32. Cam
Not only did I lead her astray—I was careless.
I should’ve thought beyond the heat of it. Beyond myself. About the fallout, and not just that, I should have thought about her.
The last thing she needs is the risk of carrying my mistakes.
It was reckless. Stupid. And the more I sit with it, the clearer it becomes—this wasn’t just a lapse in judgment. It was a betrayal of everything I was supposed to protect.
She deserves better.
She deserves safety and stability. Someone who puts her first—not whatever this is that keeps pulling us under.
I can’t let selfishness blur the mission. Not again. Not until I know she’s truly safe.
Until then, this stops here.
I pushed harder than I should’ve at the gym this evening, I can feel it through the protest of muscle and burn in my lungs, but the ache was worth it. I needed the release, needed somewhere to dump the frustration clawing at me from the inside out.
It gave me space to think and plan.
Talia’s intel says they’re making a move in the next couple of days. Which means time’s almost up.
This stopped being a job the moment she crashed into my world. It’s not about Kyla anymore—at least not just her. It’s about Nell. This unpredictable, maddening woman who’s torn through my control like it was tissue paper.
And I can’t let her vanish like the rest. I won’t.
She’s not a file. Not a mark. Not a shadow I track through a scope. She’s real. And the thought of walking through my front door and not finding her here—no laughter in the kitchen, no stolen glances across the room—it twists something deep in my chest.
Something I’m not ready to name.
She’s already up to something—typical. Blissfully unaware of the hard conversation looming just beyond the edge of this moment.
I hang back, watching from the threshold, not ready to shatter it just yet. There’s something about seeing her like this—unfiltered, absorbed in whatever mischief she’s brewing—that makes me want to bottle the scene and keep it.
Except… I have no idea what she’s actually doing.
She’s perched precariously on a chair, arms stretched high toward the smoke alarm in the hallway. One wobble away from a cracked skull.
My gut tightens. This is a disaster in the making.
“What are you doing?”
I ask, already ticking through a mental risk assessment of every unsafe thing in this scene.
She startles, glancing down, wide-eyed like I’ve caught her mid-theft.
“I, uh… I needed some batteries,”
she stammers.
I blink.
“And the smoke alarm was your best option?”
“It’s the only thing I know that takes double A’s,”
she mutters, not quite meeting my eye.
I sigh, folding my arms across my still-sweaty chest.
“And what do you need double A’s for, exactly?”
She blushes.
And in that instant, I know. Of course I know.
Little sex demon.
“It’s fine,”
she rushes out.
“I’ll just grab some from the shop.”
I arch a brow.
“If you’d asked, I would’ve shown you where I keep them. You don’t need to strip my smoke alarms for parts like some battery bandit.”
She smiles clumsily, and for the first time since I met her, she looks happy.
She looks genuinely happy.
Which only makes this so much harder.
The last thing I want to do is wipe that look from her face, but we need to be realistic about the situation. One misstep, one lapse in focus, and she could slip right through my fingers.
I can’t afford that. Not now. Not when everything’s on the line.
Until she’s safe, I have to stay sharp. No distractions. No indulgence.
And yet somehow… she’s become the biggest one of all.
By the time she’s back on solid ground—clutching her prize, cheeks flushed with triumph—I know I’m about to ruin everything.
I take a slow breath, steadying myself against the weight of what needs to be said.
“We need to talk.”
Her smile falters. “Okay…”
It’s written all over her face now—the shift. Apprehension creeping in like a shadow. But I can’t afford to soften, not where she’s concerned.
“We can’t do this, Nell. Not right now. There’s too much at stake and—”
“I knew this was coming,”
she cuts in, her voice brittle with hurt.
“I knew you didn’t really want me. I told you I couldn’t do this if it was going to break me, and what did you do? Took what you wanted and now you’re tossing me aside like I’ve expired.”
She’s fiery and devastated all at once.
And she couldn’t be more wrong.
“You’re not listening,”
I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
“We can’t do this right now. I’m not saying I don’t want—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,”
she snaps, cutting me off.
“If you didn’t want to fuck me, you wouldn’t have. But you did, didn’t you? You took exactly what you wanted.”
Her voice cracks, but she powers through it, eyes blazing.
“How could you? After I told you I didn’t want to get hurt? This—”
she gestures between us, sharp and final.
“—might not mean anything to you. But to me? It meant everything.”
Past tense. Already.
She’s rewriting us in real time, turning it into a mistake before I can explain. And if she’d just stop—just listen—she’d understand I’m not walking away.
I’m trying to protect her.
Even if it means breaking both of us to do it.
She tries to push past me, but I catch her arm—firm, not forceful—refusing to let her walk away from this without hearing me out.
“Nell, you need to listen to me. I still want you.”
She scoffs, eyes flashing.
“Just not now, right? The timing’s not convenient for you.”
It’s not that simple. Not even close. But she’s already building her wall, brick by brick.
“Don’t worry,”
she says, voice brittle.
“I’ve heard it all before. Thanks for confirming exactly what I was afraid of. Touché—you got what you wanted.”
She yanks her arm free, and I let her, for now.
She’s angry. Hurt. She needs space to breathe, to cool down. But she’ll understand. She has to.
Because I’m not letting her go.
This—pushing her away—is the last thing I want. But it’s the only way to keep her safe. And when this is over, when the dust finally settles, I want nothing more than to wake up every damn morning with her tangled in my sheets and her name on my lips.
This is a necessary evil.
But she’s the endgame.