Tomorrow, I would go back out into Paris—back to the residency, back to the language I still fumbled, back to the work that now felt like it truly belonged to me.
But tonight, I was here.
In his arms.
In a sanctuary that wasn’t made of walls.
It was made of choices.
And I chose him.
And he chose me back—quietly, fiercely, without apology.
When we finally moved down the hallway toward his room, my hand in his, I looked once at the soft light spilling across the floor and thought, with a calm that felt earned:
I came to Paris to learn how to see.
I didn’t expect to learn how to be seen.
But I had.
And I wasn’t going to disappear again.
35
CONNOR
The meeting room at The Sanctuary was smaller than I expected—deliberately so, I suspected. Just a table that had seen better days, four chairs that didn't match, and a window that looked out over a quiet courtyard where nothing much happened except light moving across stone and the occasional pigeon making executive decisions about where to land.
It felt appropriate somehow. Not grand. Not intimidating. Just functional.
A place where real work got done.
Micah sat across from me, looking exactly like he had the first time we'd met—composed, sharp-eyed, expensive suit that somehow didn't make him look soft. The kind of man who processed information faster than most people could speak it and made decisions while others were still figuring out the questions.
Ellsworth stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, the perfect butler posture masking the operator awareness that never actually turned off. I'd seen him move. Seen himwork. The posture was a costume he wore well, but it was still a costume.
I'd given them the full rundown over the past hour.
St. Paul's. The recruitment. The grooming. The abuse that escalated until it wasn't abuse anymore—it was systematic dismantling of everything we'd been before they got their hands on us. The nine of us who'd found each other in that hell and decided we were getting out together or not at all.
What they'd done to us. What we'd done to escape. The headmaster's death. The files we'd burned and the ones we'd saved. The choice to enlist because it was the only way to disappear and prove we were more than what they'd tried to make us.
My parents. The fire I'd thought was an accident for over a decade.
Merrick. Everything he'd confessed. Everything I'd done about it.
All of it.
When I finished, the silence held for a moment. Not uncomfortable. Just ... heavy. The weight of truth settling into the space between us.
Then Micah leaned forward slightly, his expression serious in a way that made me understand why people followed him.
"I'm sorry about your parents," he said.
And I knew he meant it. Not the performative sorry people offered because they didn't know what else to say. The real kind. The kind that came from understanding—actually understanding—what it meant to lose people who mattered.
The kind that came from a man who'd probably lost his own.
