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“I can live with and embrace boring right about now,” Ashley replies.
Savage grimaces and gives a nod before looking at me. “I’ll give her her pepperoni. You will, too, because you’re the reason her life isn’t boring.”
“You’ll understand the shiftiness of that comment when you finally find your Ashley.”
“Been there,” he says, “done that. Lost her.” His eyes glint dark, and he turns away, but not before I see a shot of pain rip through his eyes.
Fuck.
I want to ask how.
I need to know how.
“We’re not them,” Ashley says from behind. “You’re not Savage, and I’m not whoever she was.”
I scrub a hand through my hair, a sign of just how on edge I am right now because I don’t react physically to anything. A physical reaction is a tell, a weakness that can be spotted and manipulated. Ashley isn’t an enemy, but the moment I become weak, I become emotional, and I can’t protect her.
I shut the door and turn to face her, feeling the punch of her presence in a way I never feel anyone but her. She’s beautiful, her long hair a mussed-up mess around her heart-shaped face and shoulders, but somehow, it works for her. We’ve barely slept, barely had time to breathe, and she keeps fighting. She never gives up. These are all reasons I fell in love with her, but just because I love her and she can survive in my world, doesn’t mean she deserves the hell of it.
Right now, in this moment, I live what I have almost every day I’ve known Ashley. I know I should walk away, save her, and get the hell out of her life, and yet, I don’t. I can’t. “I’m going to go talk to Savage.” I turn and reach for the door.
“Don’t you even think about walking out of this room,” she orders.
I pause with my hand on the knob, and she adds, “The first thing you do when this feels hard is walk away. And here you are again. Leaving.”
Clenching my jaw, I rotate and face her. “Talking to Savage is not running.”
“But your reasons for going to talk to Savage right now are. He freaked you out. He made you question your decisions with me. He made you question our future the way you did back at the cabin. I can’t do this that way. I won’t.”
That gets me. I cross to stand in front of her. “You won’t do what?”
“I have nothing in my life but you now. I’m trusting you. If you plan to take the one thing I know, that I have left in us away, just say it. Leave me with Savage and Smith because my safety is my decision, my choice.”
My hand slides under her hair and settles on her neck. “I will not trust anyone else to protect you.”
“Savage got to you. He got to you over a pizza. I think you’re too close to this. And even if you’re not—”
“I can protect you better than anyone else,” I assure her.
“Even if you’re not too close to this,” she repeats as if I haven’t spoken, “I don’t want to ride these emotional ups and downs with you. In or out. If you don’t know the answer, it’s out. It’s all the way out.”
“You aren’t going to push me away.”
“I’m supposed to wait for you to walk away?”
“I told you—”
“What? That you wouldn’t walk away again?” she challenges. “Why don’t you just admit that’s what you were doing by walking out of the bedroom?”
“Fuck, woman.” I cup her head. “You didn’t see the look in Savage’s eyes. She, whoever she was, must be dead. I cannot be the reason you end up dead.”
“You’re retiring.”
“Not yet. Not until this is over, and I will always have lingering enemies.”
She shoves against me. “Let me go.”
“I will not—”
