Kyle hesitated, then met his eyes.
“They’re not getting near you,” Daddy Benson said, voice low, no hesitation. “I don’t care who they are—you’re with me now. Nobody lays a hand on you.”
Something in Kyle’s chest loosened just a little at the way Daddy Benson said it, like it was already decided. But fear still prickled sharply under his skin. “You don’t know them. They don’t bluff.”
“I’m not bluffing either,” Daddy Benson said. He squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”
Kyle let out a shaky breath, leaning into him, the smell of soap and hotel shampoo filling his head. For the first time since he’d read those messages, the panic eased enough for him to hear his own heartbeat again.
The thin slice of sunlight sliding past the blackout curtains woke him before the alarm. For a moment, Kyle forgot where he was—just the soft sheets, the faint noise of cars moving outside, the warm weight of Daddy Benson’s arm draped over his waist. Then the memory of last night hit, sharp as glass.
His phone sat on the nightstand, dark and silent. He didn’t touch it. Didn’t need to. The words from those three messages were burned into his brain.
Daddy Benson stirred, his breath warm against the back of Kyle’s neck. “You’re awake,” he murmured, voice still rough with sleep.
Kyle made a small sound that wasn’t quite an answer.
Daddy Benson rolled onto his back, stretching, then looked over at him. “You didn’t sleep much, did you?” Not a question—more like he’d been keeping track even with his eyes closed.
Kyle shrugged, but the tension in his shoulders gave him away. “Just…kept thinking about last night.”
Daddy Benson sat up, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Then let’s stop thinking and start planning.”
Kyle turned toward him, the cotton sheet twisted around his legs. “Planning what?”
“Keeping you safe,” Daddy Benson said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He ran a hand through his damp-from-sleep hair. “We change the plan. New routes. No patterns. We keep moving.”
Kyle’s instinct was to protest—tell him it wasn’t worth the trouble, that Greco’s guys weren’t the kind to give up. But the steady, unshakable way Daddy Benson looked at him made the words die in his throat.
“They’re not ghosts, Kyle,” Daddy Benson said. “They can be avoided. Outpaced. Outsmarted.”
Kyle tried to believe it. He wanted to. But the image of shadowed doorways and unseen eyes clung to him. “They havepeople everywhere in New York,” he whispered. “If they want me bad enough—”
“They’ll have to go through me first.” Daddy Benson’s hand covered his, firm and grounding. “And they won’t win.”
Kyle let out a slow breath, some of the night’s tightness loosening in his chest. Maybe Daddy Benson couldn’t promise forever. But in this room, in this moment, he felt almost untouchable.
They left the hotel around midmorning, the lobby coffee still steaming in their hands. To anyone watching, they looked like two guys on a road trip—no rush, no worries. But Kyle kept glancing at every reflection they passed, scanning for faces that might be looking too long.
Daddy Benson didn’t call him out on it, but Kyle noticed the way he subtly checked the street before they stepped outside. It wasn’t just protective—it was calculated. Controlled. That alone made Kyle’s pulse slow a notch.
They wandered through the small downtown first, ducking into a shop selling handmade blankets and turquoise jewelry. Kyle tried to focus on the normalcy: the faint smell of cedar from the shelves, the soft hum of some old country song playing low. But his mind kept looping back to those three texts.
Daddy Benson touched his elbow lightly. “Which one do you like?” he asked, nodding at a row of Navajo-patterned throw blankets.
Kyle shrugged, but it came out sharper than he intended. “Not really thinking about blankets.”
Daddy Benson just nodded, didn’t push. But a minute later, Kyle noticed him pick two up and toss them on the counter anyway, like he was building small pockets of warmth they could carry with them. They stopped to put them into the truck, then continued to walk.
They grabbed lunch at a quiet diner near the edge of town. While they ate their burgers, Daddy Benson steered the conversation toward completely ordinary things—gas prices, a random truck he’d seen on the highway, how the coffee here actually tasted like coffee instead of a burned tire.
It was all deliberate. Kyle knew it. Every topic, every easy laugh was Daddy Benson keeping the weight off his shoulders, even for a few minutes at a time.
When they headed back toward the hotel in the late afternoon, Kyle realized his neck and shoulders didn’t feel as rigid. He was still scared—he wasn’t stupid—but the edge wasn’t as sharp. Not with Daddy Benson walking just a half-step closer to the street side, like he could physically keep trouble from getting near.
Daddy Benson set the blankets down. “We keep moving tomorrow,” he said. “Different route, different towns. They can’t hit what they can’t lock onto.”
Kyle nodded, swallowing hard. “I just…I don’t want to drag you into this.”
