Page 60 of Twisted Steel

Her eyes flash.“You are extremely irritating for someone with the emotional range of a locked gun cabinet.”

I step closer, and she doesn’t retreat.“Harper.”

“No.”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“You were about to.”

I was.Not for a kiss but for something worse.I was about to ask her to wait for me.Not to look at any other man the way she looks at me.To keep breathing until I come back.To let me be the thing between her and death, even if she hates how good I am at it.

Instead, I say, “Stay with the guards.”She looks disappointed.

That shouldn’t please me, but it does.

“That’s what you wanted to say?”she asks.

“No.”

Her eyes search mine.There’s too much between us now.Too much blood.Too much truth.Too much almost.

“What did you want to say?”she whispers.

I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to move.When she doesn’t, my fingers brush her jaw, barely touching the smear of blood I missed earlier.Her skin is warm.Soft.Alive.

“I wanted to say I don’t know how to do this without becoming worse.”

Her face softens, and it scares the hell out of me.“Then don’t become worse,” she says.“Become precise.”

A rough breath leaves me.Only Harper Quinn would look at a man like me and prescribe a cleaner form of violence.“Do you understand what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Then explain it.”

I lean closer.Not kissing her.Not yet.Just close enough that my voice can stay between us.“If I go tonight and Reaper is there, I’ll end him.”Her eyes don’t move from mine.“If men stand between him and me, I’ll go through them.”Her breathing changes.“If anyone touches you again, I won’t be precise.I won’t be controlled.I’ll be what they already think I am.”

Her fingers curl around my wrist, not pulling away but holding on.

“And what if I ask you to come back with blood on your hands but your head clear?”she asks.

My throat works.No one has ever asked that of me.Men point me toward violence and call it useful.Women touch danger and call it exciting until they see its truth.The club trusts me to break things.Enemies trust me to hurt them.

Harper is asking me to choose.Not whether to be violent.Whether to be ruled by it.

“I can try,” I say.

Her eyes shine.“Okay.”

That one word nearly brings me to my knees.I lower my forehead to hers, just for a second, a dangerous second.Her hand slides from my wrist to my chest again but this time, she leaves it there.

“You’re coming back,” she says.

It’s not a question but a stated fact I agree with.“Yes.”

“And if you get shot, I’m going to be very angry.”