Chapter 47 | Anna #2
The moment he said breakfast, my stomach rumbled. I ignored it, though, and moved to the French doors to peer out.
“This is fantastic,” I said.
“Anna—”
“Look at this!” I flung them open.
“Anna—”
“Fresh air. Morning light.”
“Anna.”
“What?” I turned to face him. “Am I in trouble?”
“When are you not in trouble?”
“Valid,” I said.
He held a hand out to me. “Come here.”
I hesitated. He looked… annoyed and tired. I left the doors open and walked to the side of the bed. He took my hand.
“Sit.”
“You’re so bossy.” But I sat, gingerly, on the side of the bed.
It was big enough there was room for me.
His grip tightened—not hard. Then his gaze landed on the fading bruises at my throat. My instinct was to pull back, turn away. Everything slammed into place. I knew what he wanted to talk about. I didn’t want it, but I decided to get there first.
“You didn’t kill him.” I didn’t have to say the name for him to understand who I meant.
“No.”
“Why not?”
He stared at the wall past my shoulder like the answer lived there. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” I said.
His gaze moved up to my face, question in his eyes.
“Because, despite everything, despite whatever he’s become, you still believe in second chances,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve one.”
I knew this because of the men who got us here and the ones I’d yet to meet.
He said nothing.
“You can’t save everyone. He’s made sure of that,” I said.
He didn’t say anything to that, either. He was deciding whether to accept it—or defy it.
“He was waiting for you,” he said.
My stomach turned. The memory of his hand on my throat. The metal rack against my skull. The black spots at the edge of my vision.
“He was. It wasn’t a coincidence,” I said with a nod. “He intended to take me back. Why else would he be there?”
I wasn’t certain. And it was something I tried not to think about. Because it would drive me mad to know I’d come that close again. And Kincade would be dead.
“They knew,” he said. “Or suspected. The cameras being down, the guards late… it wasn’t sloppy. It was bait.”
“And we walked right into it.”
Not only that, but they still had pieces of my life stored on hard drives and cloud servers.
He didn’t deny it. His thumb brushed over my knuckles. I could tell he was thinking it through, trying to come up with another plan, another way to get back there and finish it.
I had to derail that.
“I think…” My voice was slow. Careful. “I think I’m going to have to be okay with knowing what they have.”
“No, fuck that.”
The hostility in it made me flinch.
“But—”
“I’ll find another way,” he said. “We will.”
I blinked. And then I understood. That’s what was bothering him. Not that he’d come within inches of death and they’d come within inches of taking me.
It was the fact they still had pieces of me. And then something occurred to me. There were other ways to destroy data—from the inside. We didn’t have to destroy servers. We had to destroy the data. I filed that away for future deep thinking.
And for now, that didn’t bother me as much anymore. Something else did.
“I thought you were going to die.”
My breath hitched and for a second, I thought I might crack—all the way—this time. But I forced those emotions back down.
His eyes closed once. Brief. Like he took the hit and stayed upright, anyway.
“I know.”
He’d known in the moment—I’d heard it in his voice—and he’d still kept moving.
“You’re not indestructible, you know.”
“Yes, I am.”
So stubborn. I rolled my eyes.
“You scared the hell out of me.” This time my voice did crack.
“I know that, too,” he replied. “We failed because I underestimated them.”
Kincade didn’t admit error lightly. Not when he could carry it alone and bury it like everything else.
“And because I didn’t plan for Decker,” he continued. “I should have.”
My throat tightened. “How could you have? He’s Decker.”
“I should have assumed he’d be where it hurt most.”
I stared at him. At the tension in his face. At the exhaustion. At the way he was still trying to hold the entire world upright even from a bed.
I hadn’t seen him coming. And that should have terrified me more than it did.
“So now what?” I asked. “We hide out in this beautiful villa and eat fancy German cookies until you’re healed?”
“And then finish what we started.” His eyes lifted to mine. “With help. The ones I trust.”
The Quiet Watch. Part dread, part relief shifted through me.
His hand tightened on mine. “Come closer.”
“I don’t think that’s safe.”
“It’s not. Do it anyway.”
“You’re still bossy,” I murmured.
“You’re still trouble,” he countered.
“At least we’re consistent.”
I slid forward carefully, keeping the bed as motionless as I could. When I was a breath away, his hand came up—warm, sure—cupping my cheek.
“You can stop being strong for a minute,” he said.
My throat tightened. I didn’t know how to do that without falling apart.
“Here,” he added, quieter. “With me.”
And then he kissed me.
Soft at first—careful—like he was giving me room to pull back.
But I didn’t. I leaned in instead. The kiss deepened, unhurried and sure.
His thumb brushed along my jaw, gentle despite the strength I knew was there.
I tasted relief on his lips—mine or his, I couldn’t tell—and underneath it, a promise. The kind that didn’t need words.
Since the night I thought he was dying on that kitchen table, I let myself believe we’d make it.