I whispered, voice barely audible, "You broke bones for me."
He nodded once. Calm. Certain. Unapologetic. "I'd break more."
I closed my eyes against the truth of it. Against the weight pressing down on my chest, making it impossible to breathe or think or remember why I was supposed to keep hating him.
I hated him for saying that. Hated the simple certainty in his voice, like shattering himself meant nothing as long as I stayed whole. Hated myself for trembling beneath the warmth of it—for feeling something shift and crack and reform inside my chest into a shape I didn't recognize. Hated how my heart was softening despite every logical reason it shouldn't.
But nothing stopped the truth: Gideon Jones got hurt for me. Risked his career, his identity, everything he'd built from violence and discipline and determination.
For me.
And I didn't know how to hate him for that. Didn't know how to keep the walls standing when he kept proving—over and over—that beneath the cruelty and control lived something genuine. Something that needed me as much as I was terrified of needing him.
My hands shook as I adjusted the ice pack.
Gentle.
Careful.
Trying desperately not to make anything worse.
Chapter 28
Gideon
I woke before dawn with Belle curled against me.
Her head rested on my chest, rising and falling with each breath I took. Her hand lay splayed over my ribs—light enough that I barely felt the pressure, heavy enough that I knew instantly if she moved. Her breath warmed my skin in steady, even intervals. Peaceful. Unguarded. Trusting in a way that made my throat tight.
My broken fingers throbbed—a deep, pulsing ache that radiated up my forearm and settled into my bones. The swelling had worsened overnight. Purple bruises bloomed across my knuckles like dark flowers, and the unnatural angles of two fingers reminded me exactly what I'd sacrificed.
I didn't care.
Not when she was here. Not when the alternative had been losing her to men who would've destroyed something precious and irreplaceable.
I pulled her closer without thinking. Without permission. Just instinct guiding my good hand to curve around her waist, to gather her more firmly against my side, to eliminate the last few inches of space between us.
Because she fit. Her body molded to mine like we'd been designed for this—for quiet mornings and shared warmth and the kind of intimacy I'd never wanted before her. Because she was soft where I was hard, gentle where I was brutal, whole where I'd been broken so long I'd forgotten what healing felt like.
Because the aftermath of violence always left my chest hollow—scraped raw and echoing with adrenaline that had nowhere left to go—and she filled it without trying. Without knowing. Without asking for permission or offering explanations.
She just filled the emptiness by existing beside me.
I drifted in and out of sleep, holding her like she was the only thing anchoring me to the earth. Like without her weight pressing me down into the mattress, I'd float away into the same darkness that had swallowed every other good thing I'd ever touched. My breathing synced to hers. My heartbeat slowed. The rage that normally hummed beneath my skin went quiet.
For the first time in my life, I felt something I didn't recognize at first.
Peace.
Safety.
The certainty that nothing bad could touch me here.
Then her phone rang.
Shrill. Insistent. Shattering the fragile quiet like glass exploding across tile.
Belle jerked awake with a gasp.
