I try for a casual shrug, but I can't quite make it work."Someone has to watch your back," I say.
He sets down the maul with deliberate care, like his hands need something to do besides reach for me."You refused to sign the annulment papers."It's not a question.He's been waiting for this conversation since Ben called him with the news."Why?"
I pull the unsigned papers from my jacket pocket and hold them out.They flutter slightly in the mountain breeze.
"Because the moment I walk away, you disappear," I say quietly.
He stares at the papers like they're a bomb that might detonate if he touches them.His jaw works."You don't understand what you're?—"
"I understand perfectly."I fold the papers back up and pull out a lighter and walk past him toward the cabin's outdoor fire pit.He moves to stop me, but he doesn't.Not quite.Just follows like a man watching the last part of himself burn.
I light the papers.They catch immediately, orange flames eating through the words that would have freed me.We watch them blacken and curl, turning to ash that the wind scatters across the clearing.
When they're gone, he turns away.His shoulders heave once, sharp and brutal.
"Don't do this," he says, his voice rough as gravel."Don't do this to yourself, Tiger.I'm not worth the trouble."
"You still don't get it, do you?"I ask quietly.
He turns back to face me, and the look in his eyes is devastating—anger and desperation and something that looks a lot like shame all tangled together.
"The cartel knows your name.They know we're married.If you stay, you're not just marrying me—you're tying yourself to a man who could bring that door down at any second, and when it happens, you could die because of me.Do you understand that?Do you actually comprehend what it means to love someone like me?"
My throat tightens, but I don't look away."I'm tying myself to you, Jagger—all of you.I'm choosing that over simplicity, over a normal life, over safety.But I'm choosing itawake.I'm choosing itdeliberately.And I won't let you talk me out of it."
For a moment, he doesn't move.Then he comes toward me like a man crossing a minefield, each step careful and controlled.He's trying to rebuild the walls even as I'm tearing them down, but I can see them crumbling faster than he can construct them.
He drags a hand over his face, then pulls me into his chest like he's afraid I'll vanish if he loosens his grip.Like he still doesn't believe I'm real.
His voice comes out a growl against the top of my head."I don't know what I did to have you in my corner, but—" He swallows hard, and I feel his hands shake against my back."I'm going to learn to be the man you deserve instead of the man I am.That's what I'm promising you."
I don't try to be tough.I don't try to wipe my tears away when they come.I just let his embrace engulf me, and I feel the tension in his body slowly, incrementally ease—like he's finally allowing himself to believe I'm not going to change my mind.
A sound carries on the wind then, distant but distinct.An engine.Both of us freeze simultaneously.His hand moves instinctively to protect my head, pressing me against his chest as his eyes scan the tree line.
The engine sound fades, disappearing down a distant road.Not heading toward us.
Not this time.
When I look up at him, he's already looking at me.His eyes are still dark, still haunted, but there's something else there now too—a kind of steady resolve that wasn't there before.
We stand for a long moment in the mountain clearing, surrounded by split wood and sawdust and the weight of every choice we've made.
I'm tying myself to a man whose name is burned in federal files and cartel networks.Whose past is written in bodies and blood.I'm choosing him—and everything that comes with him—over safety, over simplicity, over the reasonable, rational life I could have had.
I don’t know what the future holds.
But I know this: Jagger Rourke may not be who anyone else would have chosen for me—but, for better or worse, he is the man God chose.
And when the reckoning comes—and it will come—we’ll face it together.
Till death do we part.
Epilogue
Jagger
Night comes early in the mountains.The light thins out fast, sliding off the ridgelines and leaving the cabin wrapped in shadow and pine-scented dark.By the time the fire burns low, the world outside has gone quiet in a way that feels deliberate—like it’s listening.
