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The old instinct is still there. Take the phone. Handle the problem. Explain after everybody is alive.

Sweet has already made it clear she knows exactly what that kind of thinking looks like from the other side.

So I hold out my hand, palm up.

Her gaze drops to it.

“Sweet,” I say, quieter this time. “I need the picture.”

Her eyes lift to mine, bright with fear she is trying real hard to turn into irritation. “Ask like a person and not a warrant.”

Mercy makes a sound under her breath that might be a prayer or might be a curse.

I grind my teeth. “Please.”

Sweet blinks like I just performed a miracle between the cider booth and a squirrel wedding.

“Damn,” Mercy mutters. “Mark the calendar.”

I cut my eyes at her. “You helping?”

“I am witnessing personal growth. It’s disturbing.”

Sweet unlocks the phone but does not hand it over yet. “What exactly are you doing with it?”

The question lands different after what she told me earlier about Razor. Men deciding things for her. Men calling control protection because it sounded prettier.

My first reaction is irritation that she needs every damn detail when Razor is close enough to photograph Mercy’s house. I catch it before it gets out of my mouth.

She ought to ask.

“The picture goes to Hyde, Nevermore, and CSI. The number too, if you let me. CSI can try tracing where it came from.”

“No scrolling.”

“No scrolling.”

“No sending anything else.”

“I won’t.”

“Nobody gets to read the rest of our messages.”

“They won’t.”

Her gaze holds mine. “You promise?”

The word hits harder than it should.

I don’t do promises. Not anymore. Promises give people something to hold in their hands, something they can bring back bleeding when you fail them.

I don’t do the soft little things women collect and tuck under pillows. I don’t do vows, comfort, breakfast, future, or any sweet lie that makes a man sound better than he is.

But Sweet is standing in front of me with her past breathing down her neck, waiting to see whether my word means anything after spending a day teaching me that hers does.

For once, my rules don’t look like freedom.

They look like cowardice with better boots.