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Her apartment is on the second floor, a studio with a Murphy bed and a kitchenette that looks like it was last updated in the seventies. There’s a couch with a faded quilt thrown over it, a small table with two chairs, and a window that faces the street. She drops her keys in a bowl by the door and stands there, still wrapped in that jacket, still holding herself like she’s waiting for something bad to happen.

“You should sit down,” I say.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.”

She looks at her hands and curls her trembling fingers into fists before pressing them against her thighs.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she says. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

I don’t have an answer that would make sense. Not yet. Not until I talk to my brothers and we figure out what Frank is playing at. Not until I sort through the mess of what I want versus what I should do versus what I’m going to do anyway.

“Right now?” I say. “I want you to sleep. I’ll be here.”

She laughs, short and bitter. “You think I can sleep with you standing there?”

“Then I’ll sit.”

I move to the couch, sinking into the cushions that are softer than they look, and I watch her watch me. She’s still standing by the door, still wrapped in that jacket like armor, and I can see the war happening behind her eyes. The practical girl who knows better than to trust strange men in her apartment. The exhausted girl who hasn’t slept well in months. The scared girl who just watched two men who tried to hurt her get beaten by someone worse.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” she says. It’s not quite a question.

“Not tonight,” I say, and I let a ghost of a smile touch my mouth, the old habit of making dark things sound casual. “Not ever, if I can help it.”

She stares at me for another long moment. Then, slowly, she crosses the small space to the Murphy bed and pulls it down from the wall. The plain sheets are faded from too many washes. She slips off her shoes and removes the top layer of her clothing before climbing onto the bed, curling into her side to face me.

I stay on the couch. The distance between us is maybe eight feet, and it feels like miles and inches all at once.

Her eyes close. Open. Close again. I watch her breathing slow, watch the tension leak out of her shoulders by degrees, watch her face soften in sleep into something younger and more vulnerable than she ever lets the world see.

I don’t move from the couch. I listen to her breathe, and I catalog every sound in the building—the radiator clanking in the wall, footsteps two floors up, a car passing on the street outside. I’m still listening when my phone buzzes again. Ryker’s name lights up the screen.

I silence it without looking at the message.

Whatever he wants, it can wait. Whatever Dad’s planning, whatever Frank thinks he’s starting, whatever mess this is going to become—it can all wait until morning.

Right now, she’s safe and sleeping. And I’m a few feet away from the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

I lean forward, resting my forearms against my thighs, focusing on the rise and fall of her chest.

A small whimper escapes her parted lips, while her face pinches together. She must be dreaming.

I should keep my ass on this couch and let her sleep. Be the decent human being she thinks I might be. But I can’t help myself. I’m across the room before I realize what I’m doing.

I don’t touch her right away, only kneeling beside the Murphy bed. I’m close enough to smell the diner grease in her hair and the cheap soap on her skin. To see the flutter of the pulse in her neck. The one place on her body where the tension hasn’t eased.

“Hey,” I whisper.

She doesn’t wake at first, but her breathing changes. “You’re okay. It’s just me, Noah.”

Without looking or any hesitation, her hand finds mine where it rests on the edge of the mattress, threading her fingers through mine.

I freeze.

And at that moment, every joke, every deflection, every instance when I’ve bullshitted my way out of something real…it all gets stuck in my throat. I tell myself she’s asleep and doesn’t know what she’s doing, that I’m still the monster who beat two men half to death in a parking lot, and the last person who should be allowed to feel the soft skin of her palm against mine.

She squeezes gently while pulling me closer in her sleep. Without any hesitation, I follow her lead until I’m leaning over her, my shadow blocking the streetlight coming through the window.