"Mmm," she agrees, taking another piece directly from my plate while her other hand reaches for the coffee maker. The movement makes my shirt ride up, exposing the bruises I left on her hip yesterday morning. Three of them, perfectly spaced where I gripped her while fucking her against the door frame.
The morning light streaming through the kitchen windows turns everything gold, including her skin where my marks bloom purple against it. Gun oil still clings to my fingers from lastnight's cleaning ritual—old habits that even her presence can't break—mixing with the domestic scent of coffee and bacon.
"Your bacon is about to become charcoal," I observe, nodding toward the pan she abandoned when she started her theft campaign.
She spins around with a spatula raised like a weapon—good instinct, wrong tool—then laughs when she sees the smoke. "Shit, the bacon."
She yanks the pan off the heat, waving away smoke while I automatically open windows, checking the street beyond the gates for that silver sedan I've noticed three times this week. Nothing yet, but my neck prickles with the sensation of being watched. The guards' footsteps echo in the hallway, their morning rounds as predictable as my need to map every exit even in my own home. Three ways out of this kitchen. Four if you count the window.
"Breakfast is ruined," she says mournfully, staring at the blackened strips like they've personally betrayed her.
"Come here," I command, settling into one of the kitchen chairs, positioning myself to see both entrances.
She approaches with that shy smile that still appears sometimes, like she can't believe she's allowed to touch me. I pull her sideways onto my lap, her legs draped over the armrest, her body fitting against mine perfectly. The weight of her grounds me.
"You planned for my breakfast disaster," she accuses, but she's already reaching for another piece from my plate.
"I know my wife's cooking skills." I feed her a piece, watching her lips close around my fingers, sucking the grease off with deliberate slowness that makes my cock stir despite how thoroughly we explored each other last night.
"Yours is better anyway," she admits, then steals another piece directly from the plate.
We eat like this, her on my lap stealing bites while I pretend to protect my food, the kind of easy intimacy I've never had with anyone. No performance, no careful control, just Emma being Emma—the girl who burns bacon and hums off-key and makes me forget that I've watched men die for less than what she does to my self-control.
My phone buzzes on the counter—Marco, probably, wondering why I missed the morning check-in. I ignore it. Let him wonder. Let them all wonder why Alessandro Rosetti has gone soft for his wife.
"I want to see Saturn's rings tonight," she says suddenly, her fingers playing with the hair at my nape. "The telescope should be able to show them clearly with the weather we're having."
"I'll make it happen," I promise immediately, already wondering about the optimal viewing time, whether we need any adjustments to the telescope, which guards to post on the roof, how to ensure perfect conditions while maintaining security.
She cups my face, forcing me to look at her instead of mentally arranging defensive positions. "Alex, you don't have to orchestrate every moment. Sometimes perfect just… happens."
Her hand covers mine where I've been unconsciously tapping against her thigh, already planning contingencies. The gentle understanding in her voice makes me still. She sees me—the controlling nature, the need to manage everything, the paranoia that keeps us both alive—and accepts it without judgment.
"I can't help it," I admit. "I want to give you everything. Want to lock you in this house where nothing can touch you."
"You already have given me everything," she whispers, pressing a kiss to my jaw.
"Tell me something real," I say, still holding her on my lap as the morning grows warmer. "Something you've never told anyone."
She tenses slightly, then relaxes against my chest with a sigh that carries weight. The expensive coffee sits forgotten as she prepares to trust me with something that matters.
"You want to know about my mother."
It's not a question. She knows I've been noting every mention, every flinch when mothers come up in conversation, filing away every piece of information for future use. In my world, knowing someone's wounds means knowing how to protect them—or destroy them.
"She got sick when I was twelve," Emma begins, her voice going distant. "Cancer. Started in her lungs, spread everywhere before we even knew something was wrong. She'd been hiding the symptoms, working double shifts at the factory to pay rent."
Her fingers find mine, interlacing them like she needs the anchor. I stay silent, though my mind is already calculating how I would have handled it—which doctors could have been bought, which treatments could have been acquired through back channels. The powerful survive. The poor just die.
"Tommy was only eight. He didn't understand why Mama kept getting thinner, why she couldn't play with him anymore. I tried to shield him, but kids know. They always know."
Her brother—the one she sacrificed everything to protect, the leverage that trapped her. Hearing about their shared childhood makes my jaw clench with retroactive rage at everyone who failed them.
"The medical bills…" She laughs, but it's bitter. "You can't imagine what dying slowly costs. Every treatment that didn't work, every specialist who couldn't help, every medication that might buy her another month—it all came with a price tag that might as well have been a million dollars."
I can imagine. I've seen men beg for their lives over less. But I keep that darkness to myself, just hold her tighter.
She curls deeper into my chest, seeking comfort I'm desperate to provide, even if comfort from me comes with blood under its fingernails. "I watched her dying by degrees. First she couldn't work. Then she couldn't walk. Then she couldn't even hold a cup of water without help. And I was completely powerless to stop it."
