[CONTENT TEMPLATE HERE]

Chapter 751:

“You should rest.” Easton released her hands and returned to her ankle, wrapping the fresh compression bandage with practiced efficiency. “Apex Bio will survive one night without you. The world will survive p>

“But p>

“June.” He looked up again, and she saw something in his eyes she had not expected. Fear. Not for himself. For her. “You’ve been running on adrenaline and rage for forty-eight hours. Your body is shutting down. I can see it. The tremor in your hands. The way you’re holding your ribs. You’re going to collapse if you don’t stop p>

She wanted to argue. Wanted to list the things that needed doing, the enemies that needed watching, the plans that needed executing.

But her phone buzzed again, and suddenly the apartment felt too small, the walls too close, the air too thick to breathe.

She stood. Ignored the spike of pain in her ankle, the way her vision swam.

“I need to go,” she said.

“Where p>

“Long Island.” She was already moving toward the bedroom, toward the clothes she had left there days ago. “I need to see her. My mother. I have the evidence now. I need to tell her—” She stopped, her hand on the doorframe. “I need to tell her it’s done. That I found them. That I didn’t forget p>

𝗗i𝘴𝗰𝗈𝗏𝗲𝗋 ոе𝘄 𝘴to𝘳𝗶𝖾𝘴 𝗈𝗻 𝗴аlո𝘰v𝘦𝗅ѕ.с𝗼m

Easton was behind her. She hadn’t heard him move.

“It’s storming,” he said. “The roads are flooding. And your ankle p>

“I don’t care p>

“I know you don’t,” he said, his voice firm, cutting through her desperation. “Which is why I’m driving you p>

June shook her head. She turned to face him, and she knew what he saw—the desperation in her eyes, the wildness she could not contain.

“I need to be alone,” she said. “I need to say this to her without anyone listening. Without anyone watching. Do you understand? It’s the last thing I can give her. Privacy. Dignity. Not a performance.” She gestured between them, at the complicated thing they had become. “Not this p>

Easton studied her face. She could see him weighing the risks, calculating the probabilities, running through every scenario in which she drove herself into a storm with a damaged ankle and a mind full of ghosts.

Then he nodded.

“All right,” he said. “You’ll go alone. I’ll wait in the car at the cemetery entrance. You can have all the privacy you need, for as long as you need it. But you are not driving yourself there in this condition, in this storm. That is not a negotiation.” He held up his keys—the ones for the heavy SUV, not the Aston Martin. “We go together. That’s the only way p>

June stared at the keys, then at his unyielding face. It was not possession. It was protection. A shield, not a cage.

“Fine,” she said. The single word felt enormous.

He retrieved a heavy waxed-cotton coat from his closet. “This was my father’s. It’s waterproof. Bulletproof, probably, knowing him.” He draped it over her shoulders.

“Easton p>

“Let’s go,” he said, his tone leaving no room for further argument. “Let’s go tell your mother p>