Chapter 37 #2
I shift on the bed, making room for her. And when she climbs in beside me, the distance that once defined us disappears. Not in heat or urgency, but in the simple fact of being seen and staying anyway.
She turns onto her side, facing me. The lamp stays on. No darkness to hide in. No angles that soften or disguise.
Her hand comes up, cupping my face. Her thumb brushes along my jaw, fingertips grazing the rough line of stubble.
“These golden-brown eyes.” She looks deeply into them. “I knew them before but not this way.”
I don’t move.
“And this,” she says, fingers tracing the faint scrape along my cheek. “Stubble looks good on you.”
Her hand drifts, unhurried—thumb brushing my lower lip, the bridge of my nose, learning me by sight and touch. Nothing rushed or hidden.
Her fingers slide into my hair, testing the feel of it. “I like this.”
Her gaze lifts to mine. “You’re very sexy.”
The words land without performance or intent—just honesty. And somehow that undoes me.
Her gaze holds mine, steady and searching.
“Am I what you expected?”
The question isn’t about my face. Not really.
“No. You’re better. Way better.”
We lie there, faces inches apart, eyes locked, the room quiet except for our breathing. No masks. No darkness to blur the edges. Just the truth of what we are.
It’s unfamiliar territory. Exposed. Almost dangerous.
And neither of us looks away.
We lie tangled together, the urgency spent, breath slowing until it matches. Her leg drapes over mine. My arm is across her back, palm warm against her skin.
She shifts, fingers tracing idle patterns along my chest.
“Have I earned knowing your last name?”
Not teasing or playful.
“Bastien Montclaire.”
“Bastien Montclaire,” she says under her breath, testing how it tastes. “Very nice to meet you. How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
“I’m thirty-three.”
I smirk, amused she thinks I wouldn’t already have that detail. “Yes, I know.”
A pause. Then her fingers still.
“The way you moved… the way you ended him with your bare hands… where did you learn to do that?”
I draw a slow breath, weighing the truth.
“Green Berets taught me how to end a threat before it can breathe again.”
Her touch resumes, not retreating or afraid. Attentive.
“And the men you’ve taken care of. The ones you mentioned.”
This is the part I can’t rush or soften.
She lifts her head, meeting my eyes. “I need to understand.”
I don’t answer yet. Not because I won’t, but because once I do, there’s no going back to the space we were in before the truth.
I don’t look away when I start. If I do, I won’t finish.
“My sister’s name was Aimee. She was eighteen. Bright. Kind. The type of girl who believed people were mostly good.”
I feel it then—that familiar tightening, the old pressure behind my ribs. It never goes away. You just learn how to live around it.
“The boy who killed her was drunk. He forced her off the road and kept driving. There were three of them in the car. None of them called for help. Not one of them even checked to see if she was alive.”
The next words are a blade.
“She might’ve made it, but they left her alone in a ditch to die. It was hours before anyone found her.”
“I’m so sorry, Bastien. She didn’t deserve that.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Then I tell her the rest. “They were never charged because of who their fathers were. That’s when I stopped believing justice would always arrive on its own. I made sure they paid when the law didn’t.”
“That’s how it began?”
“After they got away with murder, I started paying attention to the crimes that made headlines and the ones that vanished. The people who walked away because of who they were, or because someone erased the evidence, or because the system failed. I realized too many people were getting away with depraved crimes.”
Names surface in my mind, faces I’ve made sure the world will never see again.
“I’m paid, and paid well, but I don’t do it for money. I do it because they are people who will hurt again.”
Her hand presses against my chest, right over my heart.
“And you stop them.”
“I make sure there are no future victims.”
She leans in, forehead resting against mine. “I understand. The law doesn’t always protect the right people. Sometimes it protects the men who can afford it.”
I study her face and steadiness in her eyes. “Can you live with what I do?”
She shifts closer, palm warm against my chest.
“I can, as long as it’s for the victims and as long as it’s about stopping the harm.”
A pause.
“There are men in this city who are untouchable. Corruption. Human trafficking. Abuse that never makes it to trial because it’s buried so deep. I’ll never be able to touch them.”
I know how much that pains her.
“None of them are beyond my reach, Laurette.”
She pulls back, eyes locked on mine. “It’s interesting, isn’t it? The way our worlds have collided. Seems like we’re fighting the same war but from opposite angles.”
“You and I could have some very interesting conversations. But not tonight. You have court in the morning, and you need your rest.”
She settles against me, exhaustion claiming its due. Within minutes, her breathing evens out, soft and deep, trusting enough to sleep.
I watch the woman who understands the system from the inside, who knows where it breaks, who isn’t afraid of what bleeds out of those fractures.
This woman has intelligence, access, and a ruthless sense of justice. And underneath it all, whether she realizes it yet, a taste for blood.
She’s everything I never allowed myself to imagine wanting.
And she’s already mine.
I feel like I’ve won the fucking lottery.