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"The cops, Hope," I admitted, "and an ambulance."

"The cops?" She shook her head. "They'll arrest you."

"I know."

"Hang it up," she ordered, tone shaky but eyes full of…determination. "Hang up the fucking phone, Hunter!" Stalking towards me, she smacked my cell out of my hand.

"Hope, I have to call them, sweetheart."

"No.No!" she hissed, shaking her head. "Don’t leave me," she whispered, voice small and weak. Wrapping her hand around my forearm, she clutched on tightly. "Please. Stay here with me."

"What do you want me to do here, Hope?" Raking my hands through my hair, I exhaled a ragged breath. "There's a body in there, sweetheart, with my prints all over it, and you need to see a doctor. Your face..." I cut myself off, needing a goddamn minute to form the words and verbalize my worst nightmare. "Goddammit, Hope, that piece of shit raped–"

"He didn’t," she blurted out, saving me from finishing the sentence. "You stopped him, Hunter. You saved me!"

I couldn’t speak.

I didn’t trust myself right now.

The relief flooding through my body was making it hard to catch my breath.

You stopped him…

But what if she was lying to me?

What if he did rape her?

Fuck, she needed to be in the hospital, not here in the center of a crime scene.

Hope moved then.

Knotting her fingers in my shirt, she looked up at me and said, "That man was sent here to kill me! If it weren't for you, he would have." She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "And you arenotgoing back to prison for saving my life."

"What are you saying?"

She looked into my eyes and I could feel it, right down into the darkest part of me, the pull between us.

She was seeing me, the worst fucking parts of me, and she wasn’tleaving.

Her feet were firmly on the ground.

Her hand was wrapped tightly in mine, eyes locked on me.

She was here.

She wasstaying.

And then she blew my world to pieces with eight words, "I'm saying we get rid of the body."

"Hope." Struggling to find the words to express just how deeply she had affected me with that offer, I whispered, "No, baby." I couldn’t do that to her. I wasn’t putting this on her, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to taint her light with my darkness. "No."

"No?" She gaped at me like I had suddenly started spouting a foreign language. "What do you meanno?"

"I'm not taking you down with me," I stated calmly. Goddammit, didn’t she see I was trying to protect her here? I was trying to keep her safe from this world she had no part of. And there she was, muddying the waters. "No fucking way."

"You're not going to prison," she hissed, tears streaming down her face. "I won't let you do this… I won't let you leave me."

"Hope –"

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