Page 118 of Claim

He tilted his neck. “Do you believe loving him absolves him of what he is?”

“No.” I wanted to sit up, to stand up. Have this argument across a courtroom. Or a dinner table. Not in a high-dependency bed when I was in so much pain my throat caught. But I continued. Not for my sake, but for his. Remembering how once, he was in as much pain, in my bed, and still gave me what I needed. “I believe it explains why he saved me when walking away would have been easier.”

“That doesn’t make him safe.”

“It makes him human.”

My father narrowed his eyes. “Human beings don’t drag their lovers into warehouses filled with guns.”

“He didn’t drag me anywhere. His associates did that. To teach him a lesson. To make him plead guilty and take the fall for something he didn’t do. That is not justice, Father. That is corruption. He wanted to leave. Walk away. To start a new life. He wanted the chance to be seen as something other than what you all see him as. They made it so he couldn’t.”

“And thus, he is the reason you were there. He put you in front of that danger. With no consideration for you.”

“I walked into that world with my eyes open.”

“That is demonstrably untrue.”

“Is it?” I widened my eyes at him. “Or is it simply inconvenient to accept that I made a choice you wouldn’t have?”

Silence stretched between us, thick and brittle.

“You think this is romantic,” he said at last. “Tragic. Noble, even.”

“I think you are more comfortable believing I was manipulated than believing I love someone you don’t approve of.”

He stared at me, jaw working. “Approval is not the issue.”

“Then say what is.”

“That men like him do not escape. Not without collateral damage. And you”—his voice softened despite himself—“are too valuable to be that collateral.”

My chest ached for reasons that had nothing to do with fractured ribs.

We didn’t speak like that. Hale-Fitzroys didn’t lace arguments with feeling. We were men who debated facts, not emotions. To be called valuable by my father felt uncomfortably intimate. Almost the equivalent of being called beloved. I knew I was his child. I knew he loved me. But hearing it said that way was something else entirely. Affectionate. Crushing.

“I’m not fragile.” I swallowed.

“You are lying in a hospital bed.” He gestured to the monitors. “With a bullet wound and a broken leg.”

“And he is under curfew with a tag. Alone. Again. Because of me.”

“That is not your burden to carry.”

“It is,” I said before I could stop myself.

My chest tightened, the movement pulling painfully at my ribs, but I didn’t care. The words had been sitting there since I woke up, lodged behind the painkillers and the fear and the things I wasn’t allowed to ask.

“I love him, Dad.” I swallowed, breath shallow, sharp where it caught. “I love him so much it hurts. More than this.” I shifted, instantly regretting it as fire lanced through my side. “More than when that pole came down on my leg. More than the bullet that came my way and he stepped in front of it without thinking.”

I had to pause then. Not for effect. To breathe.

“He is more than what you’ve read in a file. More than a name on an intelligence report. He was trapped long before I ever met him. Fifteen years old, given no choice, taught that survival meant obedience. Violence. Silence. He did what he had to do to stay alive. To keep his family safe.”

I felt tears prick, unwelcome and humiliating, but I pushed through.

“Then he met me.” I swallowed. “And he was trying to get out. I don’t know if it was because of me or because he never truly belonged there. He’s not here to tell you. But he was making moves. Careful ones. Dangerous ones.”

My throat burnt.