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Her words didn’t absolve him. Nothing could. But perhaps they might create a small crack in the fortress of his guilt.

She’d reached for Leo when everything fell apart. Not because he was safe, but because she trusted him with her life.

Now he was trusting her with something far more fragile—his truth.

Maybe choosing connection wasn’t weakness after all. Maybe it was the bravest thing either of them could do.

“Being with you feels like walking through a minefield I planted myself,” he said, his voice quiet, stripped of its usual control. “Every step closer, I’m waiting for something to blow up. And if it does—I won’t be the one who pays for it. You will.”

He looked at her then, the truth of it carved deep into his expression. “I don’t know how to be close without being dangerous.”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. “Stop walking like you’re trying not to set anything off. I know where the mines are, Leo. I see them and I still choose to be here.”

Her hand tightened around his. “You think you’re dangerous to me? I’ve been standing in fire my whole damn life. But you… you’re the only place I’ve ever felt steady.”

Leonid. The man she’d respected from a professional distance for years. Her first thought when her world had collapsed.

“I want to protect you,” he said. “Not just from Korolov or Eldridge. From everything.”

She pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile. “Leonid. I don’t need protection.”

“I know. You are formidable, brilliant, capable.” His thumb brushed lightly across her knuckles. “But I want to give it, anyway.”

She studied him for a long moment. Her palm rubbed against his.

“Leonid. When this is over, when my name is cleared and Korolov is dealt with—what then?”

Return to their separate corners? Pretend this never happened? Try to build something neither of them had made room for in their lives?

Before yesterday,afterhadn’t been part of her vocabulary. But now she wanted to try.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I want to find out.”

Not a promise of forever—but an acknowledgment. Whatever this was between them, it didn’t end here.

Kat lifted his hand and pressed it over her heart. “Then we’ll find out together.”

For a heartbeat, she wanted to memorize this—his thumb on her palm, his warmth against her.

But reality intruded.

Korolov’s phone. Security footage that could prove Eldridge’s betrayal. Evidence that could clear her name and bring down the people trying to destroy her.

Leo’s hand rested against hers. He felt it too.

“We should...” she started, then stopped, unwilling to break the spell.

“I know.” His voice was rough with reluctance. He shifted, then seemed to think better of it, his arm sliding around her instead. “Five more minutes.”

She smiled against his skin. “We don’t have five minutes.”

“Then sixty seconds.” His lips found her temple. “One minute where it’s just us. No Korolov, no Eldridge, no conspiracy.”

The temptation was overwhelming—to sink back into his warmth and forget the world outside. But they couldn’t linger in this bubble they’d created, no matter how much she wanted to.

The vibration of his phone on the nightstand cracked the quiet like a gunshot.

Reality was back, impatient and loud.