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A deep chuckle escaped him, and she nearly sighed at the rare sound as he looked back up at the moon, his obsidian eyes swimming in its reflection.

“What are you afraid of, Kanes?”

“Me?”

He nodded, the moonlight highlighting his strong jawline and high cheekbones.

It was too easy to get lost in his deadly beauty.

She pulled her attention back to the sky, but it did nothing to quell the shivers racing up her neck.

“I used to believe I was afraid of physical pain. But then I felt so much of it that I became desensitized…” She paused. “Now, I think my biggest fear is the one thing I used to crave the most.”

His entire body tensed. “And what’s that?”

“Being alone.”

Saying the words out loud, exposing that raw truth, was like having a hole punched through her chest.

That’s why you should be careful about who you love.

Love wasn’t just an emotion in your heart. Love was an offering of yourself.

When you loved someone, you gifted them a part of you.

And if they left, you could never get those pieces back.

But Winnie, Serene, Derek, Adan…even parts of Takeshi, had wiggled their way into her heart. By the time she realized what was happening, it was already too late.

If she were left alone now…there would be no pieces of her left.

“But we don’t have to talk about that,” she quickly said, rubbing her chest as if it could disperse the ache. “I’m quite content to just lay here and forget my fear of abandonment issues.”

“No one is abandoning you.” Takeshi’s voice was bone-chillingly deep.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Kanes.” She felt the weight of his sharp gaze.

“You’re not gonna drop this are you?” she sighed.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I see how your friends look at you. They care. They won’t betray you. If I had the slightest inkling otherwise, I would’ve slaughtered them on the road and made it look like an accident,” Takeshi said evenly.

His tone held a brutal certainty that would’ve made a sane person terrified, but instead, her insides warmed and her stomach clenched.

Takeshi’s lethalness shouldnotbe a turn-on.

That would be fucked up.

“Your mind’s racing again,” he noted.

Her mind was a dangerous battlefield that needed to be studied as an example of whatnotto do in those situations. Because the next words that came out of her mouth were, “Then help me not think at all.”

Takeshi went preternaturally still, as if any movement—any breath—might shatter the fragile moment.