His gaze held hers.
“No.”
Megan reached for his hand.
This time he did not move first.
She placed her fingers against his.
“I’m not asking you to save me,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m not asking for another cage.”
“I know.”
“And I am definitely not giving you authority over Sofia’s syrup consumption.”
“That responsibility terrifies me more than the others.”
She laughed.
Then she became serious.
“The first night, I asked you to stay because I couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.”
Gabriel’s fingers closed gently around hers.
“And now?”
Megan looked at the man she had once known only as a dangerous name whispered by sources.
Now she knew his silences.
His restraint.
The chair he had occupied all night because a frightened woman had asked him not to leave.
The way he had protected Sofia without pretending that made him her savior.
The moment he had finally understood that loving someone could not mean deciding their life for them.
“Now I’m asking because I want you there.”
Gabriel went completely still.
For a man whose presence could change the temperature of a room, he suddenly looked almost uncertain.
Megan found that uncertainty more convincing than any declaration could have been.
He lifted her hand, not to his mouth, but simply held it between both of his.
“No walls?” he asked.
“Only the ones we agree on.”
“No orders?”
“You can try.”
“I suspected that would be the answer.”
Sofia came racing back with the stuffed rabbit tucked beneath one arm.
“Are we going?” she asked.
Megan looked at Gabriel.
“Yes,” she said.
“We’re going home.”
Sofia frowned at him.
“Is Gabriel coming?”
Megan waited.
This answer belonged to him.
Gabriel looked at Sofia, then at Megan.
“If I’m invited.”
Sofia considered this with the solemnity of a judge.
“You can come for dinner.
But Mommy makes the rules at our house.”
Gabriel’s eyes stayed on Megan.
“I’ve been informed.”
Megan squeezed his hand.
The first time she had crossed Gabriel Montesani’s threshold, she was wounded, barefoot, hunted, and terrified that accepting protection meant surrendering herself.
She left it weeks later carrying her own bag, with her daughter beside her and her work alive beyond the reach of one match, one bomb, or one frightened group of powerful men.
Gabriel walked with them because Megan wanted him to.
That difference was everything.
The danger had brought them together, but it was not what kept them there.
Choice did.
Months later, Megan would sometimes wake before dawn when a sound from the street pulled her back to smoke, white hospital walls, and the empty eyes of the man outside Room 412.
