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“You don’t say,” she whispered, a small smile on her beautiful face.

We removed each other’s clothing without hurry.

When I entered her, there was none of the desperate urgency of earlier encounters. What was between us was nothing but the tenderness of two people who trusted each other completely, without reservation.

I touched her like something precious, careful of every place still healing from the stress of the day, deliberate in every motion, wanting her to feel safe rather than simply wanted. I moved slowly, memorizing rather than claiming, and she responded with the same unguarded softness, her hands finding mine and holding rather than pulling.

She met my eyes throughout.

Whatever remained of the walls I’d built across years of careful detachment, Camila had dismantled them completely, one quiet moment at a time, until nothing separated us anymore except the thin fabric of the sheets between our bodies.

“You’re the most important piece on my board,” I told her.

“Nikolai… the feeling is mutual. I’d rather lose than lose you.”

I blinked in disbelief.

“I don’t know exactly when I realized. But I know that somewhere between hating you and marrying you… somewhere along the way… I stopped keeping track of how much things have changed between us. But they did.”

I pulled her closer, my hand tracing slow patterns against her back. I had no adequate words to answer something that significant, though I suspected she already understood exactly what I felt without needing me to say it plainly.

“I intend to spend the rest of my life making certain you never regret that,” I said, uttering the closest approximation I could manage of everything moving through my chest in that moment. “I don’t say things like this easily, Camila. I never have. But you should know that whatever I feel for you, it isn’t small, and it isn’t temporary, and it isn’t going away simply because saying it plainly still feels unfamiliar to me.”

She smiled. “I know.”

She fell asleep against me not long after, while the fury I’d set aside for her sake tonight settled back into its familiar form beneath the surface.

Graham had made his threats plainly enough that I no longer questioned his intentions. He would come for what mattered most to me eventually. And when that moment arrived, I would make certain he understood exactly what a mistake it had been to threaten a family I would burn the entire world down to protect.

I traced my thumb slowly along her shoulder, memorizing the rise and fall of her breathing. The version of myself I’d been before her—controlled, isolated, immune to exactly this kind of vulnerability—no longer existed, and I didn’t mourn its absence at all.

Graham would never survive what came next. I would make certain of it personally, no matter what it demanded of the man I had been before she’d walked into my life and rearranged the whole of it without ever meaning to.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Camila

I sat cross-legged on the living room floor with months of notes spread around me, organizing everything into something coherent enough to build a follow-up piece from. Sunlight came in slanted through the tall windows, warm across the marble, and for the first time in what felt like weeks I let myself sit in it without checking the door every few minutes.

The intercom buzzed.

“Special Agent Hayes is here to see you, Mrs. Golovin.”

See me?

I set down the folder I’d been sorting through and smoothed my hair back, an instinct from waitressing days still telling me to look presentable before anyone important walked through the door. I told security to send him up, running through every worst-case scenario before the doors opened.

Hayes looked different than he had the last time. He seemed less armored. He accepted the coffee I offered and sat across from me without the usual opening volley of pointed questions.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he began. “The Bureau still wants your testimony against the Golovin organization. Direct, on the record, everything you know about Nikolai’s operations before you married him.” He held my eyes steadily. “I understand you’re now in love with him and all. I’m not here to relitigate that. But loving a man doesn’t erase what he’s built his life on, Camila. People up there keep asking why you’re letting that fact slide simply because your personal circumstances changed.”

“I’m not letting it slide,” I said, my voice firm despite the way my stomach had tightened at the accusation buried inside his question. “I understand exactly what Nikolai is. I’ve never pretended otherwise, not to you, not to myself.”

“Then why won’t you help us build a case against him?” he pressed, leaning forward slightly, the question carrying more genuine curiosity now than accusation.

“Because there’s something worse. Sylvester Graham.” I set down my own cup, meeting his eyes fully. “Nikolai launders money. He’s broken laws you could prosecute for years. But Graham kidnaps children, Agent Hayes. He runs a trafficking pipeline that’s swallowed entire lives, and every hour we spend building a case against the Golovins is an hour Graham spends expanding an operation that actively destroys people who never had a choice.” I paused. “I’ve seen the raid reports. I’ve seen the fighters they recovered. I don’t think you’ve fully sat with what those files actually describe.”

“That’s not really an answer to my question.”