Rylie Tate hadn’t been leverage.
She’d been a fulcrum.
And Trigger?
Trigger hadn’t chased.
He’dclosed.
Thomas reached for his secondary phone—
And froze.
The signal died in his hand.
Lights flickered.
Footsteps echoed beyond the door.
Measured.
Unhurried.
The kind that belonged to men who knew there was nowhere left to run.
Thomas smiled faintly.
“Well played,” he murmured.
The door opened.
And the game ended.
57
Rylie
The forest breathed again.
Birdsong returned. Wind stirred leaves. Life resumed like it had simply been holding its breath for permission.
Trigger wrapped me into him, solid and unshakable, his heartbeat finally slowing beneath my ear.
“You didn’t leave,” I said quietly.
“Never,” he replied.
I tilted my head up, meeting his eyes. “We ended it.”
“Together,” he said.
And for the first time since this began, I believed it completely.
Not just that the danger was gone—
But that the future was ours to choose.
58
