We carry our bags inside—feels weird not to have my duffel—and Sloane doesn’t complain about the cobwebs or the musty smell in the air. Her cheeks are flushed from the short dash in the cold, and the tip of her nose is red; she looks fucking beautiful. I can’t stop staring at that goddamn mouth of hers. I didn’t think I could do it; I didn’t think I would ever be able to kiss a girl like that. I never even thought I’d want to. The very thought used to make me break out into a cold sweat, but now…

“Feel like lending me a hand here?” Sloane’s balling up paper from the stack of five-year-old newspapers—Crime Boss, Wendelson, Dies at 67! Where did he hide his millions?—sitting next to the open fireplace. It looks like a family of raccoons has been living in the space behind the grate. I brush off the thick layer of dust that’s collected on top of the pile of wood to the other side of the fire and set about tenting a handful of kindling.

“This is very domesticated,” Sloane observes. “On the run from two different gang leaders; pursued by the police; making home in a chilly lakeside cabin. Our version of domesticated, at least.”

I’m shot through with vertigo when she says that. Our. I’ve pushed her buttons and cajoled her relentlessly since the moment we reconnected back at the hospital, if you can call it that. And yet now that she’s talking about ‘our,’ I’m paralyzed by the concept of it. Not because I’m frightened of it. Not because I don’t want it. I’m paralyzed because it seems like a fragile idea, the partnership of Zeth Mayfair and Sloane Romera, and I know something shitty’s going to happen to fuck it up. Not only that, but it will undoubtedly be my fault.

The fire’s roaring by the time Michael gets in touch.

“You arrived, Boss?”

“Half an hour ago. Is Julio dead?” Julio being dead will solve a third of our problems at least.

“No. From the look on Rebel’s face, he’s shortly going to wish he was, though,” Michael replies. I’m given a brief overview of Andreas Medina being killed and the surprise reincarnation of some girl called Laura who everyone’s assumed dead for the past five years. I’m not even slightly remorseful Medina’s no longer around. Maybe that makes me a bad person—that I don’t even experience a flicker of remorse that someone has been murdered—but the truth is I’d be lying if I pretended I hadn’t thought about doing it myself. And I don’t lie. “We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” Michael says.

A couple of hours will mean Michael and Rebel are going to be showing up here at one in the morning. “You’re still planning on sending me away?” Sloane asks. She’s wearing a huge sweater I left here a long time ago, which continually slips off her bare shoulder. Give me the sight of that bare shoulder over a low cut top and pushed-up tits any day of the week.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

Sloane scowls into the fire, knees folded up underneath her chin. “If I go…you have to promise me something,” she says.

“I have to?” I almost laugh. No one’s felt like they can tell me to do anything in an awfully long fucking time. It’s rather novel. Sloane shoots me a sharp look over her shoulder.

“Let’s make a deal. You can control me in the bedroom, Zeth, but out of the bedroom, we’re partners. I act under advisement, and so do you. Fair?”

This woman, all folded up neatly like origami in front of the fire, has balls. I like it. “Very fair.”

“So you need to send me away, but I need—I need for you not to get hurt. Can you please do that for me? At least try?”

I expected her to ask me not to break any laws. Not to kill anyone. But she asks me to consider my own well being instead. I haven’t done that in a while. “I can try.”

“Good. Thank you.” She buries her face into her folded arms, staring at the flames. “When am I supposed to be going with him?”

“Tomorrow.”

She nods at this, still not looking at me. “If I’m going tomorrow, then—then I want to sleep with you tonight. Not sex. I want to share a bed with you.”

Fuck. I can’t do that. I’ve overcome one pretty big fucking hurdle today, but that one might as well be Mount Kilimanjaro in comparison. “Not gonna happen, Sloane.”

“Why not?” She looks hurt. Wounded, like it’s the thought of having her next to me that’s the reason behind my firm refusal. “We slept together after we had sex at Julio’s that time. Was it that awful?”

I get up and start pacing. “Yes. Yes it was fucking awful. I nearly broke your neck when I woke up, remember? That wasn’t a one-time thing, Sloane. That’s me.”

She ponders this, watching me pace. I get the feeling she wants me to sit down and be calm, but the idea of sharing a bed with her again and potentially breaking a few of those delicate bones of hers, well, that doesn’t exactly leave me feeling easy.

“Why does it happen?” she whispers.

Things have come a long way with Sloane and me over the past few days, but this one last thing—I can’t part with it yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. I give her enough to let her know I’m not dismissing her, but nothing more. “It’s a bad dream, Sloane. A very bad dream, and I’m always going to have it. That’s all there is to it.”