I look up at him.
“I think winning will.”
That lands between us—sharp, undeniable.
His jaw tightens.
“This is the part where I tell you no.”
A small breath leaves me.
“And this is the part where I tell you… you don’t get to.”
The air shifts.
Not louder.
Closer.
“This is bigger than you,” he says.
“Yes,” I answer. “That’s why I have to be in it.”
Silence stretches—but it’s not empty.
It’s full of everything we’re not saying.
Fear.
Control.
And something else.
Something neither of us is ready to name.
“If you do this,” he says quietly, “you don’t get to walk away.”
I hold his gaze.
“I already didn’t.”
That’s the moment it changes.
I see it.
The exact second he stops trying to protect me from this—
And decides to stand with me in it.
“Then we do it together,” he says.
My chest tightens unexpectedly.
Because that—
That feels like something far more dangerous than the threat outside.
Trust.
