"I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you or take you from me."
"I know."
"I will control aspects of your life you haven't even thought of yet."
"I'm beginning to understand that."
"And I will love you more completely than you even dreamed possible."
The admission surprises us both. I don't use that word lightly, if ever. But with Madison, it's the only word that fits what I'm feeling.
"Is that a promise or a threat?" she asks.
"Both."
She pulls back to look at me. "Then I guess we're both insane."
"Is that your answer?"
"That's my answer. I’m staying."
She leans forward and kisses me, soft and careful around my injuries but with a certainty that tells me she's made her choice.
Madison Sullivan is mine now. Completely, irrevocably mine.
Now I have something to lose that would destroy me if it were taken away.
The thought should terrify me.
Instead, it feels like coming alive.
Chapter 33: Maddie
I wake up in Enzo Benedetti's bed.
The thought hits me before I'm fully conscious, followed immediately by the memory of everything that led to this moment. The harbor. The gunshots. The blood. His hand in mine while Dr. Castellano stitched up the hole in his shoulder.
My choice.
Enzo is still asleep beside me, lying on his back with his injured arm elevated on pillows. In the early morning light streaming through the windows, he looks younger somehow. Less intimidating. The harsh lines of his face are softened by sleep, and I can see a small scar near his collarbone that I never noticed before.
How many times has he been hurt like this? How many times has he woken up alone, tending his own wounds, with no one to care whether he lived or died?
The thought makes me want to start crying all over again.
I slip out of bed carefully, trying not to disturb him, and pad barefoot to the bathroom. In the mirror, I look like someone who's been through a war zone. Which, I suppose, I have. My hair is a mess, there are dark circles under my eyes, and I'm wearing one of his shirts that hangs to my knees.
When did I become the kind of woman who sleeps in a dangerous man's bed? When did I become someone who watches people die and chooses to stay anyway?
Only months ago, I was Madison Sullivan, marketing coordinator, whose biggest risk was trying a new restaurant without reading online reviews first. Now I'm... what? Thegirlfriend of a man who kills people for a living? His property? His weakness?
I splash cold water on my face and try to figure out who I am now.
When I return to the bedroom, Enzo is awake, watching me with those dark eyes that seem to see everything.
"Good morning," he says, his voice rough with sleep and probably pain, though he's trying to hide it.
"How do you feel?" I sit on the edge of the bed and resist the urge to touch his forehead, check for fever. "Does it hurt much?"
