“It’s not meant to be but I’ll take it.”
“Everything about you is so … intense. It’s hard not to interpret it that way.”
This time, my hand moved to the back of her neck, my fingers threading into her hair just enough to tilt her face up.
“You will stay out of operational spaces,” I ordered. “For the sake of my sanity.”
“If you’ll stop treating me like I’m about to wander into fucking traffic blindfolded.”
“You kind of did.”
“That’s not blindness,” she retorted, a hint of sharpness breaking through. “That’s just … choosing not to expect the worst all the time.”
“This,” I murmured, “is exactly what worries me.”
“All I did was come visit you atyourwarehouse.”
“Same difference with this particular warehouse.”
She laughed softly, her breath warm against my mouth and shook her head. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet here we are.”
Her smile faded slightly, replaced by something quieter. Her fingers, which had been gripping my shirt as though it were a lifeline, loosened — not pulling away, just shifting up to trace the silver links of my necklace.
“You know what the worst part is?” she said, her voice softer now.
I frowned. “What?”
“It’s not even about feeling unsafe.” She huffed out a small, humorless laugh. “It’s about feeling … managed.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“Everyone’s always made decisions for me,” she continued, her gaze dropping briefly before lifting back to mine. “What I should do, what I’m capable of, where I fit.”
Her hand pressed lightly against my chest again, like she was grounding herself.
“And now I’m here, in this … insane, dangerous, very illegal situation,” she added, glancing around vaguely, “and I still feel like I’m standing outside of it. Like I’m … being kept somewhere safe and pretty while everything real happens somewhere else.”
I stilled.
“I don’t want to be out of the loop, Sasha,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to be the thing you hide away so you don’t have to worry. I want to understand what’s going on. I want to be in it — with you.”
The words landed with more weight than they should have. She wasn’t asking for control.
She was asking not to be excluded.
And whether I liked it or not, it was exactly what I had been doing.
Her lips were inches from mine, her fingers still fisted in my shirt like she was bracing for impact.
“You may have dragged me into this world, but you don’t get to decide who I am in it.”
I sighed. “And you don’t get to pretend this world won’t change you.”
“Maybe I’ll change it first.” She shrugged.
And there was this impossible, reckless, stubborn light of hers that made my chest tighten beyond my control.