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“For me to choose a future because you want to be in it.”

Pain moved briefly through his face. “I would settle for you choosing any future at all.”

The car turned from the crowded avenue onto the narrow road toward the safe house. Wet branches pressed close on both sides. Neither of us spoke again until the garage door closed behind us.

The driver entered the house through the security corridor, leaving Rurik and me in the back seat. The engine had stopped, leaving the gentle sound of rain outside.

I returned the authorization to my bag. “I care about you.”

Rurik’s mouth tightened. “That is not a sentence people say before something kind.”

“I’m not trying to be kind. I’m trying to be honest.”

“Then be honest.”

“I won’t love you the way I loved Salvatore.” My voice broke despite the certainty beneath it. “I don’t think another version of me exists for that. He wasn’t part of my heart. He was the language it used.”

Rurik stared at me without moving. “I know.”

“Then why are you asking me to walk away from the only thing I can still do for him?”

“Because he is dead.” The words emerged harshly, but grief immediately followed them. “And you are not.”

Anger flashed through me. “You think I don’t know that every morning?”

“I think you punish yourself for it every morning.”

“At least I wake up.”

“That is no longer enough.”

“For you.”

“Yes.” He stopped protecting us from the answer. “For me.”

Rurik lifted his hand, then paused before touching me. His fingers hovered near my cheek, giving me every opportunity to move away.

I didn’t.

Some part of me needed the answer too. Not because I wanted him, and not because I wanted to hurt him, but because grief had made certainty a prison, and I needed to know whether any door remained.

Rurik’s palm settled against my face. His thumb moved once beneath my eye, gathering moisture I hadn’t realized had escaped.

“Tell me to stop,” he said.

I should have spoken. Instead, I remained still while he leaned toward me.

His mouth touched mine carefully. No demand. No attempt to take what I had already told him I couldn’t give. Rurik kissed me once, softly, as though restraint were the last mercy he could offer.

I felt the warmth of his lips, the tremor of his hand against my cheek, the hope he had tried to bury beneath patience.

My body gave him nothing in return.

I did not pull away, but my lips remained still beneath his. My hands stayed folded over my bag. There was no rush of want, no softening, no betrayal of the dead.

Salvatore remained inside every memory my body had of being kissed. His mouth had taught mine the language, and death had not made me forget it.

Rurik pulled away almost immediately.