I didn’t save her.
I chose her.
And now I’ll live with whatever comes for us because of it.
Later, the penthouse is quiet in the kind of way that feels temporary.
She sleeps in my bed like she belongs there, hair fanned across the pillow, face softened by rest, breath steady. My hand finds her shoulder without thinking, stroking slow, careful lines as if touch alone can keep her anchored to the present.
Mine.
The word doesn’t feel like a victory.
It feels like a target.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, a single vibration that cuts too clean through the silence.
Jaxon:
File secured. No casualties. On my way.
Good.
The relief is sharp, but it doesn’t settle.
Because “no casualties” isn’t a promise. It’s a momentary outcome. And tonight, with her here, with my sheets holding her warmth, I can’t pretend the world stops moving just because I finally did.
I ease out of bed carefully, quiet as shadow. I don’t wake her. I can’t, if she opens her eyes and looks at me, I might not be able to leave the room at all.
At the doorway, I pause and look back.
She’s still there.
In my bed. In my space. Like she’s always belonged.
And the thought that hits, sharp, possessive, terrifying in its honesty, is this:
I don’t want her to leave.
Not tomorrow.
Not ever.
But wanting her doesn’t make her safe.
It makes her visible.
And that is where the real consequences begin.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emmy
I wake slowly, the way you do after something has shifted so deeply it hasn’t finished echoing through your body yet.
There’s an ache threaded through me, deep and languid, the kind that hums instead of hurts. The kind that tells me nothing about last night was imagined. Silk sheets cling to my skin, cool and impossibly smooth, wrapping me in a familiarity that isn’t mine.
I know it immediately.
