Chapter 7.

I catch the time on the screen, 2:17 a.m., before Rafael's name replaces it. I let it ring three times before I answer, Daniel's arm still heavy across my waist.

"So Marcus already talked." I slip out from under Daniel's arm and press the phone to my ear, voice low.

"Necesitaba escucharlo de ti misma." He catches himself, softens it into English. "I wanted to make sure you got home safely. After tonight. I needed to hear it from you myself."

"I'm home. I'm fine."

"Good." Another pause. I can hear him breathing on the other end, and something about the silence feels more honest than anything he said at the auction. "I've been thinking about you since you left."

"That's dangerous for a man in your line of work."

"Probably." I hear the smile in it, faint and unguarded in a way I haven't heard from him yet.

"Have dinner with me, Elena. Just us. No crowd. I want to know you without an audience.”

I let the silence stretch, count it out the way Isa taught me, long enough to feel real, not long enough to feel like doubt.

"Okay," I say. "Dinner."

"I'll text you."

"I'll be waiting." I hang up before he can hear whatever's sitting underneath my voice right now, because I'm not entirely sure myself what it is.

The second I lower the phone, Daniel stirs. "Who was that?"

"Classified." I climb back onto the couch, and he doesn't press, just studies my face in the dark. Another man just asked me to dinner while lying beside him. I don't have to say it out loud for it to feel like a betrayal already committed.

I kiss his shoulder to break it. "I need to start packing. FDOCS wants me gone by dawn. And I'm a woman of many suitcases."

"Of course you are." He groans into the pillow.

We start pulling clothes from drawers, and it turns into something softer than packing has any right to be. He folds my sweaters into shapes that don't exist in nature. I refold them behind his back when he's not looking, and he catches me every time and does it wrong again just to watch me sigh.

"You fold like you're punishing the fabric," I tell him.

"I fold like a man who has never once been taught and refuses to learn out of spite."

I'm reaching for a suitcase on the top shelf when his arms come around my waist from behind, pulling me back against him, chin resting on my shoulder.

"Leave it," he murmurs against my ear. "Just a minute."

"Daniel, I have two hours left—"

"I know." His mouth finds my neck, slow, unhurried. "I'm not spending them on suitcases.”

I turn in his arms, my hands sliding up his chest. "Then what are you spending them on?"

His answer is a low sound, half laugh, half growl, as he walks me backward until my hips hit the edge of the bed. His hands find the hem of my shirt, pulling it up and over my head, and the air hits my skin, but I'm already burning.

"Daniel—"

"Shh." He drops to his knees in front of me, undoing my jeans with a slowness that makes me tremble. He pulls them down, kisses the bare skin of my hip, and I grip his hair. "please fuck me right now."

He stands pulling my panties down, and I can't help the noise I make when I see the heat in his eyes. He presses me down onto the mattress, his body covering mine, and when his mouth finds my breast, I arch into him. His tongue circles my nipple countless times, teeth grazing just enough to make me gasp. His hand slides between us, down past my stomach, finding me wet and ready.

"Fuck," he breathes against my skin. "I'm gonna fuck so bad."

I pull at his belt, desperate, and he lets me free him from his jeans. He's hard, thick, and when he positions himself at my entrance, I feel the ache of wanting him inside me. He pauses, just for a second, looking down at me like I'm something precious.

"Don't stop," I whisper.

He doesn't. He pushes his dick into me slowly, inch by inch, and I feel every second of it. The stretch, the fullness, the way he fills me completely. I cry out his name, nails raking down his back, and he groans, his forehead dropping to mine.

"Selene," he mutters, and then he starts to move.

His rhythm is deep, punishing, each thrust hitting that spot inside me that makes my vision blur. He grips my thigh, hitching it higher around his waist, and the angle changes, and I'm lost. I'm clawing at his shoulders, begging, and he's fucking me like he means it, like he's trying to prove a point.

"Look at me," he commands, and I do. His jaw is tight, sweat beading at his temple, his eyes dark and locked on mine. "Squirt for me. I want to feel you."

And I do—I shatter, waves crashing through me, and he follows, burying his face in my neck as he groans my name, his body shuddering against mine and finally releasing.

Afterward, we lie tangled in the sheets, my head on his chest, his fingers tracing slow, absent shapes along my spine.

"That's one way to avoid packing," I murmur.

"Effective strategy. I'd recommend it to anyone running from federal luggage requirements."

I laugh, and it comes out softer than I mean it to, worn thin with exhaustion and something like happiness I haven't let myself feel in days.

"I'm going to miss this," I say, before I can stop myself. "You. This apartment. The stupid folding."

"You'll be back." He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "And when you are, I'm going to fold everything wrong just to watch your face."

"I hate you."

"You don't."

"I really don't," I admit, and let my eyes close, his heartbeat steady under my ear, until exhaustion pulls both of us under.

……..

I wake at 4:07, the room still dark, Daniel's arm pinning me lightly in place. I lie still a moment, counting the hours I don't have, then ease out from under him without a sound.

The shower runs hot and fast. I dress in the dark, check the bags twice, zip them without letting the sound wake him. Then I stand in the doorway for a long moment, just watching him breathe, memorizing this exactly the way I memorized his face the first night I let myself love him.

I don't wake him yet. Waking him early only makes the leaving longer, and I don't think either of us can survive a longer goodbye than we're about to have.

At five, headlights sweep across the window. The car has arrived.

I sit on the edge of the bed and press my hand to his shoulder. "Daniel. It's time."

He wakes fast, the particular fast of a man who's been listening for this even in his sleep. He doesn't say anything, just pulls me into him for a long moment, then reaches for something on the nightstand.

"Wait. Before you go." He presses a small square of fabric into my palm, hand-embroidered, his name stitched crooked along one corner in careful, uneven thread. It smells faintly of his cologne. "In case you miss me. You can just smell it. Very scientific."

I stare at it, then at him. "You made this."

"I attempted this. There was a YouTube tutorial involved. Several failures preceded this one."

"Daniel." My voice cracks despite everything I tell it not to. "This is the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever given me."

"And yet you're smiling."

"Shut up." I fold it carefully, tuck it into my palm like it's made of something breakable. "I'm keeping this on me. Always."

Downstairs, Jake and Isa are already waiting by the car with two agents I don't recognize, the team assembled with the quiet efficiency of people used to erasing someone's life before sunrise.

Daniel walks me down, and something in his jaw sets tight when he reaches Isa.

"Please take care of her," he says. Not a request. Close to one anyway.

Isa meets his eyes, steady, unreadable in the way that used to comfort me and now just makes my stomach turn. "I will."

She doesn't tell him how alone I'm about to be. Neither do I.

Daniel kisses me at the door, slow, like he's trying to make it last longer than a kiss should be able to, and I hold the handkerchief tight in my fist the entire walk to the car.

By the time the door shuts behind me, Selene Vasquez no longer exists.