47. Samson
SAMSON
The night doesn’t settle. Even after my people have seen to the men’s wounds and cleared them away.
I half expected Delaney to demand I take her back to her place, but she didn’t.
Instead, she went to her suite, showered, and returned wearing some silk lounging pajamas. She stands in front of me now, her damp hair hanging around her shoulders, alive and unbroken and looking at me like she sees something she didn’t before.
I step closer, open my mouth—
But she places two fingers on my lips. “I don’t need to be saved.”
“I know.”
And I do.
That’s not what this is. That’s not what any of this meant. But words aren’t enough here. I don’t have the words to say what I’m feeling, what she’s come to mean to me.
She watches me closely, as if she’s measuring something she hasn’t decided on yet.
I exhale slowly.
The truth is sitting there.
Waiting.
There’s no way around it now.
“You want the truth?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“That night,” I say, “I was told Halstead was the right man. I wasn’t given options. I wasn’t told to question it. I was told where to be and what to do.”
She swallows, and her eyes glisten a bit, but no tears fall. “Go on.”
“I got there and everything lined up. The access point. The timing. The way he moved. The way he positioned himself. I didn’t hesitate. I struck.”
She nods.
“I didn’t stop to confirm. I didn’t stop to question. I did what I was there to do.”
I pause. She inhales.
And I deal the final blow.
“I killed him.”
“I know,” she says.
“I can’t undo that.”
“I know.” She steps closer.
Close enough now that I feel her heat. That same pull.
Still there.
Still wrong.
Still unavoidable.
“I didn’t let myself say it,” she says. “I had pieces. Enough to see the shape of it. Enough to understand what it might be.” She swallows hard. “But I never put the word to it.”
“Why?”
“Because then I’d become a daughter.” She casts her gaze to the floor.
“I couldn’t let emotion be a part of this.
What I was trying to do. If I thought my father, I wouldn’t have been able to look at anything objectively.
I wouldn’t have been able to build a case.
I wouldn’t have been able to stand in it.
” She shakes her head. “I would have drowned. So I kept it separate. Kept him separate. He was simply a name. A file. A case.”
Damn.
A name. A file.
Or in my case…a target.
I nod because I understand that more than I should. I did the same thing in a different way.
“I didn’t question him,” I say. “Because everything told me I didn’t have to.”
“You were used,” she says.
I hold her gaze. “Yes.”
I want to say so much to her. But with everything that sits between us now, I’m not sure I can. I never should have gotten this close.
But it’s too late to change anything now.
There’s no more illusion. Just truth. And it’s worse than anything we were avoiding.
Because we’re still here, facing each other, choosing to stay in it.
I lift my hand, ready to touch her soft cheek, but I stop myself.
“If I touch you,” I say quietly, “this doesn’t go away.”
“I know.”
“If I don’t—”
“It doesn’t go away either.” She steps closer and closes the distance between us.
“No, it doesn’t.” This time I do touch her. Slide my finger over her lower lip and then up across her cheek. “I don’t walk away from things I choose.”
Her breath catches.
“And I choose you.”
The words aren’t particularly romantic, not even sexy. They’re just the simple truth, and they mean everything because they cost something.
“That makes you reckless,” she says, her lips curving upward.
“It makes me honest.”
She nods. “Then we finish it. We figure it all out. The setup. The lie. The person who made that night happen the way it did.”
I nod. “Yes.”
I slide my hand around her throat, gently this time. Her pulse jumps under my fingers.
“We finish it,” I say. “All of it.”