"You came," he says.
"Did you think I wouldn't?"
"I thought you might talk yourself out of it."
I stop a few feet away. The distance feels unbearable. "I almost did. About seventeen times."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "And yet."
"And yet." I feel nauseous from nerves.
Neither of us moves. The air between us thickens with everything we haven't said. Years of questions, of longing, of grief and loss, all compressed into the early morning silence.
"We don't have much time. Groundskeeper returns in twenty-five minutes."
"Then talk fast."
He nods, takes a breath, and starts laying it all out.
That strategic mind of his emerges. I listen and try to retain every detail, knowing it matters even when my brain wants to focus on the way his jaw moves when he speaks.
His lips. I remember what that tongue can do.
Mind out of the gutter.
The team waiting in New York—Aaron and Cat. There's a strange symmetry to it. I helped save them once, and now they're showing up for me. Well, for Tristan, really, but still.
The gala, where Ewan will be distracted, surrounded by people he's desperate to impress. The extraction point. The safe house. The new beginning for me and Hale.
He's thought of everything.
Every detail. Every contingency. Every possible failure point and how to prevent it.
"And if it doesn't work?" I ask when he finishes. "If something goes sideways?"
"Then we adapt."
"That's not a plan."
"It's my plan." He moves closer, and the distance between us shrinks to almost nothing. "I've been running ops like this for years. I know what I'm doing."
"This isn't an op. This is our lives."
"Which is exactly why I'm not taking chances." Something flickers in his expression. "It's also an opportunity to take backeverything he stole from you."
I exhale slowly. "I don't care about any of that right now. I just want us to get out. That's it."
He looks pained, maybe a little regretful. But he buries it beneath that controlled exterior before I can examine it too closely.
I've always been able to see what he tries to hide.
That's what made him different from the beginning. Not the power—I've known powerful men. Not the confidence or the danger that radiates off him like heat from a forge.
It's what lives underneath.
The way he holds himself back.
I remember the first time I noticed it. We'd been arguing about something stupid—I can't even remember what. I said something sharp. It should have made him snap back or walk away.
