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s-brant · 2 years

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Seatbelt

A fight between Harry and Y/N has driven them apart, but when they’re called to complete another hit, an unforeseen conflict forces them to work together again. (or hitman!h part four)

18k (18+)

Warnings: Strong language, graphic violence, murder, implied sexual content, depictions of PTSD and anxiety, self harm, sex trafficking, and toxic relationship dynamics.

To say her best friend is in a state of shock would be a gross understatement.

There have been few times that she's ever witnessed a reaction as passionate as this from Alanis, among them being the fight she had with Peter the day before his death, and this must be the worst. Not even her love for him could've drawn this amount of concern. Once she sees her laying on the floor in the hallway, all hell breaks loose.

"Y/N!" she exclaims, blind to the man who'd drawn his weapon on her seconds go.

Alanis rushes past him and crouches beside her, pulling her up into a sitting position and cupping her bruised face between her hands. The touch is healing to her soul. As it always is whenever they are together, she feels a small shred of her old life come back to comfort her with the sound of her voice and the feeling of her hands on her face. But, the distress in said voice keeps her from relishing in it for long.

"Shit, what happened?" she asks frantically. It's quite easy to put two and two together with a quick look at her, though. Tears have already built up in her friend's eyes as her expression turns stony with outrage, adding, "Who did this to you?"

How is she to explain that one?

"Please, don't worry about my face or the creepy guy who just tried to shoot you in the head. The leader of the gang we're trapped in just had his guards beat the shit out of me for something I didn't even do. I'm fine, thanks for asking!"

Sure, that'd go over perfectly.

Y/N is at an utter loss for words. To tell her the truth would be to put her life at risk, but lying to her would be a near-impossible feat. In what world would Alanis believe that she got beaten up at random being a normal chauffeur? With Harry here, she'll know it has something to do with her new job. A job she has been notably stingy relaying information about.

There's a change in the energy surrounding the four of them as Alanis turns to eye Harry up where he stands not far from them. The look she casts his way is unforgiving in its ferocity. It doesn't take her, Harry, or Zayn much thought to understand the conclusion she jumps to before anything is said. The alleged hatred between them, having the gun pulled on her, and the fact that she showed up beaten with him beside her—if he is who she thinks he is, thinking they got into a fight isn't the worst assumption to make.

"Did you do this to her?"

Harry bristles at the question.

The hand around the grip of the pistol clenches harder in a reaction none of them miss, and he takes a step closer to them. Him holding tighter onto the gun doesn't mean anything. She knows he won't kill anyone unless he has to, but Alanis doesn't. And seeing him step forward with an intimidating stare down at her does nothing to oppose the bad first impression she's gotten.

"I would never," he says.

Before her best friend and ex-lover can dare to start going back and forth in argument, Zayn walks out into the hallway between them to intervene.

"All of you get inside. We can talk about this but not out here. I'm surprised your neighbors haven't come out yet as it is."

This stops them all. It draws their attention away from each other and over to where their friend—Alanis's acquaintance, technically—has positioned himself between them. He then turns to Harry with a pointed stare at the gun clutched in his hand. In a wordless response, he sighs and pulls up the side of his shirt to stash it back in its holster.

He is smart enough not to move to help her up from the floor. In the current state of their fragile relationship, he wouldn't put it past her to knee him in the balls for putting his hands on her, whether it was to help her or not. Her feelings on the topic were made clear already, and it may kill him, but he stands back to watch as Alanis heaves her up from the ground by herself. He ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him to go to her, confused as to why he wants to so badly.

"There you go," Alanis murmurs with a hand on the small of Y/N's back as she walks. Just in case.

It doesn't take a genius to notice the perplexed expression on her dear friend's face. A million questions are likely firing off in her head right about now, most of them having to do with having to see her friend beaten to a pulp and a gun shoved in her face for answering the door. To be fair, she does a better job at hiding her shock and horror than Y/N did the night he hopped in her car. She trembled and fought the need to cry. Alanis, however, shows her shock solely in her eyes. She doesn't cry or tremble.

The apartment door closes with an accidental slam that makes Y/N flinch into Alanis's side, checking over her shoulder to see Zayn mouthing an apology as he locks the door.

Harry doesn't do or say anything.

Watching her sit with a stifled wince at her sore body, he doesn't give anything about himself away. The openness he allowed himself to have with her was shot to hell not only by seeing Leo punish her but also because of their current company. He doesn't owe any information to Alanis. If Y/N is as smart as he thinks she is, she should already be concocting a lie to explain what's going on, but he won't be the one to let anything about the true nature of their jobs slip out.

"Who did this to you?" Alanis asks again.

This time, her focus doesn't stray from where Y/N holds a bag of frozen corn to her bruising face. Zayn was kind enough to fish it out of the freezer and hand it to her as consolation for slamming the door on their way back in. It soothes the ache for the time being, though she thinks it's trying to come up with an elaborate lie to fool her best friend that might be taking her mind off of it.

She takes a long time to answer. Too long.

Harry and Zayn keep trying to make eye contact with her and convey everything they wish they could say without letting Alanis in on their shared secret, but she refuses to look at any of them. Her eyes are downcast, locked on the floor, and she doesn't say or do anything for a moment too drawn out to be comfortable.

What can she say other than the truth? Her head is reeling from everything that happened to her tonight, and she is far too tired to keep up with the web of lies she has wrapped herself in. It takes a delayed moment of contemplation, but when she knows, she knows. She has nothing else to give but honesty.

She looks up from the floor, and the first person whose stare she meets is Harry's. Of course, she rectifies that mistake the second she makes it. Their eyes meet across the space for only a second before she turns to look back at her friend.

Y/N turns back to Alanis and asks with a seriousness that can't be mistaken, "If I tell you the truth, will you promise not to tell anyone? I'm serious, you can't say a word. It's for your own safety and all of ours."

"Yes."

Harry's face has visibly hardened with every word said.

It's clear in how he shifts in place and starts to bite at his lip, he doesn't like it. He wants to interject and find a way to shut this down, to prevent another person from being subjected to Leo by association, but there isn't much he can do. Not only is she pissed at him, rightfully so, for what he said to her, but it's also an impossible situation to weasel her way out of. The best lie would be to claim that Harry, already known by Alanis as someone to dislike, lost control and beat the shit out of her. Yet, as angry with him as she is, she wouldn't dare to tell a lie like that. As he said, he would never, and she knows that.

But, just because she wouldn't tell a lie like that doesn't mean he wouldn't. This morning, she wouldn't even mention Alanis by name in front of him out of the need to shield her from this side of her life. Y/N can lie after he leaves tonight and say she filed for a restraining order, as well as claim that Leo fired him, and he'll be sure to make himself scarce whenever she's around to make it convincing. If making himself look terrible is the price he has to pay to make sure she can protect her friend, he'll pay it.

Harry is about to step forward to confess to a crime he didn't commit when she goes and ruins it. She blurts it out before he can offer himself up in her place.

"My boss did this to me."

Alanis is already trying to speak up and give her a lecture about how she doesn't have to keep quiet, but Y/N doesn't let her get a word in. She put her hands on her shoulders to force her back in her seat.

"I need you to trust me. Please, just be quiet and listen to everything before you ask questions." The desperation in her voice turns him uneasy. He doesn't know what's wrong with him or why he wants to go over there, pull her into his lap, and keep her wrapped up in his arms for comfort. "I know this will be a lot to take in, but I'll answer any question you need me to once I'm done explaining it all...Okay?"

Then, something strange happens. It makes Harry's brows raise ever so slightly to see Alanis look over at Zayn for reassurance, as if she needs him to confirm the story to proceed. He takes a deep breath, then nods.

And Y/N tells her everything.

It takes at least a half hour of non-stop talking for her to get it out, and once she starts, she cannot stop. Until now, it hadn't occurred to her how much she missed being able to talk to Alanis about her life without walking on eggshells to avoid mentioning Leo and Harry. The weight lifted off of her shoulders with every passing word is immeasurable, and somewhere along the way, the urge to cut lessens. Now that she has let it out in another way, it isn't as urgent or desperate as it would've been had no one been waiting for them here.

The entire time, Harry remains as silent as death. He stands with his arms crossed over his chest and his face virtually unreadable. Though she doesn't look over at him more than a few times out of anger and sheer stubbornness, whenever she does, it reminds her of the day Leo interrogated her. How he blocked all emotion from his face and observed, never speaking or offering anything of his own. It's obvious to her that he doesn't approve of telling Alanis the truth, but, to be candid, she doesn't give a fuck what he does or doesn't approve of at this point. He is as dead to her as the men he kills.

The silence that follows her long speech is tense. It's thick with everything everyone wants to say but cannot. Zayn and Harry remain where they stood when she first began speaking and Alanis, stunned to silence, is staring off at her face with an expression caught somewhere between horror and shock.

After a long, drawn-out moment, she breaks the silence, and what she says isn't what any of them expected. Rather than a variation of, "What the fuck?" or another expletive that captures the sheer amount of shock felt at this moment, she speaks with clarity. Her voice is soft.

"I don't even know what to say."

Harry's chest tightens at the sight of Y/N's wide, tears eyes as she scoots closer and reaches for her friend's hand, her brows pinching together a bit.

"You don't have to say anything yet. You don't have to support it, or even understand it, but all I'm asking is that you keep it a secret for all our sakes. Especially yours. Leo can never know that you know. Just being associated with me puts you in danger, but if he even suspects that we told you..." she pauses for a beat, allowing the silence to say the words she cannot, "It wouldn't be good."

Alanis shifts her focus from her to Zayn, then Harry. Her stare pierces right through his body with the same amount of accusatory anger as before, and he knows how it sounds. He knows the story of how he hopped into her car and put a gun to her head has likely set off every alarm in Alanis' mind, but she'll soon realize how little choice is involved in working for Leo. And what Y/N left from her story is them. Their...whatever it is...and the way they spoke this morning. How he told her he wanted to save her from this life.

"I'll take care of her tonight," Alanis says coldly without further addressing the bomb dropped on her tonight. "You're off the hook. Feel free to go home."

That was as civil as she could attempt to be with him, and it gives Y/N a sick sense of pleasure to hear the snarky tone she takes after what he did to her tonight. She hopes he can feel the ire rolling off her in waves, she prays that it seeps into him like poison and keeps him up at night. Anything for him to feel the same pain he caused her at her lowest.

Today felt like a breakthrough. For the first time, she thought she was getting through to him. She thought she was the first person allowed to peek behind the curtain of mystery that shrouds the infamous Harry Styles, but she was mistaken. Whatever idea she had in her head of him was just that, an idea. A stupid, childish fantasy she wasted time entertaining while he coaxed her into showing him the darkest parts of herself.

Y/N turns her gaze to him as well, eyeing him up and down with the hurt of his betrayal echoing in her heart. And, she wishes she had no sort of feelings for him. She wishes she could deny the part of her that still yearns for his touch, for the strange mixture of danger and protection that can only be found in his arms. It turns her stomach sick to think about how little he feels in return.

"She's right," Y/N says. "Both of you can leave."

In other words, "Go fuck yourself."

"Ow!" Y/N yanks her face from her best friend's reach as she cleans her bloodied face.

Every time the large cotton swab stick soaked through with povidone-iodine makes contact with her wounds, under the careful guidance of Alanis's hand, she tries to ignore the urge to flinch. This time, she couldn't resist. The pressure put on the cut splitting open her left brow was too much, and her face twists up into a grimace in response to the stinging sensation of the pain.

"Sorry," Alanis says through a wince, "I'm just trying to get it over with as quickly as I can. I promise it's almost done."

"Yeah, yeah, torture me and be done with it," she murmurs, half kidding, half not.

A soft chuckle escapes Alanis at this, and she makes good on the request. This time, however, the pressure of the swab stick cleaning her cut is much softer and more considerate. An apology in the physical form.

Y/N unashamedly studies her best friend's face in the meantime. With her hair, a curly mane braided around her head like a crown, she looks beautiful. No wonder her brother had fallen in love. The same can be said for Zayn and his fondness for her. Anyone with eyes can understand the allure of her, but, as she looks closer at those symmetrical features, she realizes that she is one of the few who can understand the woman beneath the beauty.

Y/N finally says, "Just spit it out. I know you're dying to ask me."

The gentle caress of the swab on her skin slows in reaction to this.

To her credit, Alanis shrugs, feigning ignorance, and says, "Whatever it is, it's none of my business."

So, she did pick up on her and Harry's strange relationship.

The reason Y/N didn't add that into the story she told in front of him and Zayn is because, first of all, he'd likely kill her for exposing them. Second of all, she didn't want Zayn to know. Being embarrassed by Harry's cruel words in the car was one thing, but to endure that embarrassment a second time over in front of one of his friends would've been another. Plus, the less of Leo's men that know about their previous sexual intimacy, the better.

If everyone knew how Harry acted with her, not just about the sex yet about his desperation to protect her, it would put a target on her back. What fascinates everyone about Leo's ruthless hitman is his lack of humanity. He has never been known to care about anyone. Though she would argue he doesn't truly care for her after tonight, his actions tell a different story, and to the men populating this world of crime, there would be no greater asset to ascertain than a powerful man's sole weak spot. Like it or not, she is his Achilles heel. For her safety, that fact must remain a secret.

There's a dip of silence, and Y/N can't help but think to herself, Wait for it, wait for it, then—

"Okay, here's the thing."

Alanis pulls back and drops the swab stick into the trash to exchange it for the bandage sitting on her crossed legs. The whole time, she doesn't let her stare stray from Y/N's expectant face.

"I kind of got a you-guys-are-totally-fucking vibe, even though you seemed like you wanted to put his head on a stick, and as your best friend I feel like I've been incredibly chill so far tonight about you dipping your toes into a life of crime, so just be straight with me," she says. Her shoulders sink with a heavy exhale. "Please tell me you aren't fucking that douchebag."

She considers lying to her. Recently, it's been getting easier and easier to deceive people with the amount of practice she's been forced to have with the art of lying about everything that's happened to her. But, she doesn't want to. For the first time since Leo forced her into this, she doesn't fear letting her friend in. She already knows about Leo, and Zayn swore to keep her safe when she asked to speak with him shortly before they left.

"I'm not," Y/N says, then averts her eyes in hopes to avoid her friend's potential judgment, "...anymore."

It takes a second for her to process the information before she falls back onto the couch with every ounce of drama she can summon and groans. A hand flattens over her heart as though a knife has been pushed through it.

"If he had any other job or personality, I would be so happy for you putting yourself out there again, but..." Alanis looks at her from where she's laying back, one arm thrown over her head and the other still resting over her heart, with a disappointed expression on her face. "He's not good for you. He's a killer, Y/N, you couldn't be any more different from each other than you already are. He goes against everything I know you stand for. You deserve better than that, babe."

She cannot find it within herself to disagree with what she said about them being wholly different from each other. She isn't sure she can say it with confidence anymore. Before he turned on her tonight, she liked where things were going. It may kill her to admit it to herself, but she relished in torturing Tate over the phone earlier. It turned her on, even. And knowing that she was capable of sending Harry into some kind of murderous frenzy last night...she hates to even think it, but it's true—she had fun doing it. And that made her as bad as him. Maybe even worse.

The lines between them, those rigid morals she stuck to for as long as she could, have begun to blur. He may pull the trigger on every job, but she is the one aiding him. She might as well load the gun. How much longer can she claim innocence? How much longer can she pretend she didn't enjoy being the hitman's plaything?

She says, "You're right. You're absolutely right, and that's why I'm not fucking him anymore. He was acting like an idiot on the drive back here tonight, so I told him it's over. The only time I'll see him is when I have to for work."

Alanis sits back up and starts to apply bandages to the cuts littered across her face.

"Good. While you're at it, I know a nice guy I can set you up with. Someone who actually deserves a woman like you, not some scowling, brooding asshat who kills people for a living."

But she can't help but wonder, what if Harry is what she deserves? She almost let him drag her into the complicated mess of his personal life, and if she felt compassion for someone as evil as him, where does that leave her? Does she even deserve a nice man? The words Harry said to her tonight linger and fester within her. He said he could never be her friend, and if someone like him doesn't even want her, why would a better man?

For the rest of the night, she indulges in Alanis's questions and pretends to feel better. She pretends to fully immerse herself in the moment, to not be reminded of the beating she took every time she forces herself to laugh or smile harder, but it comes back to her no matter how many times she redirects her mind.

The worst part about it, what she thinks makes her undeserving of a nice man, is that when she thought she was getting closer to Harry and becoming his partner in some way today...she liked it.

The next three days are spent in idle agony.

Y/N laid on the couch beneath the safety of her plush comforter and didn't move to do anything other than use the bathroom, shower, clean her cuts, and eat. While she binge-watched multiple television shows and subsisted solely on microwaveable pizza—because it was the easiest thing to make in a short amount of time before her body started to ache—the new burner phone that was dropped off on her doormat did not ring yet.

She knew it was only a matter of time, though. Through the hazy fog of her memory from the night Leo had her beaten, she remembers him telling her about the job they're due to fulfill soon very clearly. As she indulged in escapism and rested as much as she could to recover from the ruthless beating she took, it's not as if she forgot the storm clouds looming on the horizon.

Unlike the first time he gave her a burner phone with the expectation of him calling at any minute, she doesn't wait around in anticipation of his call now that two days have passed. She already knows what time of day he operates in, so she plans her day accordingly around Harry's familiar pre-killing schedule. The daytime belongs to her.

She has spent most of it resting.

The bandages on her face were due to come off, and in their absence scabbed-over scars decorated her pretty face. It was an effort not to hurl something at the mirror when she realized she'd likely be left with these marks for a few years. Mercifully, the bruises on her body weren't as sore as they were last night. It still ached with sudden movement, but it was manageable. As long as she continued to rest for the remainder of the day, she knew she could handle driving for him tonight.

Now, she's away from the couch only for long enough to make herself something to eat. It's nothing elaborate. Just a sandwich, so she doesn't need to be up and moving for too long before her body begins to throb in pain. But, when she reaches for the cutlery drawer to cut it in half, the knives are all gone.

She mutters under her breath, "What the fuck?"

A quick check inside the dishwasher does nothing to help, either. No matter how many times she combs through every drawer in her kitchen and every section of her dishwasher, they're nowhere to be found. Rather than exerting herself more than necessary, she decides to make it a problem for her future self. How they went missing, she doesn't know, but it's the least of her concerns right now.

She's finally settling back down on the comfortable nest of blankets and pillows laid atop her couch, remote and plate of food in hand to resume her recent TV show obsession, when it happens.

The burner phone rings.

Her head whips around in the direction of its grating noise. It buzzes and moves around in a circle on the coffee table, its designated spot since she received it. Suddenly, reality comes rushing back. She'd done a masterful job of ignoring it until now. Now, her gaze is drawn down from the paused screen ahead of her to the black flip phone.

She thought she know how she'd feel when the time came for her to see Harry again. Part of her anticipated the sharp pain in her chest, as well as the sickening sensation of her stomach churning as it always does when she's called before a job, but she hadn't expected this. The excitement. Why is she still excited to see him? Logically, she knows how she feels. She meant what she said the last time they saw each other, so why does she feel like this? Why is there a part of her, however small, that reacts this way to him?

Rather than trouble herself with getting to the root of this feeling, she allows the phone to ring to voicemail and strides off toward her bedroom to get dressed. At this point, she never needs to answer the phone. When he calls, she knows what it means, and he'll give her the target's address once they're in the car together, which is fine by her. The less interaction they have to endure, the better. If he speaks to her for too long, she might be compelled to snatch the gun from his hands and turn it on him.

It feels quite reminiscent of the first job she did with him by the time she's waiting down the end of the street from her apartment's entrance, dressed head to toe in dark clothing. Black leather gloves cover her hands, the twin to Harry's own pair, this time around. That had been another gift left on her doorstep alongside the burner phone. It took a few minutes of internal debate before she ended up putting them on despite knowing who purchased them for her. It beats wiping down the steering wheel in case anyone somehow obtains their car and lifts her prints.

A swift glance at the watch fastened around her right wrist tells her he is two minutes late by the time the sleek sports car pulls up to the curb on the other side of the road. Inside the car, she sees him scoot to the passenger's side.

She mutters, "Asshole," and takes her sweet time walking across the street to get back at him in any small way she can.

The driver's side door opens under a light tug of her hand on the handle, and there he is. Just as he was the last time she saw him leaving her apartment, his face is set in an unreadable, stony expression that serves as a mask between him and the rest of the world. And it may remind her of the first time they worked together, but it couldn't be more different. This time, she has navigated the rocky terrain of a complicated and, admittedly, toxic relationship with him, and she knows better than to assume anything based on his exterior appearance. He's a master of his emotions. She'll only see what he wants her to, so, with that in mind, she doesn't bother trying to figure him out.

Y/N relaxes into the seat and shuts the door with a harsh slam, not deigning to greet him or even look in his direction for longer than a second no matter how tempting the idea may seem. Her foot presses down on the gas with little preamble. It doesn't matter that he didn't tell her the address. Apparently, he thought ahead and put it into the GPS. Not to be considerate, of course, but to avoid having to look at or speak to her.

Or so she thinks. After five seconds of the car moving down the street, he speaks.

"Seatbelt."

The sound of his voice halts the pattern of her breathing due to the instinctive reaction of her traitorous body before she gathers herself.

"No thanks, if we crash, I want to make sure I'm able to crawl out before I die." She turns her narrowed eyes to him, and the sight of him nearly knocks the wind from her chest despite her display of bravado. "You know, God forbid the last thing I see is your face. I'd rather see the sky."

Tension is palpable in the air between them. It's charged with electricity she forgot to expect with him near, and she wishes she didn't notice it. She wishes it weren't still there after their recent falling out. Although, she wonders if a falling out could occur if someone were simply pretending to be her friend for the sake of having sex. They were never truly close to begin with, were they?

Harry points the barrel of his gun in her direction with a lazy twirl of his wrist and deadpans at her, his mask firmly in place. A single strand of brown hair dangles in his face as his eyes bore into her own. The command in his stare is undeniable, and, she must admit, it takes more bravery than she thought it would to ignore the urge to instantly comply.

"Put your fucking seatbelt on."

Without a second of hesitation, she slams on the brake and reaches for the knife strapped to her thigh. Every movement is too quick for him to see before he's confronted with the sight of her leaning over the center console with the sharp side of her serrated blade pressing into his clothed cock. When his stare, tinged with subtle surprise that she now knows how to spot on him after weeks spent by his side, lifts to take in her face, her jaw is clenched.

"I do what I want," she spits. "Now, unless you want your favorite part to get familiar with my knife, put that gun back on your lap and shut your mouth."

And with Harry being Harry, it shouldn't surprise her that he remains unfazed by this. It's not as if she'd actually do it and risk Leo's wrath for harming his most valued worker when he needs his expertise the most. No, they are both untouchable. So long as Leo draws breath on this earth, there will be enemies he needs them to take care of on his behalf, and as long as they have to do his dirty work, he won't let anything lethal happen to them without harsh consequences.

"Y'know it's your favorite part too," is all he says in response.

The hand holding the gun falls back to his lap.

It was said to throw her off, to get the upper hand back after she caught him off guard, but she doesn't allow herself to give him the reaction he seeks. She simply glares at him and retracts the knife from his crotch without acknowledging his invitation to engage in playful banter like they used to. Her silence, though difficult to accomplish due to the voice in her head screaming at her to hurl verbal vitriol back at him, proves effective if the slight twitch of his lip says anything about it.

With this, she sheathes the knife and brings her hands back to the wheel to continue driving, following the predetermined path of the GPS leading somewhere an hour out of the city. His eyes track the movement of her hands wrapping around the wheel. She wore the gloves.

Rather than ask why the designation is so far away, she keeps quiet and drives, trying not to think about what he just said. If she weren't determined to give him the cold shoulder, she might've made a snarky response about that being the only useful part of him. Though, he'd likely enjoy that.

The landscape of the city center soon gives way to the seemingly endless stretch of highways that carry them all the way up to Baton Rouge. It's a long, painfully silent drive. Unlike their first job together, time doesn't go faster from them exchanging verbal jabs and thinly veiled flirtations, it drags on forever. It takes all of her self-control to refrain from glancing at him out of the corner of her eye to see what he's going to do next.

He doesn't do anything. The whole time after their tense interaction outside of her apartment building, he remains as silent as she does, and she thanks whatever higher power that is watching over her for that. By the time they slow to a stop across the street from the towering business building Leo's men reported as the current residence of his remaining attacker, they've spoken all but a few sentences to one another.

Reluctantly, she asks, "What's the plan?"

Harry unbuckles his seatbelt and pulls a mask down over his face, going through the process of double-checking that all is well with his gun without acknowledging her question. Finally, he answers when he's reaching for the door handle.

"Stay right here. If m'not back in ten minutes, leave and call Leo."

The car door slams shut behind him.

And for the next ten minutes, she does exactly that. Her eyes never stray from the side door he snuck inside through, as silent and swift as death itself. It's not that she cares whether he lives or dies in there, she cares that this job doesn't go sideways. At least, that's what she tells herself.

The last thing she needs is another ruthless punishment from their boss. Her bruises and cuts still pain her as she sits and watches, waiting for him to come running back out of the building.

Yet, once eleven minutes have elapsed, he doesn't come back out. Her gloved fingertips begin to tap nervously at the steering wheel, and she doesn't know what to do. He told her to abandon him and call Leo, but...What if he's in trouble? It wouldn't be good for her if Harry gets killed. Leo wouldn't have any use for her. He'd be free to kill her and allow the secrets she's learned about his gang to go with her to the grave. And after he takes her out, she can only imagine Alanis would be next.

Another minute passes, and Y/N lets loose an exasperated sigh. There's only one thing she can do. Leaving him to die isn't an option no matter how much she hates him at the present moment.

Her body is reeling from the pain of her aggravated bruises as she opens the glove box on the other side of the car in search of the spare gun he always keeps inside in case of emergencies. It's the same exact make and model as the one he uses to take out his assigned hits, so she knows how to check to make sure it's loaded and ready to use from the countless times she's watched him use it.

She whispers to him even though he can't hear her from wherever he is, "Please don't die, you fucking idiot," and opens the door to the car.

It's left running and put in park for the sake of allowing them a quick getaway, something they'll surely need should the situation be as severe as it feels to her. He is never late. Every time they work together, he tells her exactly how long it will take him to get in, kill his target, and get out, and he has never been wrong. Not until tonight.

Streetlamps flicker overhead as she speeds across the empty street with the gun clutched tightly between her gloved hands and lowered to the ground. Ready to pounce at any second, her forefinger remains straight against the side of the barrel in preparation to squeeze around the trigger. If she were to take a second to think beyond the blind panic that has taken hold of her body, she wouldn't recognize herself. A month ago, she was a sobbing, trembling mess when Harry jumped into her car, terrified of the predator that threw her life off track overnight. Now, she is the predator.

There's no sign of any distress going on inside, no gunshots or screams that can be heard from the street, and there aren't guards posted outside. He simply strolled right in, so that's what she does too.

She handles the heavy metal door carefully as to not make too much noise opening or closing it, and the first room she's met with is a tall stairwell. When she walks up to the first flight and leans over the rail to look up, it goes on forever. Up and up and up and up until it disappears into darkness. It leaves her wondering how she'll ever find him in this place. What if he's killed or taken by Perez's men before she can find him? Perhaps she should've listened to him when he told her to leave, but it's too late for that. She's already here.

The stairs don't do anything to soothe her aching muscles, but she pays it no mind. It's hard to focus on something as insignificant as that when faced with the possibility of Harry being killed and Leo doing the same to her. She has ascended seven flights, and she's about to reach for the stair railing again when the sound of something banging distantly against a wall draws her attention. It came from behind the door to the level she's on.

Her footfalls are near silent on the concrete flooring of the stairwell in the few steps necessary to bring her to the door. She leans in close and presses her ear to it to get a better listen at the strange banging noise.

Muffled behind the thick metal, she thinks she hears a voice shouting, perhaps down the end of a hall or from a far room. She thinks she heard a man yell something like, "He went that way!" Other than that, there's nothing to be heard. Could the "he" in question be Harry? She doesn't see how it could be anyone else. Her hand reaches for the doorknob, ready to rip it open in search of him, when the door comes swinging open and damn near knocks her to her ass.

Her arms are already raised to shoot, and, before she sees the face behind it, she finds the other person's gun pointed point black at the center of her head as well. It isn't until the door slams shut behind him and her eyes shift to see the man behind the weapon that she instantly drops her arms.

Behind his mask, Harry's eyes have gone wider than ever.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

That tone of voice is one she has not heard him speak to her in since the night they fought and fucked in Leo's parking garage, but there's a slight difference. There's an edge of worry to the anger that softens the harshly muttered words before they can harm her.

"You weren't back yet and I thought you—"

"We don't have time for this."

He interrupts by snatching her up around her thighs and tossing her over his shoulder with little effort. Her shrieking protests are only met with stern orders to remain quiet as he starts to move up the never-ending stairs as quickly as his body will allow, and, considering the circumstances, she shuts right up. Not long after they've reached the next flight and disappeared from view of the last landing, the door he entered from is thrown open again, and several pairs of footsteps come stomping out.

Her heart thumps in her throat, nausea rising in her belly, and she digs her hands into his muscles back for stability. He would never let her fall, that she knows, but he's running so fast, she fears she'll fall right over his shoulder and tumble down the stairs into the enemy's waiting arms. As far as her jolting view of the world will allow, they aren't far behind. The sound of their steps echoes and makes it impossible for her to tell where they are, but their shadows against the walls give it away.

She can feel him pushing his body to the brink of its physical ability to get them up faster. One of her hands is planted over her mouth to keep herself from accidentally making any noise and put them at risk of getting captured or, at worst, killed. Why didn't she listen? If she remained in the car, he could've run down and fled with her exactly as planned. But now they're running up this staircase, doomed to trap themselves on a high floor because of her foolish attempt at rescuing him.

A squeak of surprise is muffled by her palm when Harry suddenly breaks left on the next landing and slips inside the door. He wastes precious seconds assuring the door is opened and shut with little to no noise, but it's worth it if it means they get a head start on evading the men in pursuit of them. She doesn't dare to speak a word as he rushes down a long hallway past conference rooms and empty offices. Until she knows for certain that they're alone, she'll keep quiet.

He finally stops once they've found the farthest room from the stairwell.

There's a small supply closet in the back corner of the biggest conference room that he books it toward to seek refuge inside. He drops her onto her feet, and it takes a second or two for her to get her bearings.

"Get in," he orders her.

Her eyes go wide, flicking back and forth between him and the closet. The muscles in her chest tighten at the prospect of being forced inside, and she starts to shake her head frantically. She thinks her throat may be closing up, she can't breathe, she can't—

He growls, "Go," and pushes her the rest of the way inside.

The doors shut a second later, trapping her inside with him, and with the darkness descending around her, she can't make out the details of his face. All she knows is that she is stuck here with a man. There's a part of her that wants to risk death just to flee the situation, but she can't. Her body is frozen in place, unable to think or breathe, let alone force herself to run away. Suddenly, she's a little kid again, and the person standing next to her isn't Harry.

Her mouth opens and shuts like a fish starved of water as she backs up from the shadowy figure standing beside her until her back meets the hard wall behind it. Through the haze of her panic, she thinks she feels a gloved hand brushing the side of her arm and flinches.

"Don't touch me!"

She hardly recognizes her own voice barking those words, but, then again, she doesn't recognize anything around her—not even Harry. The hand he reached out to touch her with was not wearing a glove, not in her perception of reality, it was bare. It was bare, and she could almost feel it crawling underneath her skin like a million ants spreading down her body.

"Okay, okay, I won't touch you!" The sound of his whispering voice is so distant, she must strain to make it out over her own hyperventilation. "But y'have to be quiet. I fucked up. If they find us—"

Whatever he goes on to say, it isn't heard by her.

Y/N's hand rises to pull at the collar of her shirt that chokes her neck like a vice, yet no matter how hard she tugs, it won't loosen. Her strength isn't enough to tear it, although the sound of the seams ripping does fill the small space of the closet. With his eyes adjusting to the darkness, Harry watches behind the mask pulled over his head in utter shock.

For once, she has rendered him speechless. It's rare for anyone to see him experiencing any emotion, and, in full honesty, it's rare for him to feel emotion anymore. He's perfected the art of stifling them after ten long years of numbing himself to the world surrounding him, but now...Now, he isn't sure what to do with what he feels. There's anger—for how she is risking exposing their position—but, beneath that, he's terrified. And he has no fucking clue what to think of that.

She bangs her head against the wall thrashing and yanking at the collar of her shirt, and he knows she told him to stay away, but he doesn't know what else to do. What else will get her attention and snap her out of whatever the fuck sort of outburst this is?

"It's so dark, I can't see, I can't see," she sobs far louder than she should, "Get me out of here!"

The door doesn't have a window, or any way for the people chasing them to see light inside other than the bottom of the door, so he makes a quick decision that could damn them both. He feels around the walls near the doorframe until he finds the light switch and engulfs the room in dim orange light. Not as bright as he hoped, but it's better than nothing.

Harry whirls around in place and moves to grab her by the shoulders, but she jerks back, still petrified of him and locked away in a panicked trance. It's as if she doesn't know it's him. Despite the distance he put between them, he knows she feels safe with him, so it takes him longer than it should to piece it together.

He rips the mask off and lets it fall to the floor, stepping in as close as he can to where she's backed against the wall without touching her. It clicked with him, just seconds ago, that what she's experiencing isn't too different from what happens to him in the dead of night when he wakes from a nightmare. When the world around him isn't the present, but the past.

Harry bends down a little to meet her eyes and keeps shifting to follow them no matter where she tries to look to escape his gaze.

"Whatever you're seeing or thinking is happening, it isn't real. Do y'hear me?"

One hand reaches out in a timid attempt at trying to calm her. It hovers over her shoulder without making contact as she so desperately begged him not to. Although, he finds it difficult. So much of their relationship has relied on physicality and touch that he isn't sure what to do without it.

"You know me," he says in a placating voice, "It's Harry. You know me, sweetheart, you're always safe with me. It's not dark anymore, see?"

He points a finger to the dimmed light fixture mounted to the ceiling and watches her wide, watery eyes follow its direction. Good, she's focusing on something other than the panic. If he can just get her to keep listening, she might stop yelling and crying. At this point, it isn't even about getting caught to him. There's this sense of dread and sickness in his stomach brought on by her distress, and he doesn't know why. He doesn't even know if his attempts at helping will work. He doesn't know anything except this: he never wants to see her cry again.

Her head feels like it's spinning as she looks up at the ceiling light, but he's right. It isn't dark. It isn't dark, and there is no shadowy figure, there's only him. Only Harry, reaching out to hold her and whispering her worries away.

Y/N's breathing remains rapid, though he can see the color starting to come back to her face when her head tilts back down to see him before her.

"I'll never touch you if you don't ask me to. M'sorry, m'so sorry, okay?"

If she didn't know any better, she'd think she just heard his voice crack when he apologized to her. Never has she heard his voice filled with such passion or feeling. The cold, unfeeling mask he donned in the car is nowhere to be seen. In its place, she sees the man she began to befriend the other day, the one who took care of her and called her sweet pet names.

He likes to pretend he doesn't have a heart. Before he met her, he told himself it rotted and died with the first man he killed, but when she stares into his eyes looking so helpless and lost, he can't ignore the aching in his chest. It's beating again—only for her.

Her gasping breaths reverberate in the cramped area, her hand falling from her collar, and she never lets her eyes leave his face the entire time.

"Could y'give me your hand? I won't hurt you, I swear on my mother, I won't let anyone hurt you" he pleads to her. If she weren't so out of it, she'd notice that he has never been as genuine with her as he is right now. "You're safe."

Technically not true considering the group of Perez's men searching the halls for them as they speak, but he doesn't dare to mention that to her in her fragile state. The last thing she needs is a reminder of the dangerous environment around them. She seems to weigh the risks of this and eye him up suspiciously, then nods once in agreement, offering up her hand to him without speaking a word through her softening cries.

A sigh of relief leaves his chest at this, and he grabs her hand with a gentleness neither of them knew he possessed to bring it up to his chest. Beneath her palm sits a solid wall of muscle and warmth buried under a thin layer of cotton. The feeling of his body in and of itself challenges the false reality her mind has forced upon her.

"Feel how m'breathing."

Steady. Slightly faster than usual due to his own shock at the situation, but a normal pace compared to hers. She can feel his ribs shift with the expanding of his lungs, the ridges of them fitting around her flat palm as his ribcage widens, then moves back into place with his deep exhale.

He says, "Do it with me, okay?"—a low hum of approval at her compliance—"Just like that."

As the seconds pass of her focusing on the sensation of his body under her hand and the act of trying to match his pace of breathing, she starts to come out of the trance the dark closet sent her into. It was pitch black. She thought the walls would close in around her body and suffocate her. Merely thinking about how dark it was, how trapped she felt, raises her heart rate again—

"No, don't go back to that place. Look at me," Harry says. When her breathing picks up again, he squeezes her hand to get her attention. Their eyes meet again, and she fears her knees may buckle from the relief it brings her. "That wasn't real. This is, though. I'm real. And it isn't dark, remember? Just look up at the light and keep telling y'self that."

She ends up falling forward into him in exhaustion and lands against his chest with a quiet whine. Yet, she follows his orders. She keeps a hand on his chest to match his breaths and looks up at the ceiling to focus on the light. Their bodies fit together like they were made for the sole purpose of finding each other, deep breaths moving up and down in sync like the swell of the sea.

"You're real," she murmurs.

Finally, her heart rate is lowering back to a normal range and her breathing is leveling out. The longer she spends in his arms, counting every one of his breaths and looking up at the ceiling light with him, the calmer she becomes. Minutes pass by like seconds to them in the time they spend clinging onto one another. He's so caught up in the process of bringing her down from her panic that he doesn't listen for their enemies footsteps or distant voices anymore. He doesn't even realize they've been surrounding until the closet doors are thrown open.

Quicker than any of the men can react, Harry spins around and blocks her body with his, raising his gun in a silent promise. It doesn't matter that he is outnumbered by six men. He doesn't give a shit anymore. If he's dying tonight, he'd rather go down defending her or not go down at all.

He warns, "The first one to hurt her is the first one down."

It isn't lost on her how much he's struggling to protect her, how enraged he becomes at the mere suggestion of her being hurt, but she hasn't had the time to process any of tonight, let alone their tender moment in the closet.

When Harry meets eyes with the one standing in the middle of the small group, he can't help but falter.

He looks different than he did in the last photograph Leo showed to him months ago. His blonde hair is overgrown and streaked with grey, a far cry from the buzzcut he donned for years on end. A symmetrical, handsome face stares them down. He's a person somehow even more gorgeous in real life, but the sick pleasure he's getting from seeing them captured diminishes that beauty significantly and reminds him of who the man is.

Harry straightens his shoulders and doesn't back down from the intense staredown.

"Perez."

They're fucked.

Y/N knows that they've found themselves in unfortunate circumstances before that she never could've imagined getting out of, but this one takes the cake. Since meeting Harry, she's been kidnapped, threatened, drugged, and beaten to the brink of death. Yet this is the one situation she's sure they won't survive. Being at the mercy of their boss was one thing, but being at the mercy of their rival is another. That panic she felt moments ago is revived in full force.

His men led them out of the closet by force and dragged them out into the open space of the conference room as if they were nothing more than a pair of rag dolls. She was sat down in a chair with nothing more to keep her there than a gun pointed at her head. For Harry, however, it took four of the six men present to restrain him after he watched one of them point their gun at her.

As of now, he has yet to stop jerking against the confines of the restraints they used to tie him to the chair next to hers—a wild animal not to be tamed by anyone or anything, not even her. If he were alone, he might've welcomed the death promised at the hands of their enemy.

Perez crosses his arms over his chest and looks back and forth between them once, twice, three times, then—

"You killed Jax."

They're left to assume "Jax" is the man they were sent to kill tonight in revenge. Considering that he was looking straight at Harry when speaking, he is the one to answer for it despite their partnership. He lifts his chin high and allows his gaze to pierce into the older man.

"I did."

A voice so full of pompous certainty, it's a wonder none of them simply off him right here and now. He wears the kill on his face like a badge of honor. Now that she pays attention, she can see blood smudged onto her wrist where he grabbed it. There's a painfully long stretch of quiet in which all Perez does is continue to stare at them, and it's an effort not to squirm around in her seat in discomfort.

Leo's intimidation is a product of an overdone act of insanity, partially real and partially exaggerated for the sake of rattling those in his presence. He'll do whatever it takes—threaten, yell, and torture—as long as it puts him in his rightful position of power. Perez's intimidation, however, is innate to his existence. He doesn't need to exaggerate it for it to be felt. They can feel it in the silence as he looks at them.

The break in conversation goes on so long, it begins to feel uncomfortable, but perhaps that's his objective.

"Well, thank you, Harry," he says, his face breaking into a delighted grin, "I've been waiting to meet you for quite some time, and you just fell right into our trap."

Her heart might as well have stopped at the word.

Trap. It was all a trap? Had they sent their men after Leo a few days ago to set all of this motion? If so, it was a hell of a risk. He's lucky Harry wasn't sent to kill him directly over making an attempt on Leo's life. Well, that is, if Leo's best spies could even locate him. If Harry were being completely unbiased, his boss is far more vulnerable than Perez. Their sources have tried to locate him multiple times, yet all it took was Harry attacking Tate for him to send his men after them. It was almost as if he'd been waiting for an excuse...or he made the excuse himself.

That grin widens as he watches the realization dawn on her.

"You." Her voice is flooded with more hatred than Harry has ever heard. Not even when they fight does she speak to him like this. "You're the reason Tate drugged me...but you wouldn't know it'd get Harry to kill him. Not unless you were—"

"Watching you? Yeah, you guys aren't as hidden as you think you are. I mean, do you really think you would've known we were here unless we wanted you to?"

Beside her, Harry has gone silent, and she knows he's likely berating himself for letting this happen. When it comes down to it, it is his fault. He lost his temper in the club when Tate drugged her and allowed his emotions to get the better of him, something he thought he'd never do, and now they're both paying the price for it.

"Then, what is it? What did you want us here for so fucking badly that you drugged me over it and let three of your own men die?" she asks.

The sound of his footsteps echoes off the walls until he comes to a stop right in front of them both and kneels down. He settles into the position with his arms on his knees and looks only at Harry this time. Through the wall of windows to the right of them, the moon shines high in the sky, illuminating half of his shadowy face.

Harry's jaw is clenched tightly the whole time. Despite Perez's attempts to make eye contact, he's kept his eyes downcast since being tied to the chair. She attributed it to him being lost in his self-deprecating thought cycle at first, but now she recognizes it as the act of defiance it is. Here's a man who has been used as a pawn for the duration of his adulthood so far. He's sick of it, and any chance he gets to spit in the face of men like the one who controls him, he'll take.

What Perez says next changes everything, though.

"I want you to help me take Leo out."

Harry lifts his head to look up at him faster than he knew he could move. What he expected was to watch her be killed, get himself tortured for information, and then executed once they were done. That's how he and Leo would've done it, anyway. But this? He never could've anticipated this. He figured Tate was just another scumbag looking for a woman to victimize, but to find out he was only a piece in the chess game being played by his enemy is a shock to say the least.

At the same time that she asks, "Why?" Harry says, "No."

Ignoring her, Perez asks him, "Why not?"

His brows furrow at this. Is the answer not obvious?

"If I kill him, everyone will come after me. And once they're done scrubbing my blood off the floor, they'll find her, then you, and everyone y'love. I won't do it," he says, then chances a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. "If you let her go, you can kill me and pretend this didn't happen. I'll go willingly if you just let her live."

The version of him that existed a month ago would be screaming at himself to stop being naive by proposing such an unrealistic request, but it's different now. She has this way of blinding him to logic whoever she's near, and he cannot help himself. For her, he'll be the fool.

Perez simply laughs at this.

"I don't want to kill either of you. I meant what I said. I want you two to work for me, and unless you want to spend the rest of your lives in his and hers prison cells, you'll do it." There's a moment where he fumbles to find something in the pockets of his long coat, cursing under his breath, before he holds something out for them to see. "We've been trying to get a sit down with you for a long time, Harry."

She must squint through the partial darkness to see the words printed on the unfolded badge he presents to them, but once she does, they can't be unseen. Harry's tan face has turned paler than a corpse, likely having read it a second or so sooner than her, and she triple-checks it to make sure she's reading it right. Her heart and stomach drop in unison as though she's turned over the tip of a rollercoaster and began soaring down, wind whipping her hair so hard that the impact of it smacking her face nearly gives her whiplash.

On the badge, it says: FBI. Department of Investigation. Special Agent, Garrett Whittaker.

Holy shit, a voice in the back of her head whispers, and when she cranes her neck to look at Harry, the way he looks at her echoes the sentiment back.

It takes them both minutes to process the information. When she's finally managed to grasp it, she doesn't know what to say. They are a package deal. Without one, the other can't do their job, and Perez—no, Garrett—knows that. It's why he lured them here together. Apparently, he's been watching them, and if he's been watching them, he knows everything. He knows that should he wish to act as puppet-master to New Orlean's most prolific serial killer, all he has to do is use her. Tate must have reported everything he witnessed that night at the club right back to him, and when he was in prison—

"That's how he got out," she says to no one in particular.

All the men in the room, Harry and Perez included, look at her in confusion. It does dawn on her that she looks like a mad woman at the moment with her battered face, ripped shirt, and widened eyes, though she doesn't care much about how she's being perceived by her captors considering the current situation.

"Tate," she clarifies. "That's how he got out of prison, isn't it? You got him to agree to be a rat for you, and you gave him a deal."

The moonlight shines on the half of his face nearest to the window, and she finds herself reaching for the half she can't see. The half still shrouded in darkness remains unreachable.

"And that's what this is. A way out," she says, then looks at Harry, this time speaking to him as if he's the only man in the room, "There's a way out."

Garrett crosses his arms over his chest and turns to lean against the conference table, the moon illuminating the rest of his winsome face to her now. A smirk crosses his full lips.

"You know, your little girlfriend is pretty clever." He looks at her, and it's a little too familiar for Harry to be comfortable with. "Easy on the eyes too"—This prompts the hitman to lurch in his restraints at him—"Settle down. I was just gonna I see why you keep her on such a tight leash. If he ever decides she's no good as your driver, Leo could get a pretty penny for her."

This makes the two of them go still.

Softly, Harry asks, "What do y'mean by that?"

The returning look given to him by Garrett seems to say, "Don't be stupid." It shouldn't surprise her at this point, the extent of Leo's evil plotting, yet, somehow, she thought there might be a line few people would dare cross, even a man as lecherous and cruel as him.

"You really didn't know? I thought he trusted you."

She answers on his behalf, "Leo doesn't trust anyone but himself."

But, Harry doesn't acknowledge any of it, not her statement or Garrett's questioning, he goes on to ask the same thing. This time, he leaves no room for avoidance. Though he's strapped to a chair, he doesn't change the demanding tone of voice he frequently uses.

"What do y'mean by that?"

The unspoken promise beneath that question croons to them all, "Don't make me ask again," and it gives her a sick thrill to see such powerful men unconsciously shrink themselves smaller at the sheer command in his deep voice. They all know that should he get himself free from the chair, he could kill half of them before they could summon the nerve to scream. And while it terrifies them, it also allures them. To have someone like him doing their bidding would change the tide in the war between Leo and "Perez". A war she now realizes is less of a war and more of a calculated investigation.

Garrett tilts his head to the side. Inquisitive.

"You know what I mean. How do you think he's built his empire? Selling drugs and weapons? You're not stupid, Harry, don't be stupid," he says. "He sells them."

"Who?" she asks.

Her voice is no more than a push of air when asking the stupid question, but she needed to. If she didn't ask, it would've eaten her from the inside out. It doesn't matter that she already senses the truth as if watching it appear through a thin, transparent curtain. She needs to hear it to allow herself to agree to betray her gang.

"Women. Girls too. The ones who stumble into his clubs and bars, or sometimes the ones he sees out on the street and has followed just 'cause he thinks they're pretty. They usually end up being sold to prostitution rings in other countries, but some of them stay here."

Everyone in the room looks at them with a mix of hatred and pity. Hatred for the crimes they've committed, and pity for the fact that they were roped into a trafficking scheme with no knowledge of what they were doing. They can all recognize that that's a fate nobody deserves. It makes her sick to her stomach as she puts the pieces together. No wonder Leo has garnered so many enemies over the years, anyone with half a brain would recognize him as the piece of shit he is.

Harry takes a long moment to take it in, then asks, "What do y'want us to do?"

A deep breath escapes Garrett at this, as if the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders the second he got his claws into Leo's famous hitman.

"I want you to kill the director of the FBI."

The color drains from their faces.

"Your boss? Y'can't be serious," Harry says. "Why? How could I even get away with that?"

It's the closest thing to "no" he dares to say. The threat they made to sentence Y/N to a life rotting in prison prevents him from muttering the word. His leg starts to bounce to rid his body of its abundance of anxious energy. It's rare to see him so rattled by a potential job. Every time they've gone out for a hit together, he's been a portrait of calm cruelty. He's never had a reason to doubt his ability to complete a kill until tonight.

Garrett has yet to stop smiling.

"Because, my boss is the only reason Leo is still able to operate, and people in power benefit from what he does, so why would they stop him from intervening every time someone in our ranks tries to investigate him?"

"What's in it for him?" she asks.

"Well, family protects family," he says, then pauses, his voice going soft. "Leo's his brother. They were separated by the foster care system when they were little, but my boss used his job to track him down and reconnect. By then, Leo had already begun dealing, and with his protection, he kept building on the empire."

There are no words to convey the shock rattling inside of her body, shaking everything up and muddling her thoughts until they're verging on incoherent. No wonder Harry has remained with Leo for so long. Her heart aches just thinking of all the times that she blamed him for staying with the gang. He never had a true choice in it, and neither does she.

She says without giving Harry the chance to object, "We'll do it."

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see his mouth twitch as though he's about to interject and negate her answer, but she doesn't let him. If Leo's brother is the head of the FBI, they won't have any chance other than this one to escape with their lives, and she knows that deep down, underneath the masks he puts on for the world and most recently for her, that he yearns for freedom too.

"If he kills Leo's brother, it'll allow a new person to step into leadership and he'll be arrested immediately, right?" Garrett's confirming nod is all the answer she needs. "Then, it's settled. Harry's killing him, and you're going to guarantee us a safe way out of the country."

Out of fear of being spied on, or possibly having a recording device planted in the car while they were captured in the building by Garrett, Harry has kept every word he wishes to say to himself on the drive back to her place after switching cars. He only spoke when he called Leo to tell him the job was done.

The walk up to her apartment is equally as silent.

She hadn't said anything when he turned the engine off and followed her inside. Although the last thing she wants is to have him back in her apartment and relive the memories from weeks ago, they have to talk. It's clear based on the look on his face that he's pissed, but she doesn't care. She stopped caring about his feelings as soon as he said what he had in the car three days ago.

Harry stands close behind her back as she unlocks the door, so close she can nearly feel his body heat emanating onto her. The second she unlocks the door, he ushers her inside with a hand hovering over the small of her back and turns to slam the door shut once they've made it inside. The lock clicks shut.

"Are you fucking insane?"

He follows her through the living room on the way to her bedroom. More than anything, her detached attitude around something this serious enrages him to no end.

Y/N spins around and steps up into his space, her head tilted back just enough to meet eyes with him.

"Are you? You heard him, we either do what he wants or spend the rest of our lives in prison! And, honestly, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind moving away from this place. I have nothing keeping me here, Harry! Nothing! So, yeah, we're gonna do whatever he asks us to and get the fuck out of here."

With that, she turns back around and walks off through the doorway to her bedroom. Harry rushes in before she can close the door on him, his face flushed a deep shade of scarlet with anger. He remains on the other side of her bed while she starts to pull off her clothes from tonight, and he vaguely realizes that this is the first time she's allowed him in her bedroom. Well, "allowed" is a bit of a stretch. He damn near ran inside when he saw the opportunity.

"You aren't the one who has to kill someone!" he whisper-shouts as to not alarm the neighbors.

She chuckles, reaching behind her back to undo her bra.

"That never seemed to bother you before."

It's the first time she's ever undressed in front of him without it being a prerequisite to having sex, and his eyes don't stray from her face in the heat of the moment. If she weren't caught up in the swift back and forth between them, she might find it funny. This was how her parents used to fight, hidden away behind their bedroom door and shouting at a whispered volume to prevent her and Peter from hearing the troubles of their marriage. Of course, she and her brother had their nosy ears pressed to the door the entire time.

The bra is thrown to the side in exchange for the top to her most well-loved pajamas.

"S'not the killing that bothers me, it's who I'm killing. Offing some lobbyist is one thing, but murdering the director of the FBI is another," he says, nostrils flaring. "Do y'even realize how dangerous this is to even talk about?" Their phones are in the living room, and there's no TV mounted to the wall, so he assumes it's safe enough in here. "I don't care if I die, but what happens if they kill me before I can get to him and you're left to fend for yourself against Leo? After what they told us tonight, I don't want you alone ever again. He'll sell you off to some prick across the world the second m'gone."

She counters back without missing a beat, "Stop pretending like you care."

It's this that gets him to shut up, if only for a moment. The words pierce him like the shade end of a blade. After what he said the other night, he can't exactly blame her for feeling that way, but now...The extent to which he cares for her scares him shitless, and he's tried to outrun it and stifle it at every turn, but he doesn't think that's an option anymore. If they're to help Garrett take Leo down—which is less of an if and more of a when—he won't let her out of his sight.

Harry says softly, his voice a little shaky in the face of his rare display of honesty, "M'not pretending."

Those harsh-set, pretty features of hers soften against her will in reaction. Her brows had been furrowed, her nose scrunched, and she looked about two seconds from lashing out at him before his confession wiped any sign of rage from her face.

"What?"

He looks at her, really looks at her this time, and for the first time in days, he isn't masking his true emotions. Ten years ago, there would've been tears in his eyes, but, now, in this state of perpetual numbness, this stare flooded with all the words he's never said is the best he can do for her.

"M'not pretending to care about you," he says. "You know I..."

At the end, his voice trails off into silence as if he can't quite figure out the words. They fire off in his head over and over, in a million different variations starting at, I'd do anything for you, and ending at, You're the first thing I think about when I wake up every morning. But, he could never tell her that. His throat would close up, unable to let himself say it. He's already hurt her so many times, to tell her the truth about his feelings after all of this would be the cruelest thing he's ever done.

Then, something strange happens. He watches her from across the bedroom, standing there in just her pajama shirt and panties with her arms hugging her body, and sees the unstoppable force of a woman he's come to know make herself small like a child.

The one thing she manages to utter is, "Don't do that."

A sigh falls from his lips.

"M'not"—he pauses to take a deep breath, trying to keep himself together and navigate this conversation without giving too much of himself to her—"Dying doesn't scare me, but you...you do."

And with this out in the open, he starts to look as vulnerable as she feels. They've both been laid bare by the events of tonight, and as viscerally uncomfortable as he finds it, he's stuck here. Until she tells him he has to get out, he won't move.

She asks, incredulous, "Me? Why?"

"Because you're the first person whose life I've saved instead of taken. And, honestly, there's nothing I wouldn't do, no line I wouldn't cross, to keep you safe, and I still don't understand it."

No line I wouldn't cross. The words loop in her mind as she recalls the blind rage he was sent into by Tate drugging her, as well as the harsh insults he hurled at her after Leo beat her. At the time, she didn't realize why his attitude switched out of the blue, but she thinks she's getting a grasp on it now.

Finally, she gets to ask the question that has been on the tip of her tongue since the night they met.

"Why did you save me? Not tonight, the first time. You could've let Leo kill me."

Despite it being a mere month ago, it feels more like a decade into the past that he made the deal with Leo to make her his getaway driver and save her. Unbeknownst to her at the time, he might as well have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for her life by adding to the debt he owes to him. That was why every one of his friends reacted the way they did. They knew he wouldn't have done it for anyone, not them, yet he did it for her, and they still haven't gotten a reason for it. At this point, they accepted that they never would, and so did she. Until now.

This time, it's his turn to look small and vulnerable for her. It takes everything he has not to look away from her as he says it.

"Y'told me to put my seatbelt on."

The following silence they plunge into is loud enough to rupture their eardrums. She never knew it was possible to hear silence, but it seems to buzz in the air around them as she takes everything he said to heart. She picks up on everything that fills the gap in conversation—the air conditioning revving to life, the pipes creaking underneath the floor, his heavy breaths, and the eyes burning a hole through her body with the intensity of his gaze.

He takes this as his opportunity to make his way over to her, walking around the end of the bed in unhurried strides until he's invading her space the way she had invaded his moments ago. Their faces are so close, they can feel each other's exhales hit their skin. On instinct, her hands twitch with the urge to reach up and steady her weak knees on his biceps. A drop of dried blood from tonight's target clings to the side of his neck.

There's her excuse.

She licks the pad of her thumb and brings it to the blood-stained skin, wiping it away with ease, and Harry leans into the touch the way a cat does when brushing up between your legs. As quickly as she made contact with him, her hand falls back to her side to keep any lingering urges at bay. She must keep reminding herself of what he said to her the other day, or else she fears she'll fall right back into his arms.

"Tell me you hate me," he whispers. His eyes flutter shut and his forehead falls forward through the last few inches of space between them to rest against hers. "Please."

What she hates the most is that she understands what he's asking her to do. Communicating in an unspoken language only they understand, he asks her to take the burden of this vulnerability and intimacy from him. In answer, her hands, at last, begin to creep up the side of his arms until her arms are looping around his shoulders. Their bodies are held close together this way, and she thinks she can feel the tension seeping out of him in the wake of her touch.

The tip of her nose nudges his affectionately, as close as she'll allow herself to a kiss without forfeiting her dignity.

"I hate you."

Tonight, there was a part of her that did, and perhaps there's a part of her that still does, but another disobedient part could never mean those words. No matter how many times he breaks her heart. She won't allow it to progress past this, not after what he said, but she won't deny that she longs for him.

He murmurs, "I hate you too."

The difference here is that he means it. He does hate her. More than he's hated anyone in his life, more than Leo. The atrocities committed against him by their boss could never match up to how thoughtlessly she lured him in and made him care for her.

Right when he starts to inch forward as if he's aiming to connect their mouths in a kiss, she turns her head to the side and says, "We should get some sleep. It's late, and we have a lot to talk about in the morning."

Though reeling from the rush of being so close to her, his mind manages to pick out the odd part of her statement. We. Not a kiss, but it's something. An olive branch with conditions. So long as they talk in the morning, and he apologizes. He's not stupid enough to miss the undercurrent of the carefully chosen words. With everything they know after meeting Garrett tonight, he thinks he can at least give her that.

It's better to keep her close. If she's with him, she's safe. There's no guarantee of that with her kept at the distance he put between them after leaving Leo's place three days ago.

His gloved hand brushes the back of hers, leather meeting leather in a silent, Goodnight.

He nods.

"I'll make you a bed on the couch," she says.

Long after they separate, he can feel her hands sliding up his arms and burning through his skin like they always do whenever they touch. In sleep, the flames consume him.

Y/N jolts into consciousness from the edge of a nightmare.

She dreamt that she was back in the club after being drugged by Tate, running around in search of Harry. No matter where she went, he was nowhere to be found, and the longer she went without finding him, the more distressed she became. Up and up, she climbed the staircase from the basement until she busted down the door to the roof.

Cool autumn air bit at her face and blew her hair from her shoulders. The wind was powerful, and when she looked up at the sky, storm clouds were converging. It didn't hold her attention for long. Her eyes were soon drawn to the figure standing on the ledge of the building, arms down at his sides and palms facing up as if he was commanding the thunder cracking overhead. But, he wasn't. He was embracing his self-inflicted death.

The closer she got as she walked over, the clearer the image of him became, and it hit her that it was him. Harry was swaying on the ledge in the unyielding wind. This made her spring forward into action after him, shouting at him not to jump and throwing herself into running strides with all of her strength.

"Harry!"

Her pounding footfalls approaching had his shoulders tensing, and he took it as his cue to finally step off the edge of the roof.

She screamed, "NO!" at a volume so loud, her throat burned from the strain, and leaped off the building after him, her fingers barely scraping the back of his shirt by the time the fear forced her back to consciousness.

The lamp on her bedside table keeps her chest from tightening with anxiety as she scans the room with sleepy eyes in an assessment of any potential threat. Nothing is found. As always, there is no monster lying in wait at the end of her bed, no criminal preparing to steal her away and ship her off across the sea.

She forces herself from the warmth of her bed with a sigh. Mornings are always the hardest.

It's quiet and lonely, giving her thoughts room to take hold and dig their roots into her mind. Most of them are spent in eagerness to get to whatever she has planned for the day so she can move past the strange period of ruminating and isolation that exists between the hours of six and nine. Today won't be any different. She'll get breakfast down and try not to think about the anxieties that smother her appetite as she does it, then go on with the day as if she didn't commit treason against Leo last night.

The floor creaks beneath her feet as she makes her way across the room. Surprisingly, she's starving this morning. Unlike most days in which she must simultaneously encourage and distract herself enough to get started, she's practically running to the kitchen.

But, when she pulls the door open and lifts her foot to step through the threshold, she is met with the sight of someone laying sideways in front of it. Not just someone, she corrects herself. The pillow and blankets she laid out for him on the couch before she passed out last night are spread on the floor as a makeshift bed. Harry rests there, cocooned in her old comforter from childhood with unicorns printed on it. Weeks ago, this might've gotten a boisterous laugh out of her, but it doesn't today. Today, it makes her disgruntled face turn tender as she watches him sleep.

She takes a risk and steps over his body, careful not to ruin the moment by waking him before she can get a good look at his face.

Here, he doesn't look like the ruthless killer everyone knows him as. He looks delicate this way, peaceful, and she doesn't think she's ever found him as pretty as she does currently. There's something inherently vulnerable about it, seeing him in one of his few moments of weakness when the walls built up around him are finally lowered. Then, of course, she's faced with the realization of why he's sleeping on the floor in front of her bedroom door.

His gun is set down on the hardwood floor next to his face with his arm curled up beside it as if he's prepared to reach for it the second he needs to. Before retreating into her room for the night, she remembers seeing him settle down on the couch and not hearing any footsteps in the half hour it took her to fall asleep. Last night must have truly frightened him if he felt like sleeping on the couch wasn't close enough to keep her safe.

Crouching down, Y/N sits on her knees with her legs tucked beneath her bottom and reaches out of to shake him gently awake.

"Harry..."

His body rocks with the momentum of her hand moving his shoulder back and forth.

"Wake up."

In the span of a second, she watches him go from being fully asleep to wide awake and reaching for the gun on the floor beside his head. Her hand shoots out to grab his wrist before he can get his hand around the grip.

"It's just me, it's just me," she says softly.

If he wanted to, he could overpower her and rip his arm out of her grip, but once he sees who it is, he relaxes back onto the pillow.

A pair of sleepy green eyes blink against the light flooding in from the windows until they adjust, then set their sights on her. Without thinking, she reaches to brush the strands of hair sticking to his forehead back into place, and, much to her surprise, he lets her. It could be because he's too tired to object or trying to get back in her good graces after everything that's happened, but the reasoning doesn't matter to her. He never would've allowed this mere days ago.

"Morning."

The rasp of his voice the first thing in the morning does things to her she wouldn't be proud to admit. She acts so proud with him sometimes, she wonders if he knows how easily she surrenders to him inside her head.

She continues to run her fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame the bedhead he's acquired from his night on the floor. It's a fate he accepts, albeit begrudgingly, and lets his eyes flutter shut again with the urge to fall back asleep. Although there's a hint of discomfort in the pit of his stomach from having her do something so soft with him, he can't deny how calming it feels too.

"I was gonna start breakfast, but then I almost tripped over you while I was coming out of my room," she says.

His lips curl up at one side in a lazy smile.

"Nightmare," he offers up as his sole explanation before lightening the mood with a joke. "Y'know me, though, gotta keep you on your toes."

It infuriates her how easy it is for him to make her forget his past cruelty. She hates how hearing that he had a nightmare and needed to move closer to her bedroom makes her heart ache within her chest. Rather than dwell on that or what it may mean, she pushes through and keeps the conversation moving.

"So, what are you feeling for breakfast?"

Anything to pretend that whatever it is between them is something normal.

He chews on his bottom lip in thought.

"I can go pick up something from the diner down the road," he offers. "M'kinda stuck between French Toast and bagels."

There's a moment of pause in which she searches the recesses of her brain for what she still has from the last time she went to the grocery store, then she gives him a shrug.

"Why not both? I've got bagels in the freezer and some eggs, milk, and cinnamon..."

Fifteen minutes later, Harry stands on the other side of the kitchen island with a cup of black coffee in hand while she picks a plain bagel from the package. An old song plays from her open phone, something sweet and swaying and romantic, to fill any silence that may emerge. Cilla Black's crooning voice keeps them company throughout the process of making their breakfast.

The sizzle of the butter in the pan draws his eyes to it and away from her as she searches each drawer for something. It occurred to her during her recovery from Leo's punishment that her knives were missing, but she relied mostly on frozen foods for convenience during that three-day stretch, so she didn't inquire any further about it.

They haven't spoken a word to each other since he gave his agreement to French toast bagels. It's palpable the longer they go without speaking that there's a conversation begging to be had, both about their new job working for the enemy and about them. The latter of the two is the one he hopes to avoid as much as possible, or, at least, keep it concise.

"Where the fuck are all my knives?" she asks under her breath to no one in particular.

Harry doesn't give her an answer, not that she expects him to. He simply sips from his mug and reaches for his phone lying face down on the countertop. After sifting through her junk drawer, she finally finds something to cut the bagels in half with and lets out a quiet, "Thank God."

It's hard not to laugh watching her try to cut the frozen bagels with a pair of kids' safety scissors, but he manages to keep his face under control and void of any damning expressions the entire time. Two minutes pass of Y/N cursing and nearly stabbing her fingers before he finally can't take it anymore and laughs at her.

Through a giggle of her own, she says, "Stop laughing at me!" and sets the safety scissors down on the island.

"It's actually painful watching you try to do that."

He stands up with his coffee still clutched in one of his hands and walks around the island until he's taking up the space beside her.

"Can y'hold this for me?" he asks with his mug held out and hums in gratitude when she does as he wants.

Immediately, his hand drops to the handle of the serrated knife tucked into its sheath on his hip to pull it out, and she's asking, "Um, you haven't, like, killed anyone with that right?"

There's a bit of an awkward halt made to stop himself from pressing the knife to the side of the bagel at her question. He turns his head to see her looking at the weapon like it's going to leap from his hand and take a bite out of her. Her chin is propped on his shoulder to see past him down to the counter, and all he has to offer at first is a blank stare.

"...I've cleaned it."

Her brows furrow at him.

"Not what I asked, but okay," she says.

In spite of her skepticism about him cutting their bagels with the same knife he's used to end someone's life, she must admit, it makes her life easier in the end. She would've been standing here for ten minutes trying to cut them open with her safety scissors, and for that she feels it necessary to thank him for his help. He acknowledges it with another soft hum, which is both "Thank you", "You're welcome", and "Fuck off" in Harry language depending on the tone used to convey it.

Once the bagels have been thawed out in the toaster, she submerges them in the egg, milk, and cinnamon mixture and drops them into the buttered pan to cook. With her back turned to him, she has the courage to ask what she's wanted to since she saw him again last night.

"Can we talk about everything?" She rushes on, not giving him the chance to reject the idea yet, "It's not like we're together or anything, I don't mean that kind of talk, I just mean about last night and what happened the other day."

Behind her, Harry feels his chest muscles tighten with anxiety. It isn't that he doesn't understand why she wants to have this conversation, he does, and there's a small part of him that wants to have it too, but he isn't used to this. For the past ten years, he hasn't had to explain himself to anyone because he never bothered to let a person get too close to him. His friends know him, sure, but they don't really. Not like she does. And she doesn't even realize how much he's allowed her to see. She likes to think he keeps everything from her but, from his perspective, that couldn't be more false.

She turns back around and leans against the counter next to the stove to be able to look at him. It's wild to her that a little over a week and a half ago, he followed her up to her apartment and went down on her in the very spot he's standing at. To her, it feels distant. It might as well have been a month with all that has happened in the time since. The man she knew that night isn't the one she sees before her today.

Since he has yet to tell her to leave it be or start scolding her for accepting Garrett's "offer" last night, she speaks first.

"I don't wanna argue with you about this, so, please, don't take this as me insulting you." She sighs. "But you give so many mixed signals. One second, you're all over me and telling me how you'd do anything for me, then the next you're being an asshole. Honestly, you treat me like shit half the time, and I don't know what's worse, the fact that you treat me like that or the fact that I just keep letting you."

There's something hidden in his face that she notices but can't fully decipher. He stands there, silent and still, and looks at her like she's the mysterious one. Like there's something so obvious that she is blinded to and cannot see sitting so plainly before her. There's an added tenderness to it, visible in the nuances of his expression that she has become an expert at spotting whenever he allows her to see the real him.

"So, I wanna set some things straight. I don't want to date you. I don't know where the hell you got that from the other night, but the last thing I need right now is to get mixed up in something like that. Sex can just be sex sometimes, and that's okay."

He starts, "About the other night—"

"I wasn't finished," she says. "I can't really keep up with your mood swings anymore, so if you're about to go off the rails and start saying really mean shit, just tell me what's wrong. Or don't. Instead, just leave or keep it to yourself, but never take it out on me again. Okay?"

He isn't used to this. People never speak to him like this, usually because they're so afraid of him that they'll allow him to do and say anything he pleases as a result of said fear, and he finds the difference strangely exciting. Truth be told, he always has. Since the beginning, she was one of the only people other than those ranking above his station to challenge him, and though it enraged him on the surface, it's part of what endeared her to him.

There's a little voice urging him to shut her down and reject this display of control she's exercising against him outright, but he tries. He tries for her to silence the side of him that's been trained to react that way, and it's uncomfortable, it makes him want to crawl out of his skin, but he doesn't give in.

The words are difficult to force out at first when he picks up where he left off.

"About the other night," he stops and looks at her, hoping she can pick up everything that gets lost in translation, "I was going to say m'sorry."

If she had to describe the shock she feels when she hears him apologize to her, she wouldn't be able to find the words to express the magnitude of it. She had been too far gone in her panic last night in the closet to fully appreciate hearing the phrase from him, and it was not as if her panic attack was the highest priority on the list of things to think about when she woke up. That's why it hits her so hard right now. There isn't any urgent situation forcing him to say it, he isn't just trying to shut her up so their enemies won't find them, he's sorry.

She opens her mouth to respond only to be cut off by him rushing forward at her. Well, not at her, at the pan still cooking the French toast bagels that will start to burn them if they're not flipped soon. This too stuns her to silence. Seeing him in her kitchen, fussing over their breakfast with pillow-mused hair.

With the bagels now flipped over to the uncooked side, he turns to look at her over his shoulder and says, "I also have some things to talk about with you." There's a break in the flow of his words. "About last night."

Here it is.

Any second now she expects to be scolded like a misbehaving child for acting without consulting him first. Her head tilts down to look at the floor, avoiding his gaze at all costs. Is that why he apologized? To get her to listen better to him rather than argue like they always do? Of course, his actions had an ulterior motive. Why had she believed him to be anything more than the man he's always been?

Right when she braces herself for his reprimand, he says, "I know we don't have a choice, but I don't think y'understand how dangerous this is. If we get caught, it won't just be Leo coming after us, it'll be the government. You could just run away if y'wanted to. Go find someplace to live in another country where he can't find you, change your name, cut and dye your hair, and don't look back if you know what's good for you."

"I can't do that. Alanis, he'd find her and—"

"Then take her with you," he says as though it's obvious, his eyes wide at her protest.

The woman he met last month would have jumped at this change the second he offered it, so why isn't she? If she truly wanted it, he could get her a fake passport with a new name and a plane ticket across the world. With his guidance, she'd know what to do to not be found by Leo. As long as he stayed behind as the sacrificial lamb and took her secret to the grave. He could even fake her murder.

"What about you?"

The words left her before she had the good sense to think, and his surprise is visible in how he looks at her.

He asks, voice soft and quiet, "What about me?"

This leaves her fumbling for an answer that'll suffice other than the one that came to mind originally. What she wishes she could say is that she'd be lost without him, that she'd miss him, and as long as he and Alanis came along, she could handle uprooting her life and moving across the world.

"He'll torture you trying to figure out where I went. I couldn't live knowing I'm the reason you were hurt like that, I won't do it. I could never do that to anyone."

There's a heaviness in the air surrounding them as they continue to stare each other down and wait for the other to break. Yet, knowing them, neither does. They're trapped like this for at least thirty seconds until the sizzling coming from the pan breaks her out of the trance. She walks past him and uses the spatula to check on the bagels, not even deigning to acknowledge his plan to offer himself up to Leo for her escape.

Harry stands aside quietly as she switches the over to a plate and fixes them up with cream cheese and jam for them both. His eyes burn into the side of her face without shame, studying her every expression and movement to the best of his ability on the small chance that she may be unsure. For a second, he almost asks her about the other thing that happened last night—when she started freaking out in the closet. He's been wondering all night and all morning what it was that made her react like that, thinking she's trapped in a bad memory from her past.

It terrified him more than it had when she was drugged by Tate at the club earlier this week. With that, he knew the solution. He had the power to get revenge on the person who did it, but what happened last night was far beyond his control. His solutions most often include violence of some sort, not talking or sympathy. It had been years since he held and comforted a person like that, but as soon as she needed it, a switch flipped in him and he became the man she needed at the moment.

As he fell asleep last night, his promise not to touch her unless she asked resurfaced her reaction every time he grabbed her arm or put his hands on her the first two weeks they knew each other. Did someone hurt her? The thought alone turns his blood cold with rage, but he ends up keeping it to himself. If she brings it up, or if he has to help her through another panic attack, he'll try to approach the subject with her.

After she cuts each of them in half and puts his onto its own plate, he takes a step closer and lifts her chin with his fingertips to force her to look at him.

"Y'really wanna do this?" he asks. "If it ends badly...Let's just say it won't be pretty."

She backs up to pull her chin from his grasp and reaches for her plate to take to the table.

"Like you said, we don't really have a choice."

IT’S BEEN SO LONG HOW ARE WE ALL FEELING??? I’ve missed this story so much and can’t wait to keep exploring more of it soon. I hoped you liked it, please tell me your thoughts and feelings, I could talk about it until I’m blue in the face. This part was shorter than the other but not for any reason other than me feeling like it had come to a natural ending point before we move onto the next phase in this story. Love you guys and thank you for your patience.

#harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles x reader #getaway car #she’s hereeeeee #fanfiction

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