"You were protecting me." His voice cracks. "While he was destroying you. You were trying to keep me safe."
"I didn't have a choice?—"
"I know." Tears track down Tristan's face.
This lethal, dangerous, terrifying man, crying in front of me like his heart is being ripped from his chest.
I reach up and brush them away with my fingertips.
"I know you didn't," he whispers. "And that's the part that's going to haunt me until I put him in the ground. That you had to make that choice at all."
I tug on his arm and he leans in, pressing his face into the curve of my neck. I feel his shoulders shake. Feel his tears hot against my skin. Feel this man, who could kill everyone in this compound with his bare hands, come undone in my arms because he couldn't protect me.
"I'm sorry." The words are muffled against my throat. "I'm so fucking sorry I wasn't there."
"It's not your fault."
"I should have found you sooner."
"You found me now." I run my fingers through his short hair, crying with him. "That's what matters."
"It wasn't soon enough." He pulls back, and the look on his face—rage and loss and love all tangled together—breaks my heart. "Nothing will ever be soon enough. But I swear to you, Keira, on everything I am and everything I have…he will never touch you again. He will never threaten Hale again. And before this is over, I'm going to make him pay for all of it."
I can't believe someone actually cares whether I live or die. And that someone is the one man I never thought I'd see again.
"I spent years thinking you'd moved on," I breathe. "That you'd forgotten about me. Built a life without me. I wanted that for you—to be happy. To have what I could never touch."
"There is no life without you." The words tear out of him like they've been trapped for years. "There's just existing. Going through the motions. Pretending any of it matters when the only thing I ever wanted was a million miles away, trapped somewhere I couldn't find."
"The lockbox," I manage. "I didn't send it. Someone else?—"
"I know. We'll figure it out later. Right now, I need you to understand something."
"What?"
"You're not alone anymore." His voice steadies, hardening.
"Whatever happens next, whatever we have to do to get out of here, you're not doing it alone. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. And anyone who tries to take you or Hale from me"—his jaw tightens—"is going to spend their last hours on this earth wishing they'd never been born."
A broken laugh escapes me. "That's very romantic."
"I'm a romantic guy."
"You're also insane."
"Completely," he agrees, a hint of dark humor threading through his voice. "Certifiably deranged. The kind of man mothers warn their daughters about." His thumb brushes my lower lip, featherlight. "But I'm insane over you. Only ever for you."
I stare at the man I've been dreaming about since the moment we met. The eyes I've searched for in every stranger. The man who crossed oceans and infiltrated a criminal empire and poisoned a predator at a dinner party, all because he refused to let me go.
"I'm broken," I say, offering him the ugliest truth I have. "You know that, right? Whatever I was before, whoever you knew…she's not here anymore. Ewan took pieces of me that I don't know how to get back."
"Then we'll find them together."
"What if they're gone forever?"
"They're not. I've seen them. Glimpses, when you forget to hide. The fire is still there, Red. It's just buried under years of existing." His forehead drops to mine. "And I'm going to spend the rest of my life helping you dig it out."
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
