Page 32 of Her Outlaw Prisoner
“Not anymore.” I press my lips to her forehead. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
I lift her into my arms and carry her out of that house like she’s the only thing that matters.
Because she is.
And I’m not losing her again.
She clings to me as I carry her through the overgrown yard, her fingers curled tightly into my shirt like she’s never letting go.
I hope she doesn’t.
I don’t say anything as we step into the woods where Theo is waiting by the Charger, engine rumbling low. He opens the back door without a word, eyes scanning Eleanor’s bruised face.
“She okay?” he asks.
“She will be,” I reply, settling her gently into the back seat. I climb in after her, wrapping my arms around her as Theo pulls off down the narrow road.
We’re quiet for a long moment, just the soft hum of the engine and Eleanor’s uneven breathing filling the space. She shifts in my arms, looks up at me with glassy eyes.
“Ronan…” Her voice is small, hoarse. “How did you get out? How did you find me?”
I brush a strand of hair from her face, my thumb tracing gently across her temple where the bruise is already starting to purple. “I knew something was wrong when you didn’t show up this morning. I could feel it in my bones. I’d already started laying the groundwork to break out…but when you didn’t come, I didn’t care if the plan was ready or not. I would’ve crawled through fire to get to you.”
Her lip trembles. “You broke out of prison for me?”
“I’d break out of hell for you.”
She stares at me, eyes wide, breath caught somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “That’s…insane.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, a small smirk tugging at my mouth. “So is falling in love with your prison nurse.”
She laughs, a shaky, broken thing—but it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
I rest my forehead against hers. “I meant what I said. I love you. I’m not letting anything take you away from me again.”
“I love you too,” she whispers.
And that’s it. That’s the moment everything else falls away. The bruises, the blood, the past. All I see is her.
I pull away just enough to meet her gaze. “Run away with me, Eleanor.”
Her eyes widen. “Really?”
“I’m serious. I’ve got everything set up. Fake passports. New identities. Offshore accounts with enough money to last alifetime. A house in a country where no one knows our names. No Daryl. No prisons. No more hiding.”
She blinks at me, lips parted, stunned into silence.
“I know it’s fast,” I say, my hand finding hers. “But this world…it’s not kind. Not to people like us. And I’m done waiting for the world to hand me a second chance. I want to take it. With you.”
She looks down at our joined hands, then back up at me. “You want me to disappear with you?”
“I want to build a life with you. One where you’re not afraid to leave your apartment. One where no one ever lays a hand on you again. I want to give you everything you’ve never had, baby. Safety. Peace. Freedom.”
Tears spill down her cheeks, silent and unrelenting. “You’d really do all that…for me?”
I grip her chin gently and tilt her face up toward mine. “I already did.”
She closes her eyes for a moment, breathing deep, then nods…slowly at first, then faster, an excited chuckle bursting from her lips. “Yes. Yes, I’ll go with you.”
