His hand rests on my hip. Not possessive. Present. His fingers start tracing absent shapes there. Circles. Lines. Nothing that means anything exceptI’m here. I listen to his heartbeat slow under my ear. Feel my own follow it, like it’s tired of beating alone.
The room is quiet. Not tense-quiet. Safe-quiet.
“What happens next?” I ask eventually.
He doesn’t answer right away. His fingers keep moving, thoughtful now, like he’s choosing truth over reassurance.
“We keep Nico safe,” he says. “We win the custody case. We figure out the rest as we go.”
I lift my head just enough to look at him. “That simple?”
His mouth curves, not a smile, exactly. Something realer. “That complicated.”
I laugh softly, because of course it is. Because nothing worth keeping has ever been easy. But for the first time, that doesn’t feel like a threat.
I settle back against him, cheek warm against his skin, and close my eyes. Outside these walls, the estate is still locked down. Men are still watching. Threats are still circling, patient and ugly. The world hasn’t softened just because we did.
But in here, in this bed, with his hand steady on my hip and his heart under my ear, I feel safer than I ever have in my entire life.
And I know, without him saying it, that he feels it, too. Like he’s found something he didn’t even know he’d lost.
And this time, neither of us is letting go.
