“I choose you.”
The words were quiet, but the impact was absolute.
I choose you.
Kieran chose me over getting mixed up with the mob and potentially being murdered.
“You chose me over death,” I whispered.
“Those who cling to life defy death,” he said quietly, almost internally. “Only you have the power to make me defy everything I am.”
Not caring that he was driving, I crawled over the center console, right into his lap. “You might be a hitman, but you are so much more than death, Kieran Vaughn.”
His arm folded around me, and he drove one-handed in silence until parking the car a short while later.
I didn’t look up because I knew if he stopped, it was because he thought it was safe.
“I want to take you and drive until the landscape turns to ocean and then sail until the sea gives way to land and we can disappear into the horizon where our ties don’t matter and we can be free.”
“Freedom isn’t free,” I whispered. I didn’t know the true meaning of that until I met him.
“You’re right,” he said, stroking my hair as if I’d made him proud. “That’s why I’m sitting in this shitty parking lot and giving you a choice.”
I lifted my face. “What choice?”
“I have a meeting later. One that should make you safe. The original plan was for Ghost to hang out with you at the Neon Reef until I finished.”
“But now you don’t want to do that?”
“I don’t want to do anything that takes you out of my sight for five minutes, let alone an hour,” he expressed.
“Because I’m a hazard,” I repeated.
“Because I love you.”
My lips rolled in. I’d never get used to hearing those words. I’d never not feel them ricochet inside my heart.
“But I’m going somewhere dangerous, somewhere I’m not sure you are ready to face.”
“Where?” I asked.
My breath caught when he told me. “B-but why?” I croaked, nibbling on my nails.
“So you can keep your life here. Or we can leave and never come back.”
I propped my head against his sturdy chest and stared out the window at the sky. “Three days ago, I wouldn’t have blinked at leaving this place. I had no one. Nothing. A life I didn’t really think of as mine.”
“And now?”
“Now I have you. And Rett. Ghost. I have an identity beyond what the state assigned. I mean, sure, my father is dead and probably my mother too, but if I stayed, I might be able to learn about him. It might be secondhand information, but it’s more than I had before.” Maybe I’d like that.
“Mm.” Kieran agreed.
“Plus, your apartment is really nice. We were gonna get Cliff and Atlas a plant stand. And maybe a fish tank. We just got those plecos at the Neon Reef. I gotta make sure they get good homes. Mr. Wasashi just sells them to anyone.”
“A plant stand and a fish tank?” Kieran repeated. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“You will,” I said, confident.
