Page 50 of Carter
I straightened, my gaze finally finding Harper’s. She didn’t flinch from the fire in my eyes. If anything, hers matched it.
“This isn’t just about keeping you safe anymore,” I said quietly, just for her. “It’s about ending it. So when this is over, we don’t just survive—we live.”
And as her fingers laced with mine under the table, I knew the fight ahead would be hell.
But for the first time, it felt like we were walking into it together.
73
Harper
We don’t just survive—we live.
Carter’s words echoed through me long after the meeting broke apart, long after River and Gideon returned to their quiet tasks and Cyclone disappeared out the door to check the perimeter again.
I sat at the table, staring at the map still spread in front of me. It wasn’t just a collection of routes and marks anymore. It was the proof that my life had been pulled into a war I hadn’t chosen—and the proof that I wasn’t alone in it.
For weeks now, I’d carried the fear like a shadow stitched to my skin. Every time I closed my eyes, I still heard the boss’s laugh, still felt the chains against my wrists. Sometimes, I wondered if I’d ever really be free of it.
But then Carter had looked at me—eyes fierce, voice raw—and said those words.Live with me.
Something cracked open inside me. For the first time, I wasn’t just imagining getting through the night, or waking up one more morning safe. I was imagining more. A tomorrow. A life. Him.
And that was scarier than all of it.
Because loving Carter meant accepting the danger thatcame with him. It meant knowing that every mission, every gunfire echo, could take him from me.
But loving him also meant refusing to let fear decide my life.
I slid my hand across the table to where his had been, the wood still warm. My chest ached, but for the first time, it wasn’t from terror. It was from hope pressing against the cracks.
No matter what waited in those warehouses, no matter who thought they could put my name on a list—I wasn’t just a target anymore.
I was Carter’s. And together, we weren’t just going to survive.
We were going to live.
74
Carter
The cabin buzzed with quiet preparation, the kind that came before every mission—gear checks, weapons cleaned, comms tested. I’d been through this ritual a hundred times, but tonight felt different.
Because this wasn’t just another op. This was the fight to erase Harper’s name from every list, to make sure she never had to hear her life measured in contracts again.
I checked the slide on my pistol, chambered a round, then set it back in its holster with deliberate care. My movements were steady, but my mind wasn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her—Harper in that warehouse, Harper waiting at the cabin window, Harper whisperingI love youagainst my chest.
That was the fuel driving me now.
River moved around the table, crisp and controlled. “We hit the south side first. Gideon pulls power again, Cyclone covers our exit. Carter—you’re point.”
“Understood.” My voice came out flat, clipped, but there was no mistaking the edge beneath it.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Harper watching.She sat curled in my flannel still, but her chin was high, her eyes steady. Brave. Fierce. She wasn’t begging me to stay. She wasn’t looking at me like I was about to vanish.
She was looking at me like we were in this together.
And that did something to me I couldn’t put into words.
