The word drops like a stone into still water.
Love.
I didn’t plan to say it. Didn’t even know it was true until it was out.
But it is.
Her breath catches, her eyes widening. Then—slowly, like she’s afraid it’ll break—she rises on her toes and presses her forehead to mine.
“I love you too,” she breathes. “And I’m terrified that’s going to get you killed.”
I wrap my arms around her, crushing her to my chest until there’s no space left for fear. “Then we make sure it doesn’t,” I murmur into her hair. “We wait out the storm. We plan. We arm up. And when the snow stops, we don’t run. We finish this.”
She nods against me. Small. Brave. Broken open and still choosing to stay.
Outside, the wind drops to an eerie hush.
Like the mountain itself is listening.
Like it knows what’s coming.
And for the first time since I carried her through that door, I don’t feel like we’re hiding. We’re waiting. Two against one. Love against betrayal.
A man who said no to murder once—and the woman who makes him willing to say yes.
Ethan Hart is coming. And when he gets here? He’s going to learn the hard way that some offers should never have been made. Some doors should never have been opened.
And some women?
Some women are worth burning the whole world down to keep.
EIGHT
SABRINA
The silence after Beck’s confession is louder than the storm ever was.
We’re back in the living room now—fire rebuilt, flames licking high again because neither of us could stand the dark. I’m curled on the couch in his lap, legs tucked under me, his arms a heavy cage around my ribs like he’s afraid I’ll slip away if he loosens his grip even an inch.
I don’t blame him. I’m afraid of the same thing.
His heartbeat thuds against my back—steady, too steady, like he’s forcing it to stay calm for my sake. Mine is a frantic bird trapped under my ribs. Every time I close my eyes I see Ethan’s face: the crooked smile he used to give me when we were kids, the same smile he must have worn when he sat across from Beck in that bar three winters ago and tried to buy a murder.
My brother tried to hire the man I love to kill someone.
And now he’s coming for me.
I twist in Beck’s hold until I can straddle him, knees sinking into the cushions on either side of his hips. His hands automatically settle on my waist—big, warm, grounding. I cup his face, thumbs brushing the sharp line of his beard, forcing him to look at me.
“You’re shaking,” he says. Voice low. Rough.
“So are you.”
He doesn’t deny it. Just exhales hard through his nose and pulls me closer until our foreheads touch. “I should’ve said yes to him back then,” he mutters. “If I had, maybe none of this?—”
“Don’t.” I press my lips to his—quick, fierce. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. If you’d said yes, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t beyou. And I wouldn’t have anyone to hold me while the world falls apart.”
His eyes darken. Something raw flickers behind them—guilt, fury, hunger all tangled together. “Then let me hold you,” he says. “Let me remind you what’s real right now.”
