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“So if you hadn’t known my dad…?”

Adrien’s jaw clenches, a line of tension cutting across his cheek. “I was ordered to eliminate a witness.”

I feel cold. “You would’ve killed me.”

He doesn’t answer; he doesn’t need to.

I turn my face away.

Adrien would have killed me if Dad hadn’t loved me first.

Something about that splinters through the middle of me, because that’s what it always comes back to. Dad.

Dad is the reason.

Dad is the reason Adrien didn’t kill me.

Dad is the reason he picked my rabbit up out of the puddle.

Dad is the reason he brought the box.

Dad is the reason I’m still breathing.

Not me; never me.

I stare at the threads in the comforter. “So you’re only doing this because you owe him.”

“No.” His answer is immediate and unwavering, making me glance up cautiously.

“You just said—”

“I said John is why I stopped.”

“That’s the same thing,” I say.

He shakes his head. “It isn’t.”

I frown. “How?”

Adrien shifts forward, elbows braced on his knees, voice gentle but firm. “John is why I recognized I couldn’t follow the order. But he’s not why I watched you move around cans of soup for almost an hour.”

My face warms. “What? You didn’t.”

“He’s not why I know you barely eat on shift.”

My throat goes dry.

“He’s not why I bought three kinds of juice because I didn’t know which one you liked.”

“You—”

“He’s not why I cleaned muddy water off that toy instead of throwing it in the trash.”

My fingers tighten instinctively around my rabbit.

“John got me to look, but what I saw after that was you.”

My heart pinches. “That’s a nice thing to say.”