“I'll buy the beans myself,” he promises, his voice thick. “I'll build you a damn roasting plant if that's what it takes.”
He pulls back just enough to look me in the eye. The possessiveness is back, but it’s tempered with a reverence thatmakes my knees weak. He’s not holding me like a prize. He’s holding me like a partner.
“You’re not running anymore, Amara Osei.”
“No,” I say, and finally, I don’t feel the need to look at the door. “I’m choosing home.”
He shifts the car into gear, the tires crunching over the gravel as we turn back toward the highway. We aren’t heading for the state line. We aren’t heading for the exit. We’re heading toward the mountains, toward a place where the graves are not gone, but farther away, and the future is something we get to write together.
I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes. The sun is finally breaking over the horizon, bleeding gold across the gray fields. It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying.
And after ten years, I’m not running.
The miles click by, but I don't count them. I don't map the exits. I just listen to the steady rhythm of Alessio’s breathing, a sound more grounding than any road.
The road ahead is long, and I know there will be days when the runner in me screams to be let out. There will be nights when the quiet feels too heavy and the dead feel too close. But I look at the man beside me, at the scarred hands on the wheel and the quiet fire in his eyes, and I know I don’t have to carry it alone anymore.
“Alessio?”
“Yeah?”
“Don't make me regret this.”
He reaches over, taking my hand and bringing it to his lips, kissing my knuckles with a promise that feels absolute. “I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you don't.”
I squeeze his hand back, watching the world wake up around us. The shadows have retreated. There’s just the road, the man, and the choice I made.
Hunting Vane was easy. Breaking into the clinic was a cakewalk. Staying? That’s the only thing that actually scares me.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
26
ALESSIO
The engine idles,a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrates through the floorboards and up into the soles of my boots. It’s the only thing keeping me anchored to the earth. If the car stops, if the silence takes over, I might actually drift out of my skin.
She’s sitting there. Right there. Two feet of leather and stale diner air separate us, but she’s back. Amara Osei is back in my passenger seat, her profile a sharp, beautiful silhouette against the flickering neon of the highway signs.
My knuckles are white where they grip the steering wheel. I don’t let go. If I do, I’ll reach for her, and once I start, I won't be able to stop.
I’ll haul her across the console and bury my face in the crook of her neck until the scent of her—rain, vanilla, and that stubborn, metallic edge of adrenaline—replaces the oxygen in my lungs. I want to zip her inside my jacket. I want to sew her into my shadow.
“Alessio,” she says.
Her voice is a soft rasp. It cuts through the fog in my head. My name sounds like a prayer and a plea all at once.
“Don't speak,” I grate out. The words are jagged, torn from a throat that feels like it’s been swallowed by broken glass. “Just... let me get us there. Let me get you behind a door I can lock.”
She knows I don’t mean a cage. I mean a sanctuary. I mean a place where the rest of the world stops existing and I can finally convince my heart that it hasn’t stopped beating. Because when I found that bed empty and saw that single duffel bag gone, a part of me died. A cold, absolute death. There was no fixing that kind of wound.
I floor it. The tires chirp against the asphalt as I pull out of the diner lot. Hours later, we’re headed toward the rental house on the outskirts of the mountains, a place halfway between the blood of Chicago and the peace of Pine Valley. It’s a transition. A waypoint. Tonight, it’s going to be the place where I find out what’s left of me after the war.
The drive is a blur of dark trees and silver moonlight. I drive like a man possessed, because I am. I’m haunted by the shape of the empty bed. I keep glancing sideways, checking the seat, making sure she hasn’t evaporated into the mist. Every time her chest rises and falls, a fresh wave of possessive agony rolls over me. She chose to come back. She walked across that parking lot and stepped into my life again.
The realization is a body blow to my ribs. She chose me.
We reach the house—a stone and timber structure tucked so deep into the woods that the stars look like they’re resting on the roof. I don’t wait for her to open her door. I’m out of the car before the engine has fully died, rounding the hood in three long strides. I wrench her door open.
