I reached past him for the list on the refrigerator, pulling it free from the magnet with a soft snap.His gaze tracked the movement but he didn’t step back, didn’t give me the space I was clearly taking.I laid the paper flat on the counter between us and tapped it once with two fingers -- not aggressive, but deliberate.My throat felt tight, my heartbeat too fast, but I kept my voice steady when I spoke.
“I’m not one of your Prospects.”
He didn’t flinch.Didn’t step back.Just looked at the list, then at me, his expression giving away nothing.“Appointment’s at eleven,” he said, his voice level.“I cleared my morning.The food on the counter covers the next week.There’s more in the --”
“I don’t care.”The words came out sharper than I’d intended, cutting him off midsentence.“I don’t care about the appointment or the food or what you cleared from your schedule.”My voice was climbing now, the frustration I’d been holding since the moment he’d claimed me in front of the entire club finally finding a crack to push through.“I didn’t come back to be managed.To have someone else decide what I’m allowed to do, where I’m allowed to go, what I’m allowed to need.”
He stayed exactly where he was, posture open, no raised voice, no crowding me.Just watched me with that attention that made my skin prickle, like he was reading every word before I said it.
“I’ve spent enough of my life with someone else calling the shots,” I continued, the words coming faster now, less controlled.“Having to ask permission to breathe.Being told what’s good for me without anyone bothering to find out what I actually want.”My chest felt tight, my breath coming short.“Your intentions being different doesn’t make it feel different.”
My voice cracked on the last sentence.I didn’t look away.
Nitro let me finish.Then he let the silence sit for a full beat, the kitchen quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my breathing.When he spoke, his voice was the same measured tone he’d used before -- not raised, not defensive, just stating facts as he saw them.
“The rules aren’t about control,” he said.“They’re about the fact that you’re four months pregnant with twins on a compound that has active threats, and I won’t apologize for taking that seriously.”
But then he stopped.Picked up the list.Read it back to himself, his gaze moving over each line with the same attention he’d shown in Church.Something in his expression shifted -- not softening exactly, but recalibrating, like he was seeing the words for the first time.
“Which one?”he asked, his voice flat and direct.“Which one do you have a problem with?”
I blinked.It wasn’t the response I’d been braced for -- no anger, no dismissal, no doubling down on his position.Just a simple question, delivered with the same matter-of-fact tone he’d used to tell me about the appointment.
“The first one,” I said after a moment.“No leaving the compound.”
He nodded, once.“What would you need?”he asked.“For that rule to feel less like a leash?”
The question felt different than anything else he’d said -- not an argument, not an explanation, just a direct request for information I hadn’t been asked to provide.My arms, which had been crossed tight over my chest, dropped slightly.I didn’t have an answer ready.Hadn’t expected to need one.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.“A friend who could go with me.Or a way to check in.I just --” I broke off, frustrated by my inability to articulate what I wanted when I hadn’t even known I wanted it until he’d taken it away.“I need to be able to leave.To have the option, at least, without feeling like I need your permission.”
He considered that, his head tilting slightly.“You have that option,” he said.“That’s not what the rule says.”
I looked at the list again, reading it with fresh eyes.No leaving the compound alone.Not no leaving at all.Just not alone.
“Oh,” I said.
Neither of us moved.The list sat on the counter between us, the morning light catching on the black ink of Nitro’s handwriting.The argument didn’t resolve so much as it shifted -- from a wall into something with a door in it.Not gone, but passable.Not settled, but survivable.
Nitro slid the list back toward me with one finger.“Mark anything you want to renegotiate,” he said.His voice carried none of the command from earlier and all of the certainty -- the difference between a man issuing orders and a man who had decided my objections were worth hearing.
I picked up the pen lying beside the coffee maker -- the one he must have used to write the list -- and hovered it over the paper.The first rule stared back at me, clear and uncompromising.No leaving the compound alone.I drew a line through “alone” and wrote “without checking in first” beside it, my handwriting small and cramped next to his bold print.I could tell him I was leaving and where I was going.I wouldn’t like it, but it wouldn’t feel like he was controlling me.
I looked up to find him watching me, his gaze on my face rather than the list.“Better?”he asked.
“It’s a start,” I said.
He accepted the answer without pushing for more.Then he reached past me for the coffee pot, his arm brushing mine with deliberate care, and poured the last of the coffee into a mug he set on the counter near my hand.
“Drink that,” he said.“Then we’ll figure out breakfast.”
I picked up the mug, feeling the warmth of it seep into my palms.I’d been trying to avoid caffeine, but right now, I needed it.The coffee was black -- no cream, no sugar, nothing to soften the edge of it -- and it burned going down.But it was exactly what I needed: strong and direct and honest about what it was.
Just like the man standing across from me, watching me drink it with that attention that wasn’t quite concern and wasn’t quite control, but something in between that I didn’t have a name for yet.
Chapter Five
Willa
