Slade didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

The creak of his boots across the hardwood was enough. The way his hand lingered a second too long on the doorframe. The silence that followed him like a second shadow—those were warnings sharper than steel.

She sat at the edge of the bed, still in her day clothes, hands folded, eyes down. Not afraid. Not exactly. Just… careful.

Slade glanced at her. The tension in her shoulders, the way she barely breathed when he entered a room. He saw it all. And though he said nothing, his jaw worked once. Twice.

He set the gun down gently on the nightstand. Then he sat beside her—close, but not touching.

It wasn’t love the way most people knew it. But it was the only way a man like Slade could say: You’re safe. With me.

Even if the rest of the world wasn’t.