Chapter 73 Harper
Harper
We don’t just survive—we live.
Carter’s words echoed through me long after the meeting broke apart, long after River and Gideon returned to their quiet tasks and Cyclone disappeared out the door to check the perimeter again.
I sat at the table, staring at the map still spread in front of me. It wasn’t just a collection of routes and marks anymore. It was the proof that my life had been pulled into a war I hadn’t chosen—and the proof that I wasn’t alone in it.
For weeks now, I’d carried the fear like a shadow stitched to my skin. Every time I closed my eyes, I still heard the boss’s laugh, still felt the chains against my wrists. Sometimes, I wondered if I’d ever really be free of it.
But then Carter had looked at me—eyes fierce, voice raw—and said those words. Live with me.
Something cracked open inside me. For the first time, I wasn’t just imagining getting through the night, or waking up one more morning safe. I was imagining more. A tomorrow. A life. Him.
And that was scarier than all of it.
Because loving Carter meant accepting the danger that came with him. It meant knowing that every mission, every gunfire echo, could take him from me.
But loving him also meant refusing to let fear decide my life.
I slid my hand across the table to where his had been, the wood still warm. My chest ached, but for the first time, it wasn’t from terror. It was from hope pressing against the cracks.
No matter what waited in those warehouses, no matter who thought they could put my name on a list—I wasn’t just a target anymore.
I was Carter’s. And together, we weren’t just going to survive.
We were going to live.