Chapter 37 It had been six days since Raziel had been shot. The hospital said he was stable. Healing. But I wouldn't believe shit until I heard his voice. I was six days sober. The jagged edges of my craving had smoothed into a dull, manageable ache, thanks to Miyori's relentless watchfulness and the sheer exhaustion of what we'd done. It had been three days since I saw Alessia's and her father's blood pool across cracked concrete. Priest's penthouse, close to the hospital, was finally starting to feel less like a cage and more like a sanctuary. We were in the kitchen. She was making tea. The silence between us was heavy, filled with the ghost of gunshots and the things I'd finally said aloud. She wanted to know about Henderson, about the details of that room, about the drugs, but I'd shut that down. That pain was mine to carry alone. She had enough trauma. I knew she was getting ready to hit me with questions about what I'd said about Raziel, though. She set a steaming mug in front of me, her eyes not leaving my face. "So Raziel saved you. That's why," she said softly, her voice careful. "That's why you were so determined to have him? From the very beginning?" I wrapped my hands around the warm ceramic, letting the heat seep into my bones. There was no point in hiding it anymore. The truth was out, lying on the warehouse floor between us. "Yes," I said, the word simple and absolute. I looked up at her. "He walked into that hellhole and he saw people, Mi. Not junkies. Not problems. Not disposable girls. He saw us. And he burned it all down for us. For me." I took a shaky breath, the memory as vivid as it had ever been. "How do you not spend the rest of your life trying to be worthy of that?" My voice dropped to a whisper. "I put up with everything," I continued, the words leaking out like a confession. "His silence. His distance. His indifference. Alessia. Because he's him. Do you know what it felt like to see him again after everything? After rehab? Like somebody threw me a rope. And I didn't just grab it-I wrapped myself in it." Miyori reached across the table, covering my hand with hers. "Baby girl... you sound like you hero-worship him. Like you're obsessed." "It's addiction!" I said, the admission bursting out of me. "I'm addicted. He is my obsession. He's my savior. He's the reason I'm breathing." I shook my head, seeing the fear in her eyes. "I know that word scares you. It scares me, too. But this... him... it's a different kind of high." A faint, wry smile touched my lips. "He's better than drugs. What's the difference between what I feel and love? For me, there isn't one. My love for him is all of those things. It's messy and it's desperate and it's probably not healthy, but it's the truest thing I've ever felt." I looked toward the window, toward the hospital that held my entire world. "I need him. He's the monster who kills monsters for me. And I'll never apologize for that." She was quiet for a long time, just holding my hand, absorbing what she probably saw as the raw, unsettling truth of my devotion. "Okay," she finally whispered, squeezing my fingers. "Okay." It wasn't approval. It wasn't understanding. It was acceptance. And in the quiet aftermath of so much violence, that was enough. Five-year-old Annie, who can understand animals, saved Landon Hawthorne, a wealthy businessman, from suicide. Now she's his whole world and he's her legal cheat-code against every villain fate throws ...