Page 39 of Mine to Fear
She kissed me then, soft and desperate and full of everything we’d been too afraid to say. And this time, when the kiss started to deepen, when I pulled her closer and felt her melt against me, neither of us pulled away.
This time, it felt like a promise instead of a goodbye.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, she rested her forehead against mine.
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“We’ll call the FBI. We set up surveillance. We coordinate with local law enforcement. And we give Dex exactly what he thinks he wants.”
“Which is?”
“You. But on our terms, in a place we control, with backup we trust.”
“And then?”
“Then we end this. Permanently.”
She nodded, that fierce determination back in her eyes. “When?”
“Tomorrow night. We’ll arrange the meeting, set the trap, and finish what he started.”
“And if something goes wrong?”
I pulled her closer, needing her to understand that this wasn’t just about tactics and strategy. This was about the future we might never get to have if we didn’t survive the next twenty-four hours.
“Then at least we’ll go down fighting,” I said. “Together.”
For the first time since she entered my office, she smiled. And despite everything—the threats, the danger, the possibility that we might not survive what was coming—I felt something I hadn’t experienced in weeks.
Hope.
Because Willa wasn’t running anymore. She was finally willing to let me fight for her, instead of sacrificing herself to save me.
And that was worth risking everything to protect.
17WILLA
The warehouse stretchedout before me like a cavern, all concrete and shadows and the smell of rust and abandonment. I chose this place deliberately—it reminded me of the alley where Dex shot me, where I thought I was going to die alone and be forgotten. But this time, I wasn’t running. This time, I was walking straight into the mouth of the beast.
“Radio check,” Agent Morrison’s voice whispered through the nearly invisible earpiece hidden beneath my hair. “We have eyes on you, Willa. Remember, we need him to confess to the security breaches and the threats against Cross Security’s clients. Get him talking.”
I touched the small recording device hidden beneath my sweater, feeling the bulk of the Kevlar vest that made me feel both protected and trapped. FBI agents were positioned throughout the building like invisible guardians, Kieran was monitoring from a van two blocks away, and every entrance was covered. This should have been foolproof.
But as I walked deeper into the warehouse, my footsteps echoing off the concrete, I felt the familiar tightening in my chest that came with proximity to danger. To him.
“Hello, beautiful.”
His voice drifted from the shadows ahead of me, and I had to force myself to keep walking, to not turn around and run. He stepped into the pool of light cast by a single flickering bulb, and my breath caught.
Dex looked different. Leaner, more dangerous, his expensive clothes replaced by dark jeans and a black hoodie that made him look less like the charming artist I married and more like the predator he always was underneath. But his eyes were the same—pale green and cold, studying me like I was something he owned.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming,” he said, his hands in his pockets, posture casual despite the gravity of what we were doing. “Thought maybe your boyfriend convinced you to be brave.”
“I’m here,” I said, proud that my voice came out steady. “Now delete the client files. All of them.”
He laughed, the sound echoing off the warehouse walls. “Giving orders, I see. That’s new.”
“I’m not the same person I was when I left.”
