“No. Nope.” My voice is sharp and desperate, but I can’t help it. “I changed my mind. You’re not going to saddle me with—” His name catches like glass in my throat, and I choke. “Withhim.”
“After yesterday, I need to know you’re safe over there,” Carl insists, calm as ever.
“Fine,” I huff my annoyance. “Find someone else.Anyoneelse. I don’t care who. Just not… him.”
Carl doesn’t budge. “I asked around, and no one else comes with the same recommendations. Everyone says they’re the best.”
The best? Ha!
I laugh—bitter and broken—out loud. “He’s definitely the best at upping and disappearing from my life. That’s for sure.”
The line falls silent for a moment before Carl continues with a softer tone, “I’m not bending on this, Reese. You cantake this detail or get on their plane and get your ass back to New York.”
“Carl…”
“They’ll keep you alive,” he asserts. “That’s all that matters.”
But it isn’t. Not to me. Not when every cell in my body remembers what it felt like to be held in his arms or to wake up alone and realize he was never coming back. Not when Christopher Hawkins is standing in front of me like a beefy, tattooed ghost dragged out of the desert.
I turn, my gaze locking with Hawk’s. His men are trying not to stare, though one—Jagger, if I remember his name correctly—looks like he’s eating this up. Hawk, though? He’s unreadable, like he always was. It used to drive me crazy, but now it just hurts. “Carl,” I grouse into the phone, not breaking eye contact with Hawk. “I’ll take my chances. I will be just fine on my own.”
“God damn it, Reese.” Carl sighs, exasperated now. “You’re so fucking stubborn. I’m paying them to protect you, whetheryouwant them there or not. I’m going to keep your stubborn ass alive.”
My mouth falls open with shock. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he gruffs before abruptly ending the call.
“Unbelievable.” I stare at the now-silent speaker, fury bubbling hot in my chest.
With a smooth, and infuriatingly calm, tone, Hawk chimes, “Sounds like you’re stuck with me, bab?—”
“Don’t!” I snap, whipping around to face him. “Don’t you dare stand there like nothing happened. And don’t youdarecall methat.Ever!”
“Well, this is cozy,” Jagger comments, leaning against the wall with a smirk. “Should we all get some popcorn and pull up a chair, or…?”
Hawk cuts him off with a look that could burn through steel. “Jagger.”
“Fine, boss.” Jagger raises his hands in surrender, a grin still plastered across his face.
“You don’t get a free pass from me either.” I glare at him, before my eyes flit to Damon and Gunnar. “None of you do. Because I know damned well, you all knewexactlywhat he did.”
Hawk’s jaw tightens, a tiny crack in his armor. His eyes flicker, just for a second, before the stoic mask slams back into place.
I drag a hand down my face, fighting the urge to scream. My chest is tight—too tight—and I can’t breathe. “Here’s how this is going to work. You stay out of my way. I’ll do my job. You do yours. And we never have to acknowledge that this”—I aggressively gesture between me and Hawk—“ever existed.”
Hawk doesn’t flinch. He barely even blinks. “I’m not going to let your job get you killed, Reese.”
“At least I’ll die on my terms.”
“That’s not okay with me.”
I laugh, choking as it bubbles up from my chest. “You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t okay for me anymore.”
The silence that follows is worse than the shouting I was expecting. It’s heavy, charged, and filled with everything unsaid. Ten years of questions claw at the back of my throat, begging to be asked, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
I push through the four of them for the door. I need air. Space. Anything but the suffocating tension in this room. “Stay out of my way, Hawk.”
His voice follows me, quiet but unyielding. “Not a fucking chance.”
