LAYLA'S POV
I can still feel the rooftop on my skin three days later – the blanket, the stars, Rafe's tears on my thumbs, his marked wrist pulsing between our laced fingers. I carry it the way I carry everything these men have given me: in my body, where it's safest.
The fortress has settled into its natural rhythm. Morning coffee is a choreography nobody planned – Rafe makes it, Colt steals the first sip, Eli arrives with my water. Training sessions rotate without discussion. Hallway encounters have lost the desperation and gained something steadier. We are four people who have decided, and the decision has its own gravity.
But tonight the ease has an edge.
I'm on the couch. Same configuration as every movie night – Rafe in the armchair to my left with his foot against my thigh. Colt
