Page 112 of Santa Daddy
“You think I chose this?” The words ripped out of me. “You think I woke up one day and decided that what I really needed was to fall for a woman who watched me put three bullets in a man’s chest?”
Fall for.
Fuck.
I’d said it out loud.
Her eyes widened. Shock. Something else. I didn’t let myself stop long enough to identify it.
“I didn’t choose to care about you, Dani,” I said. “It just happened. Like an illness you can’t shake. Only I don’t want the cure.”
There it was.
The truth that was going to get us both killed.
Silence dropped into the space between us. Heavy. Electric. Snow drifted past the window, ignoring us.
“Care about me?” she repeated, voice flat and dangerous. “Is that what you call it when you threaten to chain me to your bed? When you track me like I’m an escaped prisoner?”
Because you are a prisoner, I almost said.
So am I.
“I call it keeping you alive,” I shot back. “I call it making sure no one uses your body to send me a message.”
“And when there are no more messages to send?” She stepped closer, eyes never leaving mine. “What then? What happens when the danger passes?”
It never passes.
Not in my world.
I couldn’t say that. Couldn’t strip the last bit of hope from her bones.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. The words tasted like broken teeth.
She laughed once. No humor. All resignation.
“You don’t know,” she said. “Perfect.”
She turned toward the door, every line of her body rebel.
“I need air,” she said.
“Don’t,” I said.
It came out sharper and more desperate than I intended.
Don’t leave me. Don’t walk into a forest full of people who want you dead. Don’t make me choose between letting you go and burning the world down to bring you back.
She put her hand on the doorknob anyway.
“Watch me,” she said, and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
Stubborn. Reckless. Perfect woman.
The pain in my shoulder vanished under a stronger jolt of panic. I grabbed my gun and followed without thinking, stepping out into the biting air.
The woods swallowed sound. Snow muffled everything—the crunch of my boots, the distant rush of wind through the trees. Branches overhead formed a canopy, closing us off from sky.
