“But then I sat here for thirty-six hours watching you unconscious and realized staying in a city that Rafael poisoned feels wrong.” He looked at me. Really looked. I saw the hope there underneath the exhaustion and fear. “Tell me about Ravenswood.”
I blinked. “You want the sales pitch?”
“I want to know what it would mean. Moving there. Building something with you in a place I've never seen.”
So I told him.
About the mansion Adrian had built as a symbol of everything he'd survived and turned into a home for the people who needed somewhere safe to land. About the training facilities and the massive kitchen and the library that took up an entire wing. About the gardens that went wild when nobody was maintaining them and the rooms that sat empty waiting for the right people to fill them.
“It's too big for one person,” I said. “Even with the rotating Sentinel members coming through, half the house stays unused.But with a rehab center? With staff and clients and actual purpose? It could be something better than a monument to Adrian's trauma.”
“You'd live there too?”
“Yeah. If you came with me.” I held his gaze. “I'm not asking you to give up Chicago for nothing, Declan. I'm asking you to come to London and help me turn Ravenswood into a place that actually helps people instead of just housing ghosts. Mara can run Chicago. She's earned it. And we build something new somewhere that doesn't have Rafael's blood all over it.”
“And us?” His voice went quiet. “What would we be in London?”
“Together.” The word came out simple and certain. “Not hiding. Not sneaking around. Not pretending we're just stepfather and stepson who tolerate each other out of obligation. Just us. Building a life that's ours.”
Declan was quiet for a long time. Long enough that the anxiety started crawling up my throat. Long enough that I wondered if I'd pushed too hard or asked for too much.
“I've never been to London,” he said finally.
“It rains a lot. The food's questionable. And everyone sounds like they're about to offer you tea while stabbing you.”
His mouth twitched. “Sounds charming.”
“It's home.” I squeezed his hand. “Or it could be. For both of us. If you're willing to try.”
The machines beeped in the silence that followed. Outside the window, Chicago sprawled gray and cold and familiar. The city that had raised Declan. The city I'd fled from and come back to and nearly died in.
“Ask me,” Declan said quietly.
“What?”
“Ask me to come to London. Don't just present it as an option. Ask me.”
My throat tightened. “Why?”
“Because I need to hear you say it. Need to know this isn't just logistics or convenience or you trying to solve a problem. I need to know you want me there because you want me. Not because I'm useful or because the center needs a director or because Luka suggested it.”
He was right. He deserved better than my roundabout way of saying what I actually meant.
I took his hand in both of mine and held on like he was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
“Come to London with me,” I said. “Move into Ravenswood and help me build something good there. Let Mara take Chicago. Stop sacrificing yourself for a city that doesn't deserve you. Choose me the way I'm choosing you.”
His eyes were bright. Suspiciously bright in a way that made my chest ache.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“Yes. I'll come to London. I'll move into Ravenswood with you. I'll help build the center and trust Mara with Chicago and stop pretending I can go back to a life that doesn't have you at the center of it.” He leaned forward, careful of his injuries and mine, and pressed his forehead against mine in a gesture that felt more intimate than any kiss. “I choose you too, Troy. I choose us. And I'm done lying to myself about what that means.”
The relief that crashed through me then was almost as overwhelming as the fear had been in Rafael's warehouse. Almost as suffocating as the water over my face. Almost as brutal as thinking Declan was dead.
But this was the opposite of drowning.
