a's

uld I sa

He'd been staring at me for what felt like a full minute before he finally opened his mouth, rain running down the sharp line of his

h it, no time to think through what I was offering or what it might cost me later, only the certainty

I felt. "Whatever you want. I'll be whatever you need me to be. I need to see to

s recalculating a decision he'd already made half. He reached up and caught my face between both hands; his palms were rough and warm agai

quiet now, almost gentle,

eeing to, because if I did, I was afraid I'd talk myself out of the only offer

hatever he found there, it seemed to settle something in him, because his thumb brushed once, briefly, along my cheekbone....an oddly gentle gesture from a man who a moment ago had been coldly weighing whether I wa

re either of us could say anything else, breathing hard, his eyes wide with the kind

already close enough to hear him. "They're getting closer. Our men aren't here

dy come and gone once tonight, the ones who'd walked right past us and never known it, and understood, wi

..firmer this time, urgent...and he was already moving before I'd fully regis

way,"

ep up with him, my ruined heels slipping against the

lready scanning the dark ahead of us like he was recalculating th

ady burning and my legs shaking from everything they'd already carried me through tonight, and some quiet, frightened part of me understood that a man who knew about hidden roads through the middle of the city wasn't the kind of stranger who found himself lost in alleys by accident. He moved through the dark like he'd walked this exact stretch a hun

round mine, pulling me forward every time my pace faltered. Rain kept falling, harder now, blurring the streetlights into smears of orange overhead, and somewh

ill I kept moving, because the alternative was letting go of the one hand in this entire city that seemed to know exactly where it was taking me. I didn't know his name. I didn't know how many men were b

pened up, and I

was possible...how a private jet ended up waiting, fueled and ready, on the exact night I happened to fall into a stranger's arms... but the question surfaced anyway, quick and unwelcome, one more piece of a puzzle I was only just

ke into the open, a gunshot rang out behind us, sharp and close, and I felt h

four armed strangers, who'd kissed me like the world outside that alley didn't exist, who'd carried himself the entire night like violence was something that only ever happened to other people. Hearing

d the sound of his voice with my heart in my throat, my hand still locked in the grip of a man who was no longer standing qui

t within the next minute, we would be caught. I slowly turned around, and my heart