“So what’s your brilliant plan,” I ask. “Hide me in a concrete hole until I emotionally atrophy into a compliant houseplant?”
His jaw tightens.
“I’m building you an exit corridor off-world.”
There it is.
The thing I’ve been circling.
“Of course you are,” I say softly. “Because you’ve already decided I’m leaving.”
“It’s the safest option.”
“For who.”
“For you.”
“No,” I snap. “For you. For your threat models. For your control issues.”
His eyes flash.
“This isn’t about control. This is about survival.”
“Those are not opposites,” I shoot back. “And you are talking about my life like it’s a logistics problem.”
He folds his arms across his chest, massive and immovable.
“You are a high-value target,” he says. “The Nine have authorized your termination. Oversight has flagged me. Any place you remain static becomes a kill zone within forty-eight hours. That’s not melodrama, Kimberly, that’s probability math.”
“I do not care,” I say.
“You should.”
“I absolutely should not,” I snap. “Because every time someone tells me something is ‘the safest option’ what they actually mean is ‘the option that costs them the least emotional discomfort.’”
His nostrils flare.
“You’re injured. You’re alone. You’re being hunted by a syndicate that specializes in spectacle killings. You do not get to be romantic about this.”
“Fuck you,” I fire back immediately. “I am not being romantic. I am being territorial about my own goddamn existence.”
Silence detonates between us.
I can hear my own heartbeat.
Fast.
Loud.
“I am not leaving my city,” I continue, my voice shaking now but steadying as the anger finds a spine. “I am not abandoning my staff. I am not letting the Nine rewrite my life as a cautionary tale about what happens when women don’t know their place.”
“This is not about pride.”
“This is about agency,” I say. “And you are stripping it away from me with spreadsheets and kill corridors.”
He opens his mouth.
Closes it.
