Page 51 of Freedom’s Inferno

I brushed the damp hair from her face with my thumb, the curve of her jaw trembling beneath my hand. I’d come through that door expecting to fight. Instead, I found myself holding her, shaken and wholly unprepared for how much it wrecked me.

She leaned back, her lashes wet, eyes glassy. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” My voice sounded thicker than I meant it to.

I helped her sit back against the headboard, and for a long moment, neither of us said anything. The silence between us held, a truce wrapped in exhaustion.

She lay back down and I made to leave, but her fingers brushed mine, a faint, unspoken tether. “Stay.”

I meant to leave. I really did. But I couldn’t bring myself to deny the soft vulnerability in her voice. I climbed onto the other side of the bed, the mattress dipping beneath my weight.

I’ll stay until she falls asleep. Just until she stops trembling.

She turned toward me, curling close.

The scent of her hair, ripe strawberries, hit me, and I went still. My arm hovered, unsure, before settling around her waist.

Her breathing slowed, but mine didn’t.

Moonlight slipped through the curtains in fractured silver, tracing the curve of her cheek where the tears had dried. She looked peaceful now, almost impossibly so, like the storm finally passed through her and left only calm in its wake. Her hand rested against my chest, fingers curled in the coarse hair there like she needed something solid to keep her tethered.

I stayed still, afraid to breathe too deep, afraid she’d let go.

Her breathing steadied, and with every rise and fall against my chest, I felt myself slipping, falling for her in slow motion, too inevitable to stop.

Chapter 22

Chuck

Islept like a man who’d finally stopped running, dead to the world, buried under exhaustion and something that felt suspiciously like peace. When I woke up, weight pressed against me—warm, soft, real.

Lana lay half on top of me, her head resting against my chest, a tumble of red curls spilling across my shoulder and down my arm. Her leg hooked over mine, the hem of her robe riding up enough to bare smooth skin against my thigh.

I lay still, breathing shallow, afraid if I moved, she’d vanish and I’d find myself alone again, staring at another ceiling in another strange room.

The digital clock on the bedside table blinked 10:18 a.m. in red. We slept in later than intended, later than I had in years. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made it through a night without waking, without the press of memory dragging me back to consciousness, but with her there, tangled up in me, my body had forgotten to flinch.

I should’ve been thinking about the day ahead. The safety deposit box key, the address scrawled on the envelope, the risk that Costa’s people might already know where to find us. Instead, I stared at the faint streaks of light slipping through the curtains and wished, absurdly, that the world would stop moving long enough for me to stay like this. I wrapped myself in a fragile cocoon, a sanctuary made from denial and luxury sheets, but the moment I rose, reality would pour back in, merciless as a tide.

Lana’s breathing changed before her body stirred. A hushed sigh, a subtle shift. Her hand, still resting against my ribs, flexed, as though testing the boundary between dream and waking. Then she stirred, blinking against the morning light, eyes unfocused and soft. The moment it landed—where she was, where we were—her spine stiffened, and she pushed herself up enough to look at me. Her robe had come loose at the collar, revealing the pale line of her throat.

“Good morning,” I said, voice rough with sleep.

She blinked at me through heavy lashes, each emotion playing across her features as she recalled the events from the previous night. “You’re still here.” Her face softened.

“You say that like you expected me to vanish.”

“I never know what to expect from you.”

“Good.” I smirked. “I’d hate to be predictable.”

Lana rolled her eyes, but I caught the grin she tried to hide. “You’re predictably insufferable.”

“That’s part of my charm,” I said, flashing her my best attempt at an actual smile.

“Charm?” she repeated, dry as sandpaper. “Is that what we’re calling emotional whiplash now?”

I chuckled, stretching my arm along the headboard, the sheet slipping down enough to make her look anywhere but at my chest. “Don’t pretend you don’t like a little chaos, Lana. You’d be bored without it.”