I’d never wanted to hurt her.
But I had.
And now…now I didn’t know how to fix it.
The cigarette burned low between my fingers, the ember crackling as it caught the breeze. I dropped it, crushed it under my heel, and laid both hands on the parapet, bowing my head.
There was no fixing this.
Her life would never be the same.
It wasn’t just about what I’d done to her.
It was everything else too.
She couldn’t go back to her apartment. To Cipher. To her Off-Broadway show. She’d been targeted. Auctioned. Nearly sold to the highest bidder by a cartel butcher who would’ve filmed every minute of her torture and streamed it on the fucking dark web.
Delgado wouldn’t stop. Not after the fire. Not after that auction had gotten shut down.
He’d come for her.
And the only reason she was still alive was because I’d gotten to her in the nick of time.
So what now?
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
Let her stay? Keep her caged in a tower while the world tried to kill her?
Or send her away—somewhere safe, somewhere clean, somewhere far from men like me?
My mind went to Tacoma again.
To Anastasia and the Thorin brothers.
Conan would protect her. That bastard would throw his body on a grenade if it meant keeping a woman safe. Braxton and Atticus too. All of them were protectors. Medical professionals. Healers, not killers.
Lacey could start over there. Be around people whodeservedher. Maybe go back to school. Dance again. Hell, maybe even perform in some local theater, under her real name.
She could be safe.
She could befree.
But—
The next thought hit me hard.
If I let her go, I would only see her when I visited.
She would belong to someone else.
Some other man would teach her how to trust again. How to love. He’d make her laugh, make her blush. He’d bury himself inside her while she cried his name—and notmine.
My fingers curled against the stone.
I shouldn’t want to keep her.
I knew that.
