CHAPTER 53 #3
It smelled like him.
Clean skin. Cold air. Smoke from too many spaces with fireplaces. The faint trace of whatever soap he used that always clung to his throat when I pressed my mouth there.
My breath broke.
No.
I nodded once, hard, like that settled something.
I was taking them.
I didn’t care if it was pathetic. I didn’t care if it made the bag too full. I needed something of him with me. Something real. Something he had touched. Something that still belonged to us, not to Whitaker.
I folded the shirts badly and shoved them into my bag.
Then I reached for another one.
And that’s when I saw it.
A ring box.
Tucked between two more shirts. Half-hidden.
Like he hadn’t even been ready to look at it yet.
My breath caught. Froze. Broke.
I stared like it might detonate.
Because it hadn’t been there before.
Not at the safe house. Not when we packed in a panic and ran with whatever we could carry. I would have seen it then. I knew I would have.
Which meant he’d gotten it after.
Somewhere between the explosion, the stolen cars, the border crossings, the bad hotels, the blood, the cold, the constant running, Jameson had found this.
My throat closed.
When?
How?
I didn’t know.
It was here now.
The box was small. Velvet worn at the edges. The hinges gave softly when I opened it.
The ring inside wasn’t flashy.
It was intentional.
White gold or platinum, maybe. A round center stone caught the dim light, held in a setting that rose slightly from the band like it had been protected there for decades. Delicate scrollwork curled along either side, the metal fine and intricate without being fragile.
Old-fashioned.
Not delicate in the way new things tried to be delicate.
Delicate in the way surviving things were.
Like it had belonged to someone before me.
Like he’d looked at it and thought of more than a proposal.
A name. A future. A family.
Me.
I didn’t cry.
Not at first.
I just sat there, holding it, while something inside me fractured.
He’d planned this.
In the chaos. The hiding. The running.
He’d still found time for this.
And now, I was going to vanish before he ever got the chance to ask.
With shaking hands, I slid the ring onto my finger.
It didn’t fit like it was made for me.
It fit like it already knew me.
Still trembling, I moved to my bag and dug out one of my photos of us from the mountain. We were smiling. Sunlit. Happy.
I flipped it over.
For a second, I just stared at the blank white space.
Like there were words strong enough to survive this.
Like anything I wrote could cross whatever distance Whitaker was about to put between us.
I didn’t even know if Jameson would ever see it.
Whitaker might never let him go. He might keep him breathing just long enough to make me obey, then decide mercy had been too generous.
The thought hollowed me out.
But alive was still alive.
As long as Jameson was breathing, there was a chance.
A terrible one. A thin one. One so fragile I was afraid to touch it.
But still a chance.
So I wrote.
With hands that didn’t want to stop moving.
Every word a blade.
Then I placed it inside the empty ring box and closed the lid.
Just the photo. The words. The weight of everything I couldn’t say.
It would have to hold.
Just like I had to.
Then I went back to packing.
I emptied the wardrobe. The bathroom. The kitchen drawers Jameson had filled with cash, medical supplies, ammunition, and burners.
I closed his larger bag and carried it to the car.
Then mine.
Then the hard equipment case.
The laptop and charger came last.
I packed the notebook, pens, receipts, and scraps of paper I had scattered through the house. I took the coats from the chairs, the boots from the back door, the medical supplies, and every document I could find.
By the time I finished, the rental looked as though no one had ever planned to stay there.
Almost.
I left the small London bag in the bedroom.
One change of clothes. A few shirts. Socks. His spare glasses.
The empty ring box sat on top with the photograph sealed inside.
One bag.
One box.
One goodbye.
Everything else came with me.
I carried the last case through the back door and loaded it beside the others.
The car was where Whitaker said it would be, black, quiet, waiting.
I went through the rental one final time.
Empty kitchen. Empty wardrobe. Bare table.
Only the small bag and ring box remained in the bedroom.
Then I stepped outside and locked the door behind me.
I slid into the seat and turned the key. The engine hummed under me like it didn’t know what I’d just done. The road blurred before I even put it in gear.
I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave. But I couldn’t stay. Not if this meant saving his life.
The tires rolled over gravel. I kept my eyes forward. Didn’t look back. Didn’t dare.
But the tears still came, hard, fast, unstoppable. By the time I hit the turnoff, I could barely see the road through the sobs.
I gripped the wheel until my knuckles turned white. Kept breathing. Kept driving. Because I had to. Because he had to live.
But God.
I’d never known a pain like this.