“If we’re doing this,” she says, voice brittle, barely above a whisper, “We do it all the way.”
Her words hit me like a hailstorm. The confronted truth I’ve been evading. The pull I’ve been fighting.
I step into the apartment. The scent of home hits me—linen, the faint trace of coffee from earlier, something warm and lived-in. But beneath it, I smell fear. I smell hope. I smell choices.
I close the door behind us and turn. She meets my gaze. I can see in her eyes the questions she’s asked me all this time. And the one I haven’t answered: Are you here? Are you in?
“I am,” I say. My voice low, but steady.
She steps closer. Her coat is wrapped tight around her. She shrugs it off, the fabric hanging loose.
“I don’t know how,” she says. “But I’m done pretending you’re somewhere I can’t reach.”
My ribs ache again, the memory of last night’s extraction flooding back. I suppress the phantom pain.
“Then don’t,” I say.
She flicks her gaze toward the living room. The drawings, the crayons, the pile of Ben-stuff. One drawing—hearts around the superhero with claws—hangs on the fridge.
She points at it. “He drew this. No one told him how to rack claws or run syndicates. He drew you like… like heknowsyou.”
I swallow. “Because he does.”
“Then the secret war beneath your ribs? The hidden stuff? I don’t want to pretend anymore. I need to know.”
I step closer. The hallway light casts long shadows. I can feel her breath, warm against my chest. She smells of lavender and fear and possibility.
“Kairo,” I say, “I chose to protect you both—from my world. But maybe I was wrong.”
Her brows knit.
“What if… I don’t just protect them from it? What if I bring them into something worthstaying for?”
She stares at me. My body pulses with the promise I feel—promise and danger, bound together.
She exhales hard. “Then show me.”
And I do.
I move forward, arms open. I pull her into me. She hesitates. But she doesn’t pull away. I feel the tremor in her body. I feel how high her heart’s beating through her coat.
I press my lips to her temple, and I smell the lavender again, the faint trace of blood from my ribs, the city faint beyond the walls.
“We’ll do it all the way,” I murmur. “Together.”
Her arms wrap around me. The world outside—the tunnels, the titles, the deals, the threats—they fade for a moment. Here, we have this. We have now.
And though the night is still dark, I feel light. Because whatever comes, we’ll face it.
Because the man I am now is the one choosing to stay.
CHAPTER 31
KAIRO
The door clicks softly behind me.
I’m not sure if it’s the chill of the hallway still clinging to my skin or the way Jav’s arms wrap around me without hesitation—but something inside me loosens. Not all the way. Just enough.
