be.
Honest. Decent.
Good in a way I’d forgotten existed.
The woman who decorates her classroom with rainbows and smiles at children and means it. A survivor who keeps going after seeing the world’s darkest corners. The lover who sees themonster in me and doesn’t run. The warrior who holds on to her humanity despite everything.
She’s much stronger than me.
She leans into my touch as her eyes flutter closed. “I should be terrified of you.”
Smarter than me too.
My chest tightens. “Are you?”
Part of me fears her answer. An unfamiliar sensation I don’t enjoy.
She tips her head to the side, considering. “Sort of. But…in a good way.”
“A good way?” The corner of my mouth lifts despite myself.
“Like standing at the edge of something enormous. Powerful.” Her featherlight fingers trace the line of my jaw. “You could destroy me but won’t.”
Tectonic plates shift and shudder in my chest, reforming entirely into new ground.
Before, I was a weapon. A tool. Nothing more than Roman’s enforcer.
After, I’m…different. Better. Whole.
Someone.
I never thought I wanted or needed that.
Needed her.
