My stomach drops. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Ian—”
“Crazy.” He pushes off the counter, stepping closer but still keeping that careful foot of space. His voice stays light, but there’s steel underneath. “You’ve been in this apartment for weeks. Paris is literally right outside doing its whole romantic,overpriced, croissant-filled thing, and you’re treating it like a war zone. Reth didn’t have me drag you out of that bloodbath so you could rot in here feeling sorry for yourself. He did it so you could keep breathing. So get dressed.”
I shake my head, backing up a step. “I don’t want to see Paris without him.”
“How old were you when you started dreaming about seeing Paris?”
I scowl at him. “That’s not?—”
“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say fifteen years, give or take?”
“Something like that.”
Ian takes another step closer, tilting his head like he’s genuinely puzzled. “Fifteen years you’ve been fantasizing about this city, and now that you’re one shower and an elevator ride away from actually tasting it, you’re gonna say no… because you don’t want to see it without the guy who stalked and kidnapped you?”
I open my mouth. Close it. The words sound ridiculous when he says them out loud like that—flat, logical, and completely unfair.
“He didn’t just kidnap me,” I mutter, setting the coffee down harder than necessary. “He… changed everything.”
“Yeah, well, so did the Black Death, but people still went outside.” Ian folds his arms, that wicked little grin creeping back. “Come on, Crazy. Get dressed.”
I shake my head. “I’ve always wanted to come here, yes. But not like this. I want to see Paris with him. And I don’t care how crazy that sounds, or how insane it makes me, it is what it is.”
Ian’s expression softens for half a second, then his smirk slides back into place. “Touching. Truly. But here’s the thing. If Reth finds out I let you turn into a hermit, he’ll take that pretty little Indonesian tiger-claw knife of his and get real creative with my insides.”
“I’m not?—”
He doesn’t wait. In one smooth motion, Ian bends, hooks an arm behind my knees, and tosses me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. A startled laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it—half shock, half genuine.
“Ian! Put me down!”
“Nope.” He starts walking toward the bedroom, one hand casually patting my ass like I’m a sack of flour. “You had your chance for dignity. Now we’re doing this the fun way.”
I squirm, but there’s no real heat in it. His grip is steady, careful, nothing like the violence I’ve seen him unleash.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Accurate.” He shoulders open the bathroom door and sets me down on the cool tile and opens the shower faucet. “Please do not make me force you to take a shower. That would require stripping you, and Reth will make me swallow my balls for that. I’m rather attached to them. They’re pretty. Do me a solid and handle it yourself.”
I stare at him, cheeks warm, a reluctant smile tugging at my lips. The absurdity of it—of this sarcastic, lethal man playing reluctant babysitter—cuts through the fog for the first time in days.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Effective, though.” He taps the side of my nose with one finger. “Ten minutes. I’ll pick something warm. We’re walking to that little café on the corner. You can scowl at pastries while imagining all the creative ways Reth would insult them. Deal?”
I exhale, the fight draining out of me. He’s not pushing because he doesn’t care. He’s pushing because he does—in his own loud, annoying, life-saving way. “Fine. But if I cry in public, it’s your fault.”
“Cry away, Crazy. I’ll just tell everyone you’re allergic to French air.” He steps back toward the door, that easy grin flashing again. “Besides, if you melt down, I get to carry you home over my shoulder again. Win-win.”
He closes the door behind him with a soft click, leaving me alone with the steam already rising in the shower.
I strip slowly and step under the hot spray. The water beats against my skin, but it does nothing to dull the ache buried deep in my chest. Every time I close my eyes, I see him—out there somewhere, bleeding or making others bleed, slowly being stripped of the man who whispered my name like it was the only prayer he still believed in.
Ian still won’t tell me whosheis. I’ve asked. Multiple times. He always finds a way to dodge, crack a joke, or change the subject. And I don’t push too hard because I know where his loyalty lies. Reth doesn’t want me to know. That much is clear. But the not-knowing is its own kind of violence. It keeps me awake at night imagining what she’s doing to him. What she’s turning him back into.
