“You can’t protect me forever.”
“Watch us.” Lucian’s eyes held mine. “He comes for you again, he won’t walk away.”
I wanted to believe them. Wanted to sink into their certainty and let it carry me through this nightmare.
But the bubble had burst. The warmth of lunch, the teasing, that moment with them, all of it had shattered against cold reality.
Hudson wasstillout there.
I can’t be at peace. He’d burned my entire life to the ground just to get to me, and he wouldn’t stop until he finished what he started.
“Let’s go home,” Percy said softly.
Home.Theirhome. Not mine. I didn’t have a home anymore.
I nodded anyway and let them lead me out into the afternoon sun.
Back at the cabin, I checked the front door lock. Then checked it again. My hand hovered over the deadbolt for a third pass before I caught myself.
The shoes went back by the bed that night.
8
— • —
Lucian
The entire station knew by eight in the morning.
I walked into the firehouse expecting the usual routine. Instead, every conversation in the building died the second I crossed the threshold. Twelve pairs of eyes and raised eyebrows of grown men suddenly fascinated by their own boots.
A rookie named Whitfield broke first. The man had zero self-preservation instincts and apparently no intention of developing any.
“So, Cap.” He leaned against the engine bay door with a grin he probably thought was charming. “Is it true that the bookshop girl’s living at your place?”
My coffee paused halfway to my mouth.
“I mean,” he continued, because common sense was clearly optional in his bloodline, “Thompson said the cops confirmed it yesterday so...”
“Whitfield.”
“Yeah, Cap?”
“Pick a latrine. Any latrine. You’re cleaning it for the next month.”
His grin collapsed. “I was just...”
“Two months.”
He shut up.
The station settled into a fragile quiet after that, but I caught the tail ends of whispered conversations throughout the morning.
During lunch, it got worse.
I was in the equipment bay doing inventory when I heard it. Two veterans at the table near the engine, voices pitched low but not low enough.
“Must be nice,” one of them said. “Playing house with the damsel in distress.”
