Page 56 of Grim’s Angel

“No.”

“Did he receive money from the purchase?”

“Only the protection fee sent to the club. He returned it.”

“Did he ever agree to marry me?”

“No.”

McKenna comes to me and takes my hand.

Everything in me wants to close my fingers around hers and use her touch to silence the guilt.

I pull away.

Pain crosses her face.

“Do not make his choices mine,” she says.

“His plan put you in my path.”

“His plan brought you to the station. You decided what happened when I said no.”

“Because he knew what I would do.”

“He predicted your character. He did not create it.”

Her words are clean, sharp, and true.

The guilt does not care.

“If I claim what is between us now, I give him the ending he bought.”

“You do not claim my decisions.”

The correction lands hard.

“I know.”

“Then stop talking as if staying with you is something you take.”

I force air into my lungs. “I need to know what belongs to us. The job was arranged. The first danger was engineered. Even the cabin became part of the path he paid to create.”

“What happened inside that cabin was ours.”

The memory of her wrapped around me strikes hard enough to shake my control.

“You cannot know what you would have felt if he had not made me your rescuer.”

“Neither can you. That does not make what I feel false.”

My father watches us with grief in his eyes. Maybe he finally understands that arranging love is another way to poison it.

I turn on him.

“You wanted to repair what you did to me? Here is what you bought.”

His face pales.