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I stop.

There’s a version of this where I don’t say it. Where I just hold her and let tonight be enough. I’ve spent decades burying what I did deep down inside me so no one would ever know.

But that’s not going to cut it anymore.

“I was once the man who walked away. I turned my back on someone who needed me. Someone I loved. I never wanted to be the man anyone relied on, because I’d already proved that I won’t follow through. I didn’t believe I deserved anyone placing their faith in me.”

I stroke her cheek, feeling the tremor running through her.

“All I thought about tonight was you, proving to you that you can believe in me, that I will come for you.”

A tear breaks over her lashes, cutting a clean track through the dirt on her cheek. Then another.

“While there’s breath in my lungs and blood in my veins, I always will.”

“Zevran,” she says in a choked voice, reaching for me.

I drop my head and kiss her. She tastes of salt and blood, her good hand gripping the front of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear, and I stay exactly where I am, swallowing my own pain and letting her hold on.

“How did you find me?” she asks, her lips close to mine, her eyes flickering over my face.

“Lorenzo. He messaged me the second they dragged you through the gates. Told me to move my ass and that he’d buy me every minute he could.”

Her eyes widen in surprise.

Slowly, her head turns. Across the concrete floor, Lorenzo is leaning casually against a cabinet, arms folded, feet crossed at the ankle. His posture is relaxed, a chilling contrast to the carnage around him. He watches us with cool detachment.

“I…” She trails off, her voice small. “I’m sorry for what I said, Mr. Scava.”

Lorenzo strolls forward, unhurried, reaching into his jeans pocket and offering something to me. “Here. I didn’t want them getting their hands on it.”

Cora’s diamond engagement ring rests on his palm, catching the glare of the overhead lights.

I take the ring from him, and Lorenzo steps back into the shadows. I carefully pick up Cora’s left hand with mine.

I have spent so long making sure I was never responsible for anyone. I was never the man someone hoped for or needed. I built that life deliberately because I never wanted to fail another person I loved.

I did not fail her tonight.

I slide the band back onto her finger.

“I will always come for my wife.”

A small, broken sound escapes her throat. Her fingers caress my cheek, and I tilt my head into her warmth, kissing her again until the room recedes.

When I open my eyes, her lashes are damp, but the shadow of a smile is tugging at her lips.

“Up,” I say gently. Gritting my teeth against the fire in my ribs, I push myself to my feet and pull her up with me. She sways, unsteady, and I tuck her tightly against my good side, taking the full weight of her. “Can I borrow the same bedroom again, Scava?”

“Knock yourself out,” Lorenzo says smoothly.

As we turn, her gaze lands on Troy, and she hesitates.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” I tell her. “You don’t need to see when I make you a widow.”

Cora looks at her doomed husband, kneeling in a pool of urine and trembling while Alexei rests the cold barrel of a shotgun against the back of his neck.

A year of this man’s violence and his rules, his receipts and his grocery budgets and his drinking. A year of telling her that she’s not good enough as a wife or a lover or a woman. And now here he is—small, shaking, wet, begging with his eyes for mercy he will not receive.