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A few minutes later, he returns with a small key. He kneels at the edge of the bed and brings it to the anklet. I gasp, almost tell him to stop. If he removes the ankle monitor, there’s nothing keeping me here… except me.

With aclick, he removes the device, then tosses it into the wastebasket.

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t want you to stay here against your will,” he grunts.

“But why now?”

“Because I’ve never talked about my time in the teams. Not with anybody, not ever. No one’s ever seen this side of me, and I want…” His eyes glisten. He angrily rubs his face.

I touch his wrist, move his hand away. “If you need to cry, cry.”

“I don’t need to cry,” he snaps.

“I won’t judge you.”

He shakes his head, visibly hardening himself. “I want to take what you’re offering, your help, your… affection.” The pause makes me think he was going to savelove, which would be batshit, right?Right?“But not like this.” He gestures to the wastebasket: to the anklet.

“So, I can leave?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. The Vultures are out there. But I won’t keep you here. I want you to stay because you want to, not because you have to.”

“I… I’ll stay. Tonight.”

He sighs darkly. “Shall we go back to sleep?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He climbs into bed. It feels so natural to be naked together, even when we’re not being intimate. “With you here, yes. Give me tonight, Keepsake. Tomorrow, if you decide you don’t want to stay, I’ll arrange for you to be reunited with your friend. You can go anywhere.”

I shuffle into bed next to him, sliding my hand across his middle, feeling the hard ridges of his abs. “I don’t want to leave you,” I admit. “I should, and I know that I’m probably a little cray cray, but it’s the truth. I want to be here for you. I don’t want you towake in the middle of the night, terrified, with nobody there to comfort you.”

“I don’t…”

“What?” I urge.

“I was going to sayI don’t need anybody, but that’s something the old Dom would say. It’d be a lie, and I can’t lie to you.”

“Ask me to stay.”

He rolls onto his side, our noses brushing as we stare into each other’s eyes. “Stay with me, Keepsake.”

In the back of my head, a voice screams: a little girl trapped in the life of The Vultures, in the shadows of abuse, with Mason looming over it all, his thumbs tucked through his belt loops as he leers at me.You’ll never be free…

But Dom isn’t Mason.

“I’ll stay,” I whisper. “But I need to think of a new nickname for you.”

He laughs ruefully. “Luckily, yours is perfect as it is.”

I move closer to him, pressing my nakedness against his warm body. “I’m going to stay awake until you fall asleep. If you have another nightmare, I’m going to be here for you.”

I lay my cheek against his chest again.

I always knew you were an idiot, Mason mocks from my mind.A real fucking fool. Do you think this man cares about you? He twisted your head. Showered you with gifts. He’s the same as me, Evie. You’re a deluded little girl.

The Evie who first came here would’ve waited for Dom to sleep, then snuck out of bed, found Meatball, and got out of here. Without the ankle monitor, there’s nothing stopping me.