23. Kane
KANE
Three days.
That's how long it takes me to learn the difference between Delilah being gone and Delilah choosing not to be in the same room as me.
She's everywhere in the house. I hear her on the phone with Priya in the morning. I smell coffee from the kitchen when I come downstairs. I see evidence of her presence in the jacket draped over a chair, the laptop left open on the dining table, the shoes kicked off by the door.
But I don't see her.
She leaves for the rental kitchen before I'm awake. She comes home after dinner. When we pass each other in the hall, she nods and keeps walking.
It's worse than when she stayed at Priya's.
At least then I could tell myself she needed space. That she was processing what happened in the basement and figuring out whether she could still trust me.
Now she's three floors away and might as well be on a different continent.
I miss the interruptions. The way she'd appear in my office doorway with questions about security updates or contractor schedules, then stay for half an hour arguing about something completely unrelated.
I miss her complaints about my coffee being too strong.
I miss the assumption that I'd see her before bed, even if we were fighting.
I fucking miss her.
On the morning of the third day, I'm standing in the kitchen staring at the coffee maker when Niko texts.
Got movement on the accountant. Fisk's lawyer called. Wants to talk deal.
I forward the message to Lilah with no comment.
Then I wait.
Five minutes pass. Ten. I pour coffee I don't want and lean against the counter, watching my phone.
Her reply comes through at the fifteen-minute mark.
Thanks. Forwarded to Skye.
That's it. No can we talk about this or meet me downstairs. Just a professional acknowledgment that she received information relevant to the case.
She's treating me like a business associate.
Which is what I told her I'd be when I walked out of my own bedroom three nights ago.
I set the phone down and drink bad coffee in an empty kitchen.
The rest of the day passes the same way. Niko brings updates on the marina surveillance. Yuri confirms the boat rental was paid for through a shell account we're still tracing. Anton reviews security schedules.
Normal business. Normal operations.
Except I keep reaching for my phone to text Lilah, then remembering she doesn't want to hear from me unless it's about Vetrov.
By evening I'm standing in the second-floor hallway outside the closed door of the guest suite she moved into after our fight, trying to decide if knocking counts as respecting boundaries or violating them.
I'm still deciding when the door opens and Delilah nearly walks into me.
She stops short. "Oh."
"Hey," I say.
"Hey." She shifts her bag to her other shoulder. "I was just heading out."
"Where?"
"Priya's. We're finalizing some menu updates."
"It's eight o'clock."
"I know what time it is."
We stand there in the hall. She's wearing jeans and one of my old t-shirts she must have taken from my room before she moved out. The sight of it does something complicated to my chest.
"Can we talk?" I ask.
"About what?"
"About the fact that you've been avoiding me for three days."
"I haven't been avoiding you. I've been working."
"Until eight at night."
"The bakery doesn't run itself, Kane."
She moves to step around me. I shift to block her path.
Her eyes narrow. "Really?"
"I miss you," I say.
"Well. That's unfortunate."
The flatness in her voice is worse than anger would be.
"Lilah—"
"I told you I needed space. You said you understood."
"I do understand. But I didn't think that meant you'd treat me like I don't exist."
"I'm not treating you like anything. I'm just not pretending everything's fine when it isn't."
"So this is punishment."
"Of course not." She meets my eyes. "You made a choice on the Fourth. You told me you couldn't handle me going to Poconos, and when I said I was going anyway, you walked out. So now I'm giving you what you wanted—distance."
"That's not what I wanted."
"Then what did you want? For me to stay home and be grateful you let me?"
"I wanted you to understand why I was scared."
"I did understand. I still do." Her face smooths. "But understanding doesn't mean agreeing, Kane. And it definitely doesn't mean giving up something that matters to me just because you asked."
I lean against the wall. "So where does that leave us?"
"I don't know." She adjusts her bag again. "I'm still going to Poconos next month. And you're still going to hate it. So I guess we just... exist in our separate spaces until we figure out if we can live with that."
"I don't want separate spaces."
"Neither do I. But I also don't want to spend the rest of my life negotiating my freedom with someone who thinks protecting me means controlling where I go."
"That's not what I was doing."
"Yes, it was." She says it gently, which makes it worse. "You told me you couldn't handle me leaving your territory, so you asked me to cancel my trip. And when I said no, you left. That's control, Kane. It might be wrapped up in concern and trauma and good intentions, but it's still control."
I want to argue. To tell her she's wrong.
But the thing is, she's not.
I did ask her to cancel. I did walk out when she refused. And if I'm being honest, part of me expected that to be the end of the argument—that she'd realize how serious I was and choose to stay.
Instead she chose to go.
And I've been punishing her for it ever since by refusing to admit I'm the one who turned three days of professional courtesy into whatever this cold silence has become.
"I thought you'd come downstairs," I admit.
"Why would I?"
"Because we were fighting."
"We're still fighting."
"I know. But I thought—" I stop and start over. “I guess I expected you to be the one who ended it."
"Why? Because I'm better at apologizing?"
The accuracy of that is hard to dispute.
"Maybe," I say.
She studies me for a second. "I'm not going to apologize for refusing to let you lock me up, Kane. Not even to make you feel better about the fact that your fear almost cost us our relationship."
"I wasn't trying to lock you up."
"Then what were you trying to do?"
I don't have a good answer for that.
Or maybe I do, and I just don't want to say it out loud.
"I was trying to keep you close," I finally admit. "Because the idea of you being hurt makes me feel like I'm suffocating."
"I know." Her voice goes soft. "But Kane, that's not my issue to fix. That's yours."
"You think I don't know that?"
"I think you know it in theory. But in practice, you're still asking me to manage your fear by limiting my choices."
She's right. Again.
I scrub a hand over my face. "I don't know how to do this."
"Do what?"
"Be with you without constantly imagining every way you could get hurt."
"Then learn."
I look at her standing in the hallway in my t-shirt, her bag packed for a night at Priya's, her mood between exhausted and sad.
"What if I came with you?" I ask. "To Poconos."
She blinks. "What?"
"If I came with you to the lake house. With discreet security. Would you still want me there?"
"Why are you offering that now?"
"Because I miss you. And because I don't want to spend another three days wondering if you're going to move out entirely."
"So you're compromising."
"Yes."
"And if I say yes, you'll spend the whole trip resenting me for making you go to a place that you think is dangerous."
"No, I won't."
"Kane." She crosses her arms. "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying. I'm telling you I want to be where you are, even if it scares me."
"That's not the same as not resenting me."
I want to argue. But she's watching me with the same expression she wore when she told me she couldn't trust her own judgment, and I realize she's asking me to be honest instead of reassuring.
"Okay," I say. "Fine. I'll be tense. I'll check in with Yuri ten times a day. I'll probably spend the whole week watching the water and planning extraction routes instead of relaxing."
"See? You'll hate it."
"No. I'll hate worrying. But I won't hate being there with you."
She studies me. "And you won't make me regret bringing you?"
"What does that mean?"
"It means I need to know you're not going to spend the entire trip punishing me for refusing to cancel."
The accusation sits heavy between us.
"Is that what I've been doing?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Here? Or just in my head?"
"Both."
I lean my head back against the wall. "Yeah. Okay. You're right."
"I know I am."
"And I'm sorry."
She shifts. "For what, specifically?"
"For walking out after the Fourth. For spending three days avoiding you while expecting you to fix things for both of us."
"And?"
"And for asking you to cancel the trip in the first place."
Her features smooth over. "Okay."
"Okay you forgive me, or okay you heard me?"
"Okay I heard you." She adjusts her bag again. "The forgiveness part is still pending."
I almost smile. "Fair enough."
"But I'm not staying home just because you apologized."
"I know."
"And I'm not canceling Poconos."
"I know that too."
"So if you come with me, you're coming as my boyfriend. Not my bodyguard."
"What's the difference?"
"A boyfriend trusts me to make my own choices. A bodyguard just wants to keep me alive."
"I can do both."
"Can you?"
"I don't know. But I want to try."
She pauses before answering. "I need to think about it."
"Okay."
"And I still need to go to Priya's tonight."
"Okay."
She starts to move past me, then stops. "Kane?"
"Yeah?"
"I miss you too."
The admission does something to my chest that makes it hard to breathe right.
I step closer. Close enough to touch her if I wanted to. "Then stay."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm still angry with you. And because I don't trust myself when you're standing this close."
"You don't trust yourself, or you don't trust me?"
"Both." She looks up at me. "You scare me, Kane."
"I'd never hurt you."
"I know. But you'd keep me in a cage if you thought it would keep me safe. And part of me would let you because I love you and I want to make you happy." Her throat works. "That's what scares me. Not that you'll hurt me. That I'll let you control me because I'm too afraid of losing you to say no."
I reach for her face before I can stop myself. She doesn't pull away.
"I don't want to control you," I say.
"I know. But you do it anyway."
"Not anymore."
"You say that now. But what about the next time you get scared? What about when someone else takes pictures or follows me or makes you think I'm in danger?"
"Then I'll tell you about it and we'll deal with it together."
"Without asking me to stay home?"
"Without asking you to stay home."
She searches my face. "You mean that?"
"I'm trying to."
"That's not the same thing."
"It's the best I can give you right now."
Lilah falls quiet.
"Okay," she says eventually.
"Okay?"
"Okay, you can come to Poconos. If you still want to."
Relief crashes through me so hard I forget how to respond.
She must see it on my face, because she softens. "But Kane, if you spend the whole trip making me regret it—"
"I won't."
"You don't know that."
"No. But I know I don't want to spend another week like this one."
She steps back, putting space between us again. "I should go."
"Stay."
"Kane—"
"Just for tonight. We don't have to—" I stop. Try again. "I just miss having you in the same room."
Emotion flashes in her eyes. Longing, maybe, or regret.
But she shakes her head. "I can't. If I stay now, I'll stay tomorrow too. And the night after that. And eventually I'll forget why I was angry in the first place."
"Would that be so bad?"
"Yes. Because you need to sit with this for a while longer."
"Sit with what?"
"The fact that you almost lost me by trying too hard to keep me."
The words hit like a fist to the chest.
She's right. Again.
"Three days wasn't long enough?" I ask.
"No." She touches my arm briefly. "But I'm not leaving you, Kane. I'm just not coming back to your bed until I'm sure you understand."
Then she's moving past me, heading for the stairs.
I watch her go, my hands flexed at my sides, wanting to follow and knowing I shouldn't.
At the top of the stairs she pauses and looks back. "For what it's worth? I hate this too."
"Then don't go."
"I have to." Her smile is sad. "One of us needs to be strong enough to hold the line."
Then she's gone.
I stand in the hallway for a long time, staring at the closed door of the guest suite.
She's right that I almost lost her. That I need to sit with it.
And she's right that part of me still wants to keep her where I can see her at all times, even though I know that's not love—it's fear dressed up as protection.
But she's also wrong about one thing.
She's not the only one being strong.
It took everything I had not to follow her down those stairs. To let her walk out the door without making her promise to come back. To accept that she's choosing Priya's couch over my bed because she's trying to prove something to herself about her own boundaries.
I hate it.
But I'm doing it anyway.
Because she asked me to.