"Yeah." I'm not gonna lie to her. "But she didn't die alone."
Silence. Only the faucet running over our joined hands makes noise. I reach past her and turn it off. Her fingers tremble against mine. I bring one wet hand up, brush a damp strand off her cheek with my knuckles.
"Look at me." She does. Her eyes are wrecked. Mascara smudged from hours ago. Tiny lines of exhaustion carved around the edges. But underneath? Fire. Stubborn, stupid, beautiful fire. "You held that room together. Those girls? They're gonna see your face when they close their eyes tonight, not his. That matters."
"Why do you always know what to say?"
"I don't. I just say what I wish someone had told me back then."
Something cracks. Her chin dips, shoulders sag. Then she's turning, stepping into me, hands fisting in my shirt, forehead pressing into my chest like she's been walking against the wind all day and finally found somewhere to stop.
My arms go around her without asking permission. If there's one place I know what to do, it's this. Hold. Anchor. Breathe. We stand in the kitchen for a long minute with my chin on her head. Her heartbeat against my ribs eventually matches mine.
"I'm so tired," she murmurs against my shirt. "Of feeling like the past is always waiting in the next room."
"I know. Come to bed."
She tilts her head back, eyes searching. The look in them is raw and hungry tonight. The familiar heat between us burns brighter than usual. It feels like she's trying to take this day and force it to end differently.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I take her hand, lace our fingers, and lead her down the hall. In the bedroom, pretense falls away. Teasing disappears, along with any slow undressing. She climbs onto the bed and reaches for me with both hands, like I'm air and she's been underwater too long. I go willingly.
The kiss is unhurried. Deep. Her mouth is soft and sure, fingers sliding into my hair, tugging closer. I taste coffee, exhaustion, and the sweetness that is purely her.
Clothes land in a messy trail. Everything between us stays quiet and close, skin against skin, the weight of the world slipping off her shoulders with every touch.
I keep my touch reverent, careful even when things get heated. She clings, legs wrapped around me, breathing my name, awhisper, a curse, and a vow all tangled together. When she collapses against me, muscles loose, breathing heavy and even, I roll us so she's sprawled on my chest, hand tracing lazy lines down her spine, feeling each vertebra.
She's asleep within minutes. I'm not. I stare at the dark ceiling. Hear the tick of the old clock in the hall. Her soft snore-that-isn't-a-snore when her nose gets stuffy. The echo of a girl's voice from earlier.
Nurse Mercer.
Mercer. Castiel. Graves. Brighton. Vassallo. The names keep circling in my head. Donovan Castiel. I pulled that name out of Whitcomb's server in a Chicago office building two years ago. A silent partner funneling slush money into a Mississippi real estate fund that existed only on paper. I flagged it. Sent it to Malachi. Treated it as a financial threat. Turns out I was staring at the receipt for all of this and didn't know it. The fraud fund was the pipeline. The money bought the containers, paid the guards, greased the politicians. Everything we just hit at Pier Four grew out of the same rotten seed I dug up the night I met Sloane.
Every line I add drifts closer to the one person in this bed who still won't say her father's name out loud.
I think about the tools at my disposal. The shit I used to do overseas, the databases I can still access, the way money leaves fingerprints if you know where to look. I could have answers in a week if I turned that part of my brain on her family.
I promised myself I wouldn't. I promised I'd never make her a target. Never take something she wasn't ready to give. My fingers curl against her spine, anchoring me to the promise I made.
"If this circle touches your father…" I whisper into her hair, the words so quiet they're for me more than her, "I'm gonna burn itdown, baby. I just hope you're still standing on my side of the fire when it's over."
She murmurs in her sleep and burrows closer, fisting the sheets like she heard me somewhere deep down. I lie awake until dawn, holding her while the ghosts pace the edges of the room, waiting for their turn.
Chapter 24
Sloane
Bythetimewepull into the clubhouse lot, the sun's barely up and my stomach's already on its second shift. I climb off Knox's bike and my legs remember last night before my brain does. Hours of standing over cots, the sting of antiseptic, the weight of too-light girls leaning into my hands, one of them looking straight at me and calling me by a name I don't wear anymore.
Mercer. I shove the memory down with the rest of the things I keep buried and follow Knox inside.
Malachi and Candace are already there. Candace at the counter, lining up mugs like she's building a wall out of cheap ceramic and caffeine. Malachi is close enough behind her thathis presence is a shield, palm splayed low on her back as he says something too quiet to catch. She tips her head just enough to lean into it.
The door shuts behind us, muting engines outside as the others roll in.
