Page 39 of Run

“I do. I’m asking you to pretend that I didn’t just tell you I’m responsible for you losing your team in Russia, and I’m asking you to hold me for a little while because I’m too worn out to hide that I’m terrified my father will get me.” She blinked back yet more stupid tears. “I know you probably want to get as far from me as possible, but if you can stand it, I’d really like to have you near…me. I promise I won’t try to jump your bones. Tonight, you totally get a reprieve. I swear I’ll behave.”

“You’re impossible,” he grumbled as he reluctantly stretched out beside her on the bed.

Elle hesitated to move closer, but David took the worry out of the situation for her. He wrapped around her, curling her into his side. They were two long-lost jigsaw pieces, fitting together perfectly on the first try. With a shiver, Elle pressed closer, wanting his heat to warm her chilled soul as she inhaled his fresh ocean scent deep within her.

“I hate being weak,” she confessed. The night, the dark, the emotion—all of it worked together to loosen her tongue.

“You’re far from weak.” He sounded serious. Not at all like he was trying to appease her so she’d shut up.

So, she carried on. “I hate being this tired too. I feel sore in my bones.”

“Then sleep.”

“I’m trying to, but there are thoughts in my head.”

“I’m scared to ask,” David muttered.

“I’ve killed a lot of people.” The words tumbled out, falling over each other in their rush to escape.

The names of her victims haunted Elle’s soul. Not that she knew all of them, even though she’d tried hard to find out. She’d wanted to know who they were. To mourn them even if they were awful, cruel people. No matter what they’d done, they were someone’s child. Surely that alone deserved her regret.

“I’ve killed more,” David said. Unlike her, he didn’t sound like it bothered him too much.

“How do you live with it? All that death. The families who miss them. The knowledge it’s all on you.”

His cheek pressed against her hair before he answered. “I’m not like you, Ellie. I was trained to kill people. Bad people. And I’ve never once regretted it or thought those lives didn’t need to be taken. I don’t think about their families or the people they’ve left behind. Mainly I think about the people who won’t suffer or die because they’re gone.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I know, but you can try to forgive yourself for what happened when you were a child. If you hadn’t trusted the person who gave you those jobs, you wouldn’t have done them.”

Elle took a deep breath and confessed to one of the worst things she’d ever done: “I killed three of Tommy’s men. The night before I started working with Benson Security, three syndicate members found out where I was living, and I killed them with booby traps I’d rigged to protect myself.”

Once the adrenaline had worked its way out of her system, she’d spent hours shaking and vomiting. The following day, she’d emptied her bank accounts, sending everything she had to their families, knowing full well money wouldn’t make up for what she’d taken from them. But it was all she had to give.

“Were they good men?” David asked, and something about the way he said it made her think he already knew the answer. “Was it self-defense?”

She’d known at the time that Tommy had ordered anyone who found her to hurt her. And there’d been no doubt in her mind that those men would have abused her before returning her to her father. One of them had threatened to rape her when she was a teenager and would have done so if given a chance. The other two were brutal to their families and cruel to anyone who got in their way. They were vile men. Evil and twisted and sick. Men who enjoyed making women suffer.

But that didn’t change the fact she was neither judge nor executioner.

“It was self-defense,” David said with finality when she didn’t answer. “Now go to sleep.”

“I can’t. My brain isn’t tired.”

“I know I’m going to regret this, but is there anything we can do that will make it tired?”

“We could snuggle naked?” She was pretty sure that having David naked would eliminate the possibility of her having any more thoughts—ever.

“I walked straight into that one,” he muttered. “Anything other than naked snuggling?”

“Have you gone off me? Is that what it is?” Yeah, in that moment, her mouth definitely had a mind of its own. One that needed to be silenced.

“It’s a bad idea, me and you.” His tone was gentle but firm. “It would be a mistake.”

Her stomach clenched, and she had to fight the urge to push away from him. “Because of what I did to you when you were in Russia?”

He was quiet for so long that she wasn’t sure he would answer. “I’ve known for years that your hack was used to bring down my team.” His voice was so soft it took a long moment to register what he’d said.