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He takes us to the end of the hall, past the family photographs and the lamp left burning low, where the stairs go up to the next flight. He stares at me sternly. My heart turns over in my chest. “Did you take her phone?”

I stand my ground. “No.”

He holds my gaze.

I look at the wall. A photograph hangs there of the McCarthy family children from years ago, when they were younger. Torin’s at the back, younger and smaller, but even in his teens he had the same jawline and piercing blue eyes.

“I thought about calling my brother,” I say quietly, honestly. “I thought about it for a while, actually. I sat there with Bronwyn, talking about clothes, and ran it through—what I'd say, what he'd say, whether I'd be able to tell just from his voice whether—” I stop. My throat is suddenly tight. “Whether he knew.”

“Whether any of them knew,” Torin says, his eyes darkening.

The words come out steadier than I feel. “I've been told my whole life that my family would protect me. I believed it. I don't know what to believe now.” I pause. “I didn't take the phone, Torin.”

If he doesn’t believe me, the past few weeks together have amounted to nothing. If he⁠—

“I believe you.” His warm hand at the back of my neck makes me step closer. I like being near him like this.

He doesn't say anything for a moment. When I look up, he's watching me.

“You're afraid your family isn’t clean,” he says.

“I'm afraid to find out. There's a difference.”

“Aye,” he says.

There's something else. I make myself say it because if I don't, I'll carry it around all night, and I'm tired of carrying things. “And Torin, I…” I swallow hard and stand up straighter. “I have more faith in what you're going to do to the men who took me than I do in my own family. I don't know what to do with that, but it's true.”

He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair back from my face. He drops his hand when he realizes he's done it, then turns away as Bronwyn walks around the corner.

“Found it,” she says cheerily. “It was on the hood of my car. I must have forgotten it when I brought those bags in.”

I shake my head and breathe out a sigh of relief.

I turn to Torin. “You said you were wondering something.”

His eyes hold mine. “Aye. I was wondering if you’d come to bed with me tonight.”

I look at him, and I have a feeling he's not asking just for a good night's sleep.

“I think I'd like that,” I say.

We walk up silently.

He closes the door. “I'm sorry for that look I gave you earlier.”

“The one where you were wondering whether I stole her phone, and when I told you no, you were wondering whether you could believe me?” He nods. The corner of his mouth almost moves. Then he leans in, and his hand finds my neck. He kisses me.

It's different from Boston. Everything in Boston had an edge to it that it doesn't have here. It's just his mouth on mine, unhurried, one hand at my face and the other resting gently at my hip.

I lose myself in the kiss. The memory of his hands, his mouth, floods me, and I'm instantly turned on. He pulls away and looks at me for a long moment, his thumb moving across my cheekbone.

“Tell me what you want,” he says.

It's not what I expected him to say. I look at his scarred jaw and blue eyes. This man who bought me at an auction, gave me the bed, and took the couch. This man who's been wrong, apologized, and is standing here, asking me again.

What do I want? I shake my head. “I want my family to be innocent. I want my freedom back. More than anything, I need to know that the men who hurt me, who took me, who brought me to that goddamn auction, are going to be punished so nobody else goes through that again. I don't want them going after my family. I don't want them going after yours.” I meet his eyes. “That's what I want.”

He nods slowly. “Me too,” he says, his thumb tracing lazy circles on my shoulder. “I'm going to give that to you if it's the last thing I ever do.” He kisses me again.