I stay behind.
I scan the devastation in the foyer; bodies scattered, limbs awkward, blood already drying under flickering overhead lights. Dead eyes stare through me. But I don’t flinch. I don’t feel sick. I feellight.
Because those bastards won’t touch another girl again. Ever.
And I want this feeling again. The rush. The clarity. The satisfaction of knowing we got them out—that we punched a hole in the dark. Until Manticore crumbles from the inside out, this is our mission.
I don’t know how he’s going to clean this mess or protect his cover, and I don’t need to. Cam’s a professional. This part isn’t mine. Mine is the girls.
And maybe, just maybe, saving them is saving me too. A slow healing by proxy. Cam’s carried the weight of it for too long. Now it’s my turn to shoulder it.
“Nell,” Cam’s voice coils through me, low and grounding and I turn on instinct.
“Talia’s giving you a lift back to the house while I finish up here,” he says. “She and the girls will hole up at the safehouse. You’ve got the spare key—get inside and lock the door. I’ll come to you when I’m done.”
A gust slices through the flimsy fabric of my dress, biting at my legs, the false identity of a woman bound to serve stripped away in the wind.
“Here,” Cam says, shrugging off his combat jacket and draping it over my shoulders, fastening it at the collar like armour. It’s heavier than I imagined.
“Thanks,” I breathe, looking up at him with everything I can’t say out loud. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he says with a smirk that lifts the corners of his face covering. “Now get your ass home. Stay put.”
“Yes sir,” I tease, throwing it back with a grin. His raised brow sends butterflies swarming through me—the good kind. The kind that remind you you’re alive.
Talia seemed warmer on the drive back—actually asked how I was feeling. I tried not to read into it. She was riding high off a successful op. But now, curled up in bed with a steaming cup of tea and Boomerang nestled in my lap, kneading the blanket like it’s the softest thing he’s ever touched, my mind starts spiralling through the night’s events.
And then it settles on him—the way he looked in that goddamn uniform, the way he owned every inch of space he walked through. I don’t know how I landed someone like that, but hell if I’m going to question it.
This pull I have toward him? It’s not fading. Not now, not ever. I’m already plotting our next date—proper downtime once things quiet down. I’ll cook steak, his favourite. I’ll wine and dine the shit out of him.
And later, I’ll show him exactly how things run in my bedroom.
He’ll followmyrules.
And if he doesn’t? Well… the rolling pin tucked safely under my side of the bed still has its charm. Worked once—I can make it work again.
As for Kyla… I’ll handle her. There’s only so long a woman can pine over someone who isn’t hers. She’ll move on. Until then, I’ll smile, nod, and keep my composure. It’s not weakness, it’s restraint. Maturity. She may be older, but I’m the one choosing dignity.
I flick on the TV, letting the white noise buffer my thoughts, and sink deeper into the pillow. My eyelids grow heavy as fatigue drapes over me, and for once, I slip into sleep untainted—no shadows, no flashbacks, no visits from ghosts.
Not even my uncle.
Just silence.
Cam’s voice rouses me, low and gravelled. It feels like I barely slept, but the amber streaks cutting through the curtains suggest otherwise.
I roll into him, dragging the sheets with me, pressing my bare skin to the warmth of his chest. My leg hooks over his hip, thigh grazing against the unmistakable hardness straining beneath his briefs.
He smells clean—showered—that spicy citrus gel he swears he hates but secretly loves. I borrow it sometimes, just to carry him with me when he’s not around.
“Good morning,” I murmur, fingers tracing lazy paths down the ropework of veins in his arm before sliding between his fingers.
“Morning, trouble,” he rasps, voice soaked in sleep.
“What time did you get in?” I ask, rocking my hips into him just enough to let him know I’m awake and aware.
“Late,” he mumbles, brushing my hair from my face. “You were dead to the world, I didn’t want to wake you.”
