“And yours,” she shot back, stepping closer. Her fingernail was still working that spot on her thumb raw. “Knox, you’re not hearing me. If he comes after me …”
“If he comes after you, I will protect you.”
“Exactly.” She threw up her hands. “That’s exactly the problem. I know you will. Just like you protected me from Doyle. But you can’t get into any kind of violent confrontation. Not a shove, not a punch, not even a look that a parole officer could twist into a threat. One incident, and you go back for at least eleven more years. Longer if you hurt him. Forever if you …” Her voice dropped, and when she spoke again, it was barely above awhisper. “You just got your daughter back. You just got your life back. We just started our life. I know we haven’t been together that long, but I can’t imagine a single day without you in it anymore. And I won’t survive if you end up on the other side of those bars again.”
The words settled over the room like ash after an explosion.
I sat there and let them burn.
Because she wasn’t wrong. That was the part that gutted me. She wasn’t being dramatic or irrational. She was laying out the exact nightmare we were now facing.
If Silas came for her and I did what every cell in my body demanded, I’d lose everything. My freedom. My daughter. The woman who’d somehow made me believe I deserved a life outside those walls.
But if I did nothing? If I just waited for police and hoped they’d lock him away for life BEFORE he committed a crime that would put him there? If I stood there and watched while he …
My hands stretched. Not a crack. A stretch. The kind that meant my patience was dissolving and something far more primal was taking its place.
Harper’s eyes tracked my hands, and I watched the flicker of recognition cross her face. She knew what that meant. She’d learned to read me the way I’d learned to read her.
I moved toward her. Slowly. The way you approach someone who’s been conditioned to expect the worst from the people who are supposed to love them.
I bent my knees so I wasn’t towering over her. Brought myself down to her level, close enough that I could see the faint gold flecks in those green eyes.
“Hey,” I said softly.
She blinked, and two more tears slipped free.
I lifted my hand and cupped the side of her neck, my thumb resting just below her jaw. Beneath my palm, her pulse washammering. Frantic. A trapped-bird rhythm that made my chest ache.
Then, slowly, beat by beat, it started to settle.
Her breathing evened out. Her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. The tension in her jaw released. Like my touch was a frequency her body recognized. A signal that saidsafe.
And I thought,If I’m not here to do this, if I’m locked in a cell and she’s out here alone and her pulse is racing like this and there’s no one to bring her back down …
I closed my eyes. Swallowed the thought before it could destroy me.
“Look,” she whispered, her voice steadier now. “Maybe when you were in prison, all you could do was take things one day at a time. But out here, we have options. We have choices. We don’t have to sit in a cell and imagine how we’d fight back. We can actually do something.”
I opened my eyes. Rubbed my thumb gently along the curve of her neck. “When did you get so smart?”
“I’ve always been this smart. You were just too distracted by my ass to notice.”
A surprised laugh broke out of me. She gave me a watery smile, and I pulled her closer, pressing my lips to her forehead.
“Okay,” I murmured against her skin. “Let’s talk options.”
She nodded and pulled back just enough to look at me. “Okay.”
“We can set up a security system. Cameras, sensors, the whole thing.” I let my hand slide from her neck to her shoulder, keeping contact. Needing contact. “We could move into the Sinners and Saints mansion. Get armed detail if we want it.”
“Like bodyguards?”
“Like armed men who get paid to make sure nobody gets within a hundred yards of you.”
Her brow furrowed. “Would that violate your parole?”
“I’ll call my parole officer and find out. But a security detail protecting my residence shouldn’t be an issue. I’m not the one carrying the weapons.”
