"I don't like this."
A pause. "I know."
"No." I turn. Meet her eyes. "I don't like this. You, in this house. One exit strategy. Hoping she walks into the trap instead of—"
I stop.
"Instead of what?"
The words are there.Instead of killing you before we can stop her. Instead of getting to you while I'm three feet away and still too slow. Instead of leaving Chesca without a mother because I agreed to use you as bait.
I cannot say them.
"There has to be another way." I am on my feet now, pacing the length of the living room. "We keep digging. Vanessa finds a thread that isn't cut. We trace the handler, work backward—"
"Cole."
"—or we move you somewhere secure, draw her out with a decoy—"
"Cole."
"—because I will not sit here andwaitfor her to—"
"Cole."
Her voice cuts through. Not loud. Just certain.
I stop in the middle of the room. Turn.
She has set down the legal brief. Her hands rest in her lap, fingers laced together—but the tremor is there, the way she is holding herself still because if she does not, something will shake loose.
She is not hiding it.
"I'm scared." She says it simply. No armor. No performance. "I have been scared since the first flower arrived. Since before that. Since the moment Kade told me there was a pattern and I was on the list."
I open my mouth.
"I had a panic attack yesterday." She keeps going, not letting me interrupt. "In my own kitchen, trying to make dinner like a normal person. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't—" She stops. Swallows. "I am not okay. I am not brave. I am barely holding it together."
"Then let me find another way."
"No."
She rises from the couch. Crosses the room to where I stand. Her hand finds my chest, presses flat over my heart, and the tremor in her fingers presses through my shirt.
"I spent four years with a man who made choices for me." Her voice is steady, but her hand is not. "Who decided what I could handle. What I could know. What I was allowed to risk." Her eyes hold mine. "You are not him. Don't start acting like him."
The words slide between my ribs like a blade.
"That's not—"
"I know." She softens, just slightly. "You're trying to protect me. He was trying to control me. I know the difference." Her fingers curl against my chest. "But the result is the same. Someone else deciding what I can survive."
I cover her hand with mine. Her heartbeat drums against my palm—too fast, too hard.
"I don't want you to get hurt."
"I know." Her mouth twitches. "I don't want me to get hurt either. But this is my choice. My risk. And I need you to let me take it."
