“Exactly.”
Ian eyes the bottle like he wants to smash it against the glass and lob the shards in my direction. “I can’t in good conscience let you go through with this.”
I get up, straighten, look him square in the eye. “You don’t know Valeria Capello the way I do. You think you have a clue of what she’s capable of, but you don’t. I fucked up by dragging Sophia into this. Now, I need to make it right. And if I can finally get Mary out of this too, then by God, I’ll do whatever it takes.” Determination has its own heartbeat, and right now mine is steady. “Even if it means I never come back out.”
My hands ache wanting to punch something, but the real fight is upstream. In my head. Luckily, I know how to win battles against my own mind.
Ian holds his beer in the way you hold something when you need your hands to have something to do. “She’s going to hate you for this.”
“I know.”
“And when it’s over—if it’s ever over—she’ll have every right to.”
“I know that too.”
“And you’re doing it anyway.”
I look up at the ceiling. At the floor above it. At the specific darkness of a house that’s holding something worth protecting.
“Tell me a different way to keep her alive,” I say. “One that doesn’t end with Valeria finding her. One that doesn’t require me to be somewhere I can’t be.” I look at him. “Tell me a different way, and I’ll take it.”
Because there isn’t one. We both know there isn’t one. Ian ran the math the same way I did—he just ran it hoping for a different answer, and we got to the same place from opposite directions. There’s no way to dodge a bullet when you’re already chewing on the barrel.
Ian empties his beer and places it on the coffee table, squaring his shoulders. “What do you need me to do?”
“Simple. Keep your promise.” I walk to the stairs, glance back. “Protect her when I can’t.”
25
SOPHIA
Iwake to the feeling of being watched. The room is still dark, the first hint of dawn barely touching the glass ceiling, but I feel him before I even open my eyes.
Reth is standing at the foot of the bed. A towering mass of muscle and shadows. No hood. No buff. No mask.
Just him.
Blue eyes burn as they rake over me, so intense it seeps into my skin. The careful distance he always carries on his expression is gone. What’s left is only pure, undisguised desire carved into every harsh line of his face.
“Are you set on stalking mode, or was your plan to smother me in my sleep?”
Instead of responding, he reaches down and pulls the sheets off and to the side. Just looks at me.
The silence stretches, and I know what this is. I feel it click in the tightening pull of air around us, the invisible field of pent-up want.
I force a smirk. “You’ve got a hell of a staring problem.”
“Take off your clothes, Sophia.”
My heart hammers. I like cause and effect. How he so clearly wants something and then just asks for it—likepleasewas the first thing they took from him.
Heat floods between my thighs as I reach for the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head. I’m not wearing a bra, his gaze dropping to my breasts, and my nipples tighten under that look.
Hooking my fingers into the sides of my panties, I shimmy them down my legs, lifting my hips. They make it as far as my ankles before the strap catches on my big toe and just—stays there.
I give it a small shake. Nothing.
Another shake, slightly less dignified than the first, and that sends the panties launching off my foot and landing somewhere to the left, destination unknown.
