Elena reached for him blindly, her fingers finding his shirt and clutching at the fabric. “Don’t go,” she whispered. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Reed sat beside her, pulling her back into his arms. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”
And then, finally, the tears came.
They poured out of her in great, wracking sobs that shook her entire body. Five years of fear and loneliness and desperate survival. Five years carrying the weight of what she’d created and what it had become. All of it came flooding out in a torrent she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried.
“I wanted to do it,” she gasped between sobs, her face pressed against Reed’s chest. “I had the gun against his chin, and I wanted to pull the trigger. I wanted him dead. I wanted to be the one who ended him.”
Reed’s hand stroked her hair, his touch gentle and steady. “I know.”
“But I couldn’t.” The words came out as a wail, torn from somewhere deep in her soul. “I hesitated. After everything he did, after all the people he hurt, I still couldn’t do it. I’m weak. I’m so weak?—”
“No.” Reed’s voice was firm, cutting through her self-recrimination. “Elena, no. You’re not weak. You’re human.”
She pulled back just enough to look at his face, her vision blurred by tears. “But if you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t taken the shot?—”
“But Iwasthere,” Reed said softly. “And I did take the shot. That’s what partners do. That’s what we do.”
Partners. The word wrapped around her heart like a bandage.
“You saved me,” Elena whispered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “Reed, you saved me. Again.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, his lips warm against her clammy skin. “I told you I wasn’t going to lose you.”
She clung to him tighter, her fingers digging into his back through his shirt, anchoring her to his solid presence. The sobs were fading now, leaving her feeling hollow and exhausted and strangely clean, like a storm that had finally passed.
“Is it over?” she asked, her voice small and hopeful and terrified all at once. “Is it really over?”
“It’s over.” Reed’s arms tightened around her. “Webb’s dead. His network is being dismantled as we speak. WATCHDOG is destroyed. You’re safe now, Elena. Finally, truly safe.”
Safe. The word felt foreign, like a language she’d forgotten how to speak.
“I don’t...” She swallowed hard, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know how to be safe anymore. I’ve been running for so long, I don’t remember what it feels like to stop.”
Reed pulled back slightly, his hands coming up to cup her face. His thumbs brushed away the tears still tracking down her cheeks, his blue eyes filled with a tenderness that made her heart ache. “We’ll figure it out together, one day at a time. One step at a time. You’re not alone anymore, Elena. You don’t have to figure anything out by yourself.”
She stared at him, at this man who had mourned her, who had never stopped loving her, who had walked into a firefight without hesitation to save her life. This man who had seen her at her worst—terrified and broken and covered in someone else’s blood—and still looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”
Reed smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. “Good. Because I love you too, and I’m never letting you go again.”
He kissed her then—soft and sweet and full of promise—and Elena felt something shift in her chest. Something that had been wound tight for five years finally began to uncoil.
She was safe.
She was loved.
She was home.
And for the first time in longer than she could remember, Elena Vasquez allowed herself to believe that everything would be okay.
CHAPTER 20
Reed woke to the smell of bacon.
For a moment, he lay still in the early morning light filtering through his bedroom windows, letting the scent wash over him. Bacon and something else—eggs, maybe—and the rich aroma of fresh coffee. Sounds drifted up from the kitchen below: the sizzle of a pan, the soft clink of dishes, the barely audible hum of someone singing to themselves.
