"I love you too."
"I'm sorry for everything I put you through. The auction, the training, all of it. I'm sorry I ever?—"
"Don't." She puts her finger over my lips. "Don't apologize for how we started. Because it brought us here. Brought us to this moment. And I wouldn't trade this moment for anything."
"Even though I bought you?"
"Even though. Because you also chose me. When it mattered most, when everything was on the line—you chose me. That's what I'll remember. Not how it started but how you ended it."
The car drives on through the darkness.
And for the first time in years—since my father died and I swore I'd never be powerless again—I feel truly free.
Not because I have power, but because I have her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Eden
The drive to Montana takes two days.
We stop at a hotel the first night—somewhere anonymous off the highway where no one asks questions and paying cash is perfectly acceptable.
Vaughn registers under a false name.
Pays for the room with bills from a wallet I've never seen before.
Everything planned. Everything prepared.
Like he knew, even before he walked into that showcase, that we might end up running.
We don't talk much that first night.
Just hold each other in the generic hotel room with its scratchy sheets and the sound of highway traffic outside.
Processing what we did. What we left behind. What comes next.
"Do you regret it?" I finally ask in the darkness.
"No. Not for a second. Do you?"
"No. I'm terrified of what happens next. But I don't regret it."
"Good. Get some sleep. We have a long drive tomorrow."
I sleep curled against him.
The second day passes in a blur of highway and mountains and gradually changing landscape.
Virginia to West Virginia to Ohio to Indiana to Iowa to South Dakota to Montana.
The scenery transforms with each state—from rolling green hills to flat plains to the first glimpses of real mountains rising in the distance like promises.
Callum drives without complaint.
He doesn't ask questions.
Just gets us where we need to go with the quiet loyalty of someone who's been with Vaughn for years.
