Chapter 43
Chapter forty-three
Halo
“Dead Men Dream, Too”
She felt like fire and forgiveness. Tight and wet and trembling around me, pulling me in, melting the armor I’d spent years forging.
I moved inside her slow, deep. Not to tease her…
God, no. I was trying to remember, memorize the way her breath hitched, the way her nails curled into my back, the way her eyes didn’t look away even when mine did… That fucking killed me.
I was afraid of getting too caught up in the pleasure, that I might forget some little sound she made or miss some expression she gave me.
She was one of the only good things I’d ever known, and I didn’t know if I remembered so few because they were rare, or because I’d made myself forget.
Because remembering made surviving harder; it made you drift.
Every thrust felt like a question I’d never asked before: Can I be more than this? Can I have this? And as though to answer me every time she pulled me closer, the answer came back silent but thunderous: yes.
I felt her tightening around me: tighter, fluttering.
She was close. Her hand moved between us, fingers working that perfect rhythm, chasing the edge.
My own breath caught. Fuck, she was beautiful.
Flushed and desperate and alive beneath me.
Not afraid, not flinching. I would never get used to the sight of her.
When she came, it fractured something in me.
The way she cried out my name like it meant something, like I meant something, and the way her body clenched around mine triggered something raw.
I’d buried it under blood and bullets and silence.
I knew better than this. I knew that if I really cared about her I wouldn’t put her through this.
I tried to hold on. I did. But I didn’t regret it this time.
My release hit me like a wave to the chest, unstoppable. I groaned, low and hoarse, biting back the noise because it felt like too much, too loud, too human. My hips jerked forward one last time and I spilled into her, clinging to her like I was drowning.
I didn’t know how to move after, didn’t know how to breathe without hurting because I knew I would never have this again. I hadn’t planned on this. It just tore out of me like it had been building behind my teeth for weeks. Maybe longer. Like it was the one honest thing I had left in me.
Her skin was soft beneath me, and her breath was steadier than mine. I kept waiting for the shame to come crashing down, for the guilt to wrap around my throat like it always did. It didn’t. Not right away. She didn’t let go, she didn’t run, she just held me like I was something worth staying for.
I had covered us in the blanket, hoping that somehow it might shield us from having to move on from this time and this place. Eden was already asleep, or close to it.
Her breath moved against my chest in slow, even pulls, like waves lapping at a shore. Her arm was curled over my ribs, one bare thigh slung across mine. I could feel the press of her everywhere: skin, warmth, the weight of her trust like a fucking anchor I wasn’t strong enough to pull free from.
My shoulder still throbbed from the fresh opening, the scent of her skin tangled with blood. She’d stitched me up with trembling hands and more courage than I deserved.
I wasn’t made for softness, though. I wasn’t made for an after like this.
The part of me that was trained to kill, to survive, was screaming now, telling me this was a mistake.
Reminding me that she’d only end up paying the price for it.
Everyone who got close to me eventually did.
It was just how things were. People in this industry didn’t have friends, families.
Those were things to be exploited, used against you.
You made a lot of enemies when you were a gun for hire; someone was always looking for a way to hurt you.
Letting someone in was selfish. I had told myself this so many times since I had met her.
Like I was trying to convince myself. I had almost lost her because of the people after me.
She could have died. They could have broken her jaw and raped her, torturing every ounce of hope and goodness out of her.
She shifted in her sleep, her nose brushing my chest, her mouth parting on a soft breath. Innocent and unaware.
Jesus.
I could still feel that echo of her around me, and I hated that I wanted it more.
I wanted her. The way her body took mine like it wasn’t afraid, like I could never hurt her.
Her laughter, her voice in the dark, her hands on my skin, her fire.
Her fucking hope. The way she looked at me like I could be more.
Like she wasn’t afraid even though she knew she should be.
If I was smart, I’d get out of this bed.
I’d put distance between us. I’d remember the mission, the orders, the truth of what I was made to do.
I’d make it hurt enough that she never reached for me again.
I could do it so easily. She was so soft.
A few harsh, unkind words, and her heart would be broken.
She’d never look at me the same again, she’d never seek me out again.
But I didn’t move because her leg tightened slightly around mine, her body inching closer even in sleep, and I convinced myself that maybe it was just tonight.
Maybe it was all I’d get, but for now, I stayed.
Not because I was brave, but because for the first time in a long damn time, I didn’t want to feel alone.
For the first time, I wondered what the fuck I’d been fighting so hard to survive for, if not for this.
My body was still aching in the way a man aches after something he never thought he’d have again. I couldn’t feel the pain of my physical wounds, not anymore. I hurt from something that cut so much deeper. I hurt because of her, because of hope. And that… that was more dangerous than the bullet.
I reached up, running my hand down her shoulder, along the familiar shape of her, the warmth, the way her skin felt against mine like it had always belonged there.
Then I slowly, quietly pulled away.
She murmured something in her sleep and I froze, waiting, but she didn’t wake.
She just curled tighter into the spot I’d left behind, chasing the shape of me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands.
Those hands that had done too much bad in the world, broken too many things, pulled too many triggers.
They’d touched her, and it felt filthy every time.
No blood on them now, just her scent, and it made something inside me burn again. She didn’t belong in my world. I didn’t belong in hers. I didn’t know which was worse.
I reached for a fresh shirt and as I pulled it overhead, it stuck to the wound on my shoulder, and I winced.
I glanced over my shoulder at her sleeping form again.
She looked so peaceful and content, like we hadn’t been going through hell.
It twisted something sharp in my gut. This made it so much harder to walk away.
“Eden?”
Barely a whisper. She didn’t stir. I moved slowly, careful not to wake her.
She made a small sound of protest as the bed shifted and then curled tighter into the space I’d left behind.
I stood at the edge of the bed longer than I should’ve, just watching.
The slope of her back beneath the blankets, the little wrinkle between her brows, the soft rise and fall of her breath.
She deserved so much more than a man like me.
Satisfied that my voice wouldn’t wake her, I stepped into the bathroom, closed the door, and pressed my hands to the sink.
My shoulder throbbed where the stitches tugged, blood soaked into gauze I hadn’t bothered to change.
I could still feel her kiss there, her mouth soft over the wound.
Like maybe if she gave it tenderness, it wouldn’t bleed.
I turned on the faucet just to cover the silence. Pulled out the old burner from my jacket pocket and powered it on. I hadn’t used this number in over a year.
It only rang twice, then came her voice, flat and dangerous. It managed to pull a small smile out of me.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Havoc.” I cooed her nickname, taking on the scolding tone of someone admonishing a child for cussing.
Silence. The line went still long enough that I thought she’d hung up, until her voice returned, lower now.
“Well, if it isn’t my baby brother. You never call anymore. I’d be less surprised if our dad’s corpse was calling. You’re either dying or desperate, huh?”
“Little of both,” I said. My throat felt like it was lined with gravel. “I need help.”
“I thought we decided to burn that bridge a long time ago, Halo. You calling just to piss on the ashes?”
“No. I’m calling because I trust you.” I hesitated. “You’re the only person I can trust.”
That did something. Even through the phone, I could hear her breathing shift.
“What is it?” She sighed, voice softening but still sharp.
“There’s a woman.” I swallowed the rest. I wasn’t good at explanations. Not when it came to Eden. “I have to do some things, some dangerous things. I can’t have her caught in the crossfire.”
“She yours?”
The words hit like a punch I didn’t see coming. I looked down at my hand and saw it was shaking.
“Yeah,” I said. “She is.”
“Fucking Christ, Halo.”
“I know,” I whispered the response.
“Why do you need me?”
“Because I can’t keep her safe. Not where I’m going, and once it’s done…” I paused, jaw locked. “Once it’s done, I disappear. She goes free.”
“You’re still running the same old playbook, huh?” Havoc sounded tired now. Not angry, just tired in a way only people like us ever got. “You always were that selfless type that pissed me off. So you’re going to save the girl, die the martyr.”
I didn’t argue. Because we both knew it was true.
“I need her off the grid. Hidden, protected, quiet. You’re the only one I trust to make her vanish and stay invisible until I know the coast is clear.”
“You think she’s gonna forgive you for this?”
“She’s not supposed to.”
Another long silence, and then Havoc exhaled.
“Send me the coordinates. I’ll come for her.”
My grip on the phone tightened. “Thanks, V.”
“Don’t thank me. Just make sure no one comes looking for her. I’ll hide her, but you know I won’t fight for her.”
The line went dead. On the contrary, I knew Havoc would fight for her.
I leaned against the sink, breathing like I’d just been shot again.
I looked at myself in the mirror, at the eyes that looked too much like my father’s.
I hated that this was the best I could give Eden.
I splashed cold water on my face, dried it on the towel she’d left hanging, then I went back into the main room.
She was still asleep on the cot, curled into the dent my body had left behind.
I lay down beside her one last time, just long enough to feel her reach for me in her sleep.
Just long enough to let myself pretend I wasn’t already gone.
I wanted to say goodbye, but I knew if she was awake when I left her with Havoc, she’d fight me. She’d ask me what the hell I was doing, why I was running from this.
But it wasn’t running. It was the only way to keep her safe, and she couldn’t understand that.
I had to let her go back to the world she belonged to.
Her normal. Her freedom. I’d vanish like I was never real and maybe in time, she’d believe that I wasn’t.
That’s what ghosts were for. That’s what I was made for.
And so when this was over, when Matteo was gone and the last loose thread was cut—so would I be.
No loose ends.
No tracks to follow.
No return.
It was the only way to make sure she lived.
If I stayed, it would destroy her, one way or another.
I could kill everyone involved, burn every scrap of intel with her name on it, erase the hit like it never happened…
but it wouldn’t undo the years of enemies I had collected before this that were just waiting for that soft spot to plunge the knife.
She rustled behind me in the bed, and I turned away from her. If I looked at her, I’d lose the little resolve I had left. Her voice would do it too. That soft rasp she always had in the mornings, like every word had to fight its way into daylight.
I grabbed the duffel near the door. Checked the weight and contents. Enough ammo.
I heard her make a sound again and then her voice, “Halo?”
“Have to go for a few, go back to sleep,” I said, trying to keep my tone even.
“That’s okay. Be careful?” She breathed, so tired that I wasn’t even sure she was consciously responding. “I’ll wait for you.”
I looked at her then, really looked at her, and, fuck, it nearly broke me.
You shouldn’t. The words didn’t make it to my lips. I walked out anyway. Because the best thing I could give her was a world without me in it. Because the only thing more dangerous than loving her was staying with her… and I’d already destroyed too many beautiful things about her.